Dual vs Single core in some situations

[thane]

I'm wondering how a Dual Core cpu would perform under situations compared to a regular cpu.


Play:

1) Alt tabing out of WoW in order to use firefox

2) Running background programs like antivirus, steam, etc while playing something like BF2?

Work:

3) Running a solid modeling program (Solidworks)

4a) Running a finite element analysis program (Nastran, I-deas)
4b) Matlab (matrix scripting language)

 

[peacetilence]

These things don't seem worthly of having two CPUs to process, if I were you I would get a single core now and wait for the prices to come down on higher dual core CPUs. This is what I have just done by buying a 3500+ Venice.

 

[4keatimj]

Yeah, most modern processors can handle quite a few programs running in the background, and as long as you have enought RAM to accomodate them without having to use the swap file (and slow things down), you should be able to do those sort of things fine. The things you list under Games are not really CPU based anyway, like running AV and BF2, of course that gonna make BF2 run like crap, because the AV is accessing the hard drive, swapping it into RAM, and just doing non-CPU things that kill performance.

You would only notice the difference if you ran CPU only programs, like modelling programs, Prime etc. When they use seperate CPUs, then it would improve performance, assuming that they aren't clogging up the memory bandwidth as well.

 

[Eva_Unit_0]

^ yeah, like they've all said, none of those scenarios is really "multitasking" at all. REAL multitasking, where the second core would be invaluable, would be something like this:

1. ripping a cd to mp3's while playing BF2
2. unrar-ing a giant rar file while rendering a model in 3dsmax
3. re-encoding a dvd to divx while doing huge calculations in mathematica

you get the picture. Unless you have two programs ACTIVELY doing something (not just sitting in the background, like steam or an AV or something while you play a game) then the second core wont' be immensely useful.

However, if I was in the market for a new system I would DEFINITELY get a dual-core, just because they make everything so much smoother. It's hard to describe and it's nothing you can benchmark, but anyone who has a duallie knows what I'm talking about...smooth as silk.