core 2 duo still viable?

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Spun Ducky

Gawd
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Feb 1, 2009
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I am curious how many are still holding onto their c2d laptops and do you think an upgrade is worth doing soon? I have two c2d laptops and a core duo which I use them all still daily but I was starting to think would it be good to dump them while they still have some value and upgrade to the Ix series chips?
 
For just web browsing and flash video, Core 2 Duos are still viable. But some of them may struggle with HD content due to the IGP.

I still have a Core Duo laptop that's kicking strong. Though I am planning upgrading it with a SSD to speed it up.
 
I have an old one that I put a ssd in and it is still great for web browsing and multimedia playback.
 
Depending on what you use a laptop for these days, I see very little reason to upgrade.

However, if selling the laptops can get you a new one for not much more, might as well sell and upgrade.
 
I have an old C2D laptop lying around, still works great for general browsing and playing movies.

Unless you're gaming or doing some CPU intensive work it's probably not worth buying a new one. In fact, I bet an old C2D laptop with an SSD will feel snappier and quicker than a new laptop with a HDD.
 
Like the others have said, some of them still have quite a bit of kick in them (some are also faster than others, my laptop originally had a 1.6ghz core2 in it that I upgraded to a 2.4), but they're not going to win any number crunching contests. Right now mine is getting maxed out by various games, including unreal tournament 3 and diablo 3 is really pushing it to its limits. An upgrade is probably in the future.

Value is a relative thing too, at this point they're pretty well depreciated, especially with a 3rd generation of I7s just around the corner.
 
Spun Ducky said:
I am curious how many are still holding onto their c2d laptops and do you think an upgrade is worth doing soon? I have two c2d laptops and a core duo which I use them all still daily but I was starting to think would it be good to dump them while they still have some value and upgrade to the Ix series chips?
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What do you use them for?

And these older laptops have already lost a majority of their value, they still hold some value though. You could get a few hundred for a used C2D laptop (depends on whats in them of course).

Only real point going to a SB or IB powered laptop is for the massive increase in CPU performance. You may get some enjoyment from a much better IGP too.
 
A lot of the older c2d and the core duos just can't handle hd playback anymore. If that's the case for you then it may be time for an upgrade. Otherwise, use it until it doesn't perform the tasks you need despite the value.
 
Just the fact that you are asking this question is itself the answer. If c2d wasn't hacking it for your needs, you wouldn't need to ask. Now if you WANT a new laptop, that's another conversation all together.
 
Depends on the chip. I have an old Sony that has like a T2330 in it and I don't consider it relevant for today. However, my wife has a Dell laptop at work that has a T9xxx something and it's pretty damn fast. I was actually surprised at how fast it still is.
 
TypeO said:
Depends on the chip. I have an old Sony that has like a T2330 in it and I don't consider it relevant for today. However, my wife has a Dell laptop at work that has a T9xxx something and it's pretty damn fast. I was actually surprised at how fast it still is.
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I think yours is a core duo whereas hers is a core 2 duo
 
T9s are also quadcore I think.

Anyways running hd on the c2d isnt a problem, if there is its usually an audio problem. I have a t4(?) Series laptop and I have no problem running 1080p off the cpu. It just goes to hell if I encoded the video with 7.1 or 7.2.
 
I think quad core cpus were Q8xxx and Q9xxx. T9xxx were the top end dual core.
 
*ninja edit* oops... mobile computing.

Whenever I'm forced to clean a Core2 laptop, it's painfully slow. It's probably a combination of having tons of crap on it and the slow cpu.

I loathe my e6400 in my secondary work computer.
 
It really depends what C2D you have. I think my laptop has a T9800? in it. Still holds it own in a lot of games since it's got dedicated video inside. E series would probably be a much different story.

The most impressive thing I've seen as far as boosting laptop performance was adding an SSD. It boggles the mind.
 
Draxanoth said:
It really depends what C2D you have.
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This, the core 2 duo name spanned a large amount of processors, I've seen some around 1.6ghz up to 3ghz, with very varying amounts of cache.

I find my t8300 just starting to get limiting in certain games, but it's just at that point. I imagine the laptop will be run into the ground before I upgrade since I'm using it daily at work for 9 hours at a time again.
 
The t9900 in my lenovo is a beast. The t5800 in my dell studio is starting to suck.
 
I did a little digging, looking at standard voltage mobile (non-extreme) c2d models. The top end c2d mobile CPU back in mid-2006 was the T7400 clocked at 2.17 GHz on a 65 nm die. Early 2009 saw the release of the last full voltage c2d models with the top end model being T9900 clocked at 3.06 GHz on a 45 nm die.

Comparing benchmarks of the T7400 and T9900:

SuperPi 32M
T7400 - 1531
T9900 - 971.5 (58% faster)

3DMark06 CPU
T7400 - 1816
T9900 - 2787 (53% stronger)
 
Using a X9100, clocked to 3.3ghz in a 7811FX, still running strong.
 
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Former P8400 user here. It was actually doing pretty well for standard tasks. Web browsing, mild programming even. Progress has been slowing down a little in the past few years. If you're willing to invest some money, you can easily have a CPU that does its job for three years.

Anyhow, if you rely on virtualization, the difference between a Core 2 and a 2nd-gen i7 is day and night.
 
shoota said:
A lot of the older c2d and the core duos just can't handle hd playback anymore. If that's the case for you then it may be time for an upgrade. Otherwise, use it until it doesn't perform the tasks you need despite the value.
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lol you're kidding, right? I got an acient Core 2 Duo 1.8GHZ Vostro 1400 that can play blu-ray disks back using only software......(no hardware accelleration) with a util of about 40% on CPU core 1..... enabling the Nvidia GS-M drops it down to 13%
 
I'm running a SL9400 1.86GHz w/ 6mb cache in my tablet. I'd say it's on par with the core i5 520m of my other laptop...plus it runs at half the voltage.
 
I have a P8700 in a Sony Vaio SR 490 4gb ram and a radeon 4570 which runs bad company 2 decent still but doing the online checks says it wouldn't run bf3. I also have a Fujitsu T4310 convertible tablet with a T660 and finally a IBM T60 with Core Duo T2500.

The 3 systems can all play back HD video quite easily although the T60 goes to decently high CPU usage. I was just curious if people were jumping ship on these already as checking ebay my vaio at least has kept its value pretty well.
 
Palmately said:
I'm running a SL9400 1.86GHz w/ 6mb cache in my tablet. I'd say it's on par with the core i5 520m of my other laptop...plus it runs at half the voltage.
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Not even remotely close to being on par with an i5-520m, though it likely wouldn't matter too much for basic uses.

We bought my wife's laptop in July '10 with a Celeron 900 (single-core 2.2GHz, 1MB L2). I upgraded it to a Pentium T4300 (dual-core 2.1GHz, 1MB L2) not long after as they were cheap on eBay. It is definitely still far fast enough for web browsing and looking at pictures.

It is running a 5400RPM hard drive, and I'm considering bumping it to an SSD the next time a 120GB drive gets really cheap. The next time I have to clean out the heatsink in it, I'll probably replace it with a T8100 (dual-core 2.1GHz, 3MB L2) or T8300 (dual-core 2.4GHz, 3MB L2) as they are getting down to ~$20 and ~$30 now. Looks like the extra cache made a pretty big difference in these chips.

Bought my laptop about a year ago with a Pentium P6200 (i3-330m without HT and VT-x). It is more than fast enough for my uses, but not having VT-x means I can't run 64-bit VMs on it which blows. Waiting to find a good deal on an i3-330m on eBay to upgrade this.. pretty sure I need to clean out the heatsink though soon so I'm not sure how much longer I can wait.

Even bottom-end laptops these days are so fast, they will likely be relevant for most people until something breaks on them.
 
Cache on a core 2 duo our just core duo make a huge difference. Look at the desktop side of these processors to see how cache can affect performance.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
lol you're kidding, right? I got an acient Core 2 Duo 1.8GHZ Vostro 1400 that can play blu-ray disks back using only software......(no hardware accelleration) with a util of about 40% on CPU core 1..... enabling the Nvidia GS-M drops it down to 13%
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Nope not kidding at all. I have personally used two different laptops that couldn't playback HD youtube videos without stuttering. Just because yours can doesn't mean that a lot of the older systems with early core 2 duos/core duos with integrated gpus can.
 
shoota said:
Nope not kidding at all. I have personally used two different laptops that couldn't playback HD youtube videos without stuttering. Just because yours can doesn't mean that a lot of the older systems with early core 2 duos/core duos with integrated gpus can.
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you got something wrong with your setup .....even my dad's pentium dual core running at 1.6ghz can decode blu-ray and it runs with intergrated graphics on vista with 2GB ram......
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
you got something wrong with your setup .....even my dad's pentium dual core running at 1.6ghz can decode blu-ray and it runs with intergrated graphics on vista with 2GB ram......
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T3400 with 3gigs of ram just did fine with youtubeHD, no stuttering.

shoota - what is your set up that is struggling with HD?
 
I've got a Dell with a Core 2 P8400, paired with an Intel 4500HD IGP. Still works good for my needs.
 
It really depends what you are doing. Its still a great processor for sure. But the best processor out there right now bang for your buck is an i3 2100, 2 cores but enable HT and you get 4 cores.
 
Ive got a lenovo x200 with the P8600 that I love. At work I have an i5 Dell.

Honestly they feel about the same for most of the stuff I do, plus the lenovo has an SSD that makes a much bigger difference.
 
Trimlock said:
T3400 with 3gigs of ram just did fine with youtubeHD, no stuttering.

shoota - what is your set up that is struggling with HD?
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I gave it away a while ago so I can't remember exactly but I think it was a ~1.86ghz Core Duo, 1.5 gb ram and a fresh install of Vista. It wasn't terrible but HD youtube could be a bit choppy. I have no idea about blu-ray as I've never messed with that before on a laptop.
 
DuronClocker said:
Not even remotely close to being on par with an i5-520m, though it likely wouldn't matter too much for basic uses.
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Benchmarks, sure the i5 is better. However, real world? No difference at all paired with a SSD. The i5 also runs hotter and makes the fan run louder. I'd trade my i5 system over the C2D any day, regardless of the newer technology.
 
shoota said:
I gave it away a while ago so I can't remember exactly but I think it was a ~1.86ghz Core Duo, 1.5 gb ram and a fresh install of Vista. It wasn't terrible but HD youtube could be a bit choppy. I have no idea about blu-ray as I've never messed with that before on a laptop.
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T2350, that CPU is very similar to my T3400 I still have. Your problem wasn't with the C2D, it was your 1.5gb of ram. Fresh instal of vista on 1.5gb will suck up almost all of it, you should check to see how much IE8/9 uses while displaying youtubeHD.
 
Trimlock said:
T2350, that CPU is very similar to my T3400 I still have. Your problem wasn't with the C2D, it was your 1.5gb of ram. Fresh instal of vista on 1.5gb will suck up almost all of it, you should check to see how much IE8/9 uses while displaying youtubeHD.
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We have the correct answer to the problem right here

Ram size has a larger impact on this type of stuff than cpu performance....especially when you are near the *realistic* minimums for Vista (personally I would not use less than 3GB for x86 and 4GB for x64 but to each their own)..
 
Palmately said:
Benchmarks, sure the i5 is better. However, real world? No difference at all paired with a SSD. The i5 also runs hotter and makes the fan run louder. I'd trade my i5 system over the C2D any day, regardless of the newer technology.
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my i5 520m is FASTER than my Core 2 Duo (machines in sig) at encoding DVDs and BD-Rom content and all other CPU intensive tasks complete faster on the i5 as well dispite running 700Mhz slower than the C2D machine (E8500 at 3.6)
 
Trimlock said:
T2350, that CPU is very similar to my T3400 I still have. Your problem wasn't with the C2D, it was your 1.5gb of ram. Fresh instal of vista on 1.5gb will suck up almost all of it, you should check to see how much IE8/9 uses while displaying youtubeHD.
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Doesn't explain why the other laptop with the same cpu, 2gn ram on win7 32-bit stutters a little on hd vimeo
 
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