Dual core or quad core?

[arcsum68]

Building a system for a buddy, and I have been going back and forth on whether to get him a 3Ghz dual core or a 2.5Ghz quad core processor due to some limitations.

He needs to run XP due to a Corel x3 plugin for his business, which pretty much screws everything up as far as ram and multi cpu handling.

What do you guys think?

I feel like he would get more benefit from a higher powered dual core.

 

[Michael Daly]

RAM is limited to 3.5GB (give or take a bit) but how is the multi-CPU limited? XP will use all the cores it can find.

The real question you need to ask is "What programs does he run that use significant multi-threading and how many programs does he need to run at one time?" If he runs lots of multi-thread programs or lots of programs in parallel, he'll benefit from a quad. If not, a dual may be adequate.

Don't forget that programmers have been writing multi-threaded programs for a long time, even when single core systems were the norm.

 

[arcsum68]

Thanks Michael, good info there, I didnt know that programmers were writing multi threaded programs for a long time.

Looks like he will benefit from a quad core according to the guys that sold him the plugin, so I guess I will go that route, feel free to interject if you have an opinion on it.

 

[Michael Daly]

Multi-thread programs were essential for good performance overall. For example, if a program had to pop up a dialog box and wait for the user to respond, a single threaded program would essentially sit and wait. With a multi-thread approach, the dialog could be spun off as a separate thread and wait while the main thread continued with other things. This allowed the program to respond to system messages while the user ponders his response.