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Dual or quad?

T

tybert7

2[H]4U
Joined
Aug 23, 2007
Messages
2,763
so my opteron 170 system just died (motherboard busted) and I need to get back up and running for CHEAP !!!!!!!!

thinking of the e8400 with 4 gigs of ram and the least expensive DECENT motherboard possible.

Should I do that or go with a quad?

I do not do heavy encoding, just surf and play games. Not going to pay over 300 for the whole endeavor, not dropping over 300 JUST for the cheaper i7, just refuse to. But is there some REAL value and performance boost in games to having 4 cores over a higher clocked 2?
 
tybert7 said:
so my opteron 170 system just died (motherboard busted) and I need to get back up and running for CHEAP !!!!!!!!

thinking of the e8400 with 4 gigs of ram and the least expensive DECENT motherboard possible.

Should I do that or go with a quad?

I do not do heavy encoding, just surf and play games. Not going to pay over 300 for the whole endeavor, not dropping over 300 JUST for the cheaper i7, just refuse to. But is there some REAL value and performance boost in games to having 4 cores over a higher clocked 2?
Click to expand...
Dual. Quad support is growing in games, but unless you do heavy encoding, just grab a faster dual core. The e8400 is a great CPU and is pretty cheap.
 
Quad. No reason not to, since the Q6600 isn't much more than a good dual-core, and when overclocked will perform at around the same level anyway. If you plan on keeping your system for any reasonably long period of time, the quad will end up giving you more performance in future applications than a dual-core will.
 
Yay, another quad core/ dual core thread.

The only thing worse than video card fanism is the fanism between dualers and qaudsters. Who would have ever thought that some day instead of bickering over AMD vs Intel, we'd be bickering over Intel Quad and Intel Dual.


Get yourself your E8400 and run it at stock with the cheapo included HSF and you will be fine and be able to run any game that comes along at an nice cool temp, all quiet and humble.

Or, buy the Q6600 and a aftermarket HSF and overlcock it and deal with the higher volts and the higher heat and enjoy the performance of a quad when you encode your movies.
 
brucedeluxe169 said:
+1... holy fuck people... theres a new thread on this every other day...

regardless, my recommendation: the happy medium- tri core intel processors
Click to expand...

There probably is, and I know some people are more anal retentive about seeing these blights of existence on their pristine forums (not you). But in my defense, on these questions I prefer to get the latest info at the time, not trudge through past threads several weeks or months old.

Why? who knows, perhaps there are a slew of upcoming games that will take much better advantage of multi core power, or perhaps not.

Whatever the answer may be though, I by no means consider the answer STATIC, it is one that could change in a short ammount of time, so I like to pool the latest opinion of the time. Now if it was literally on the same page or worse, multiple on the same page asking the same question, then I understand the greater gripe and annoyance.

But asking for the best choice of a cpu for gaming at a given time is closer to asking what are some good movies out now as opposed to asking which is better: blu-ray vs HD-DVD.

But I guess that is just me, rather than necro an ancient thread to pool the latest info, it always seemed to me more prudent and effective to start a fresh thread, with fresh eyes, and a less daunting read to get to the primary question. If that is frowned upon, just say the word and I will abide. House preference trumps personal preference.
 
its not about looking at ancient threads or anything like that... if you just look back at very, very, very recent threads..... im not exaggerating, we get this question every week
 
Thread #128004274 on the subject...

Short answer - dual for games and/or general usage, quad for heavy multitasking/multimedia.

/thread
 
dual core Sir, by the time you need quad core for gaming they will have cheaper quads that are x2 as good as the best quads right now.

either that or pcs will come with dual quad cores = 8 processors
 
brucedeluxe169 said:
its not about looking at ancient threads or anything like that... if you just look back at very, very, very recent threads..... im not exaggerating, we get this question every week
Click to expand...

Yep, that's about right. It ranks right up there with "Best video card for 30" monitor" threads. :rolleyes:
 
tybert7 said:
There probably is, and I know some people are more anal retentive about seeing these blights of existence on their pristine forums (not you). But in my defense, on these questions I prefer to get the latest info at the time, not trudge through past threads several weeks or months old.

.
Click to expand...

thats the problem, there is one of these every day , or week, and the answers has been the same for the last 6+ months, and games will use more cores better, tha is progress, but then comes the debate on if a faster dual core is better then a possible slower quad core, either way, topic has been covered in page long threads over and over, it just comes across as lazy when you just want people to respond to your thread instead of researching and reading other already similar or same threads.

Just an FYI for future, always search first.
 
Quad.

More and more games are taking advantage of quad core. Most games that come out from this point forward likely will.

Whereas, even a quad has more than enough power to run any existing or older game that only takes advantage of one or two cores, the opposite isn't true if you are stuck with a dual core chip.
 
This is real easy to answer. Would you want a single core? NO why is that, because you can get a Dual core and its better and will work better in the future. Same thing here. If you plan on keeping what you buy for a few years the why would you get a Dual core when theres the Quad core and it should be better for the future. But if your the kind of person that will be upgrading every 6 months to a year then get the Dual core.


Single Core=Dual Core=Quad Core
Windows 98=Windows XP=Vista
32 Bit=64 Bit
 
Unless you're going with a Core i7, there isn't anything new going on, so there is no reason to create another thread to the the "latest" information. And it isn't like the last thread similar to this was created very long ago either. So there really is no defense for this threads existence.
 
Quad, Dual cores are for laptops, and email :) haha

quad is just more future proof.
 
kgeier82 said:
Quad, Dual cores are for laptops, and email :) haha

quad is just more future proof.
Click to expand...

That's what they said almost two years ago when the Core 2 Quad was released. Two years later, dual core processors are good enough for 90% of all computing tasks.
 
Dan_D said:
That's what they said almost two years ago when the Core 2 Quad was released. Two years later, dual core processors are good enough for 90% of all computing tasks.
Click to expand...

by that methodology so is your standard 3.2 p4.

if I had to spend another 30-50$ on 2 more cores, i think id do it in a heart beat. But thats just me. I do a lot of video encoding, which most people probably dont. Its nice to have the extra HP though
 
I think it's worth it.

I didn't even have to increase the volts on my OC. Check my sig.

8*400 = 3.2 on 1.225 volts = :) for me!

Go Q6600!
 
This again? Seriously?

By the logic that some people employ we should still be on single core! We've had this debate about single vs. dual and now again with dual vs. quad. As applications become more multi-threaded, these multi-core CPUs will be more and more useful. At a bare minimum, having more cores leads to better multi-tasking since the OS can offload system tasks when a single or dual threaded game needs the first core or the first two.

If your focus is games only, I still say take the quad, overclock it and take the performance hit now for gains later.
 
kgeier82 said:
by that methodology so is your standard 3.2 p4.

if I had to spend another 30-50$ on 2 more cores, i think id do it in a heart beat. But thats just me. I do a lot of video encoding, which most people probably dont. Its nice to have the extra HP though
Click to expand...

For surfing the web and general tasks, it probably is enough for most people. For gaming and video editing, or many professional apps, you'd be left wanting with a P4.
 
Dan_D said:
That's what they said almost two years ago when the Core 2 Quad was released. Two years later, dual core processors are good enough for 90% of all computing tasks.
Click to expand...

Two years ago, dual-core processors were good enough for 100% of all computing tasks. We're getting there ;).
 
Really wishing I had a quad core for GTA4.... But that's single solitary example so far... Sure SupCom got some gains from quad over dual, but it wasn't massive and for the most part I was quite pleased with the performance.

Still, if *I* was building today, I wouldn't limit myself to a dual-core.
 
I had to go under the same decision I chose the e8400 over the quad. WHy? Because the e8400 is faster for the tasks that I need it to do and I'm not doing anything that will utilize the other two cores in a quad. In the future when quad cores will be utilized more I'll just upgrade to a better updated quad instead of an old slower quad core processor. It was an easy decision for me though because I upgrade my computer frequently.
 
tybert7 said:
so my opteron 170 system just died (motherboard busted) and I need to get back up and running for CHEAP !!!!!!!!

thinking of the e8400 with 4 gigs of ram and the least expensive DECENT motherboard possible.

Should I do that or go with a quad?

I do not do heavy encoding, just surf and play games. Not going to pay over 300 for the whole endeavor, not dropping over 300 JUST for the cheaper i7, just refuse to. But is there some REAL value and performance boost in games to having 4 cores over a higher clocked 2?
Click to expand...

Well i was reading a chart comparing both dual core and quad core at frys electronics. From 5 different categories quad core beats dual core in 2 categories. In the rest dual core won. I dont exactly remember the categories but your local frys might have this chart as well.

So in the end it all depends on how much you want to spend and if those 2 categories are worth the extra money or not. I have dual core everything and i am fine with it. I am typing this on my friends quad core right now and i cant tell a dramatic difference between both our processors just surfing the web, writing word documents, or even using music programs.
 
Met-AL said:
Yay, another quad core/ dual core thread.

The only thing worse than video card fanism is the fanism between dualers and qaudsters.
Click to expand...

What exactly offends you so much about this topic, Mr. HighAndMighty?

I'm looking to build a quad-core system soon myself. This thread is very useful :)
 
Volume said:
What exactly offends you so much about this topic, Mr. HighAndMighty?

I'm looking to build a quad-core system soon myself. This thread is very useful :)
Click to expand...


What's wrong with it is that there is no less than a couple dozen threads asking the EXACT same question. What's even more annoying is that the OP is almost always aware that the same conversaion exists and has even read them.

If you find this thread usefull then do a search and you'll have a couple dozem more threads just like this and you'll have all the info you could possibly want.
 
RamonGTP said:
What's wrong with it is that there is no less than a couple dozen threads asking the EXACT same question. What's even more annoying is that the OP is almost always aware that the same conversaion exists and has even read them.

If you find this thread usefull then do a search and you'll have a couple dozem more threads just like this and you'll have all the info you could possibly want.
Click to expand...
:(

Are there any games out currently that take advantage of quad-core?
 
Volume said:
:(

Are there any games out currently that take advantage of quad-core?
Click to expand...
A search on either the forums or google would have turned up the following games:
L4D
FC2
AC
SC and its expansion
Bioshock
ME
UT3
 
Volume said:
:(

Are there any games out currently that take advantage of quad-core?
Click to expand...

Wow, what an original question... Because that hasn't been asked in the 2 dozen other dual vs quad threads. I guess some people just don't get it.
 
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