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Duo vs. Quad: straight up

D

djBon2112

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 29, 2006
Messages
5,279
I know the hype, etc. surrounding quad core. I know about Alan Wake, etc. But, honestly, with my money today, is a quad core worth the extra money over a dual core (assuming I will watercool and subsequently overclock the shit out of them both)? No talk of possible future things, I'm taking right now, in the next couple months. I'd also like people to back their opinions up with some evidence, etc. This will be used for both gaming and general computer use.
 
djBon2112 said:
I have one of those things in my fileserver. It sucks :p
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the 4xx series are not bad at all and EXTREMELY low power.

The problem is the difference between an celeron 420 and an e1200 (IIRC, i might be getting the model names wrong) is $10 on newegg. At that point......might as well go dual unless you need the extremely low power usage.
 
TBH: I think it's what programs and what you will be doing with the computer... Going Quad Core might save you time for some tasks on the computer... and going Dual Core might increase performance in some games... it really all depends.
 
Robstar said:
the 4xx series are not bad at all and EXTREMELY low power.

The problem is the difference between an celeron 420 and an e1200 (IIRC, i might be getting the model names wrong) is $10 on newegg. At that point......might as well go dual unless you need the extremely low power usage.
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I already built it, with a 420 Celeron. And since I'm Canadian, I have to use NCIX. The difference was like $20 :p
 
Ang said:
TBH: I think it's what programs and what you will be doing with the computer... Going Quad Core might save you time for some tasks on the computer... and going Dual Core might increase performance in some games... it really all depends.
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Exactly. I rendered video on my OCed e2180 and I was all "Okay, I can deal with this." Then I upgraded to the Q6600 and rendered/decoded another video, and I was all "Holy shit." Night and day.
 
I'm still debating this as well...

For me, I'll probably either do the e8500 or Q9450 (when the price drops)...i still have a few weeks. Possibility of Q6600 but i'd like a 45nm CPU.
 
As I said in a previous thread between my E8500 and my 9770 clock for clock I see no difference in games. Even when the dual core had a 1900+ front side bus. The only advantage to having a quad over a dual core is if your looking to build an all around fast system and/or work with a lot of media (photoshop, high def encoding,etc) I do a lot of movie encoding and having 4 cores helps especially when SSE4.1 comes into play.

So with having said that I would say this, if I were going gaming only, I'd go for a dual core especially since you have water. i've taken my dual core up to 4.6ghz on air. So I can only imagine with water.
 
buy a quad and disable two cores. hehe :)


Seriously, I do like quads but duo core is sufficient for most apps.
 
For just the next couple months, i would say a dualie E8x00, but if your gonna keep it 6 months or longer I would say a Q9450. I faced the same choices a couple months ago with my new build and started with a E8400 and was very happy with it, but then i had a chance to "try" a Q9450 and I thought, eh, i dont need it, but what the hell...i dropped it in and never took it out...this thing rocks for me and what i do, which is general usage and gaming. The nice thing is that it allows me to run multiple background programs without a hitch to my normal usages. Even with a dual core i would have to stop folding to game, or stop my virus scan if i was using my tv tuner and wanted to game...all that bs is in the past with a quad! ;)

My 2 cents.
 
why do people keep arguing about this ... quad is better ... it may not be much use as of now unless you video edit (like me) but it will in the future and everyone knows it
 
since you are water cooling, you will probably see around 3.6 on the quad and around 4 on the dual. games will not see a difference between the two right now. a few games use it now, but not many and not very well. a few games coming out soon (left 4 dead, far cry 2, crysis warhead) are all supposed to support quad core. who knows if they will utilize it well or not. if they use it well and you are on a dual, you will be disappointed. if they don't use it and you have a quad, will you be disappointed? not if you like to encode a dvd twice as fast or like to download stuff while you game, etc...

the bottom line is, if you can afford it, there is no reason not to buy a quad. if you cannot afford the extra twenty bucks or whatever it is (i feel for you, i was that guy in college) get a dual.
 
Quads are "straight up" better.

now that being said - with the price of quads, I'd say duals are the way to go in a current build due to higher clock speeds and the lack of programs that can take advantage of the extra cores
 
I made a thread about this (which you could've probably checked out), but half of people were saying go for the E8400 for gaming and other half were saying quad.

I myself picked up a Q6700 because I would probably feel more 'complete' and safer with a peace of mind for having a quad-core that can prove itself during gaming.

Go quad!
 
djBon2112 said:
I know the hype, etc. surrounding quad core. I know about Alan Wake, etc. But, honestly, with my money today, is a quad core worth the extra money over a dual core (assuming I will watercool and subsequently overclock the shit out of them both)? No talk of possible future things, I'm taking right now, in the next couple months. I'd also like people to back their opinions up with some evidence, etc. This will be used for both gaming and general computer use.
Click to expand...

Here's a good article that will surely help you pick something:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14756

I'll sum it up. The best values overall, are the dual core E8400 and Quad Q6600. Reading through the article, you'll also see that few applications take advantage of more than two cores, especially games. However, if your "general computer use" includes (for example) 3D rendering or video encoding , a quad core will give you some benefits over dual cores.

My personal recommendation is: if this system is intended for 90% gaming and 10% for general use, get a powerful dual core, such as the E8400.
If it's the other way around and gaming doesn't really take much of your time, but 3D rendering and video encoding does (for example), get a quad core.
 
If you're willing to pay the 180-200 bucks it costs to get a quad core, you might as well. They will usually OC up to the point where clockspeed of your processor produces heavily diminishing returns.

My thought on the subject is that if you are very limited on cash, it's smarter to put that extra 80-100 bucks into the videocard, but if you're down for a ~200 dollar processor, go quad.
 
Volcanon said:
If you're willing to pay the 180-200 bucks it costs to get a quad core, you might as well. They will usually OC up to the point where clockspeed of your processor produces heavily diminishing returns.

My thought on the subject is that if you are very limited on cash, it's smarter to put that extra 80-100 bucks into the videocard, but if you're down for a ~200 dollar processor, go quad.
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Good point, either chip will do nicely for gaming for some time, the video card is the key factor now you must look at investing into.
 
Silus said:
Here's a good article that will surely help you pick something:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14756

I'll sum it up. The best values overall, are the dual core E8400 and Quad Q6600. Reading through the article, you'll also see that few applications take advantage of more than two cores, especially games. However, if your "general computer use" includes (for example) 3D rendering or video encoding , a quad core will give you some benefits over dual cores.

My personal recommendation is: if this system is intended for 90% gaming and 10% for general use, get a powerful dual core, such as the E8400.
If it's the other way around and gaming doesn't really take much of your time, but 3D rendering and video encoding does (for example), get a quad core.
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The rig I'm building will be probably 95% gaming (and overclocking as a hobby); my laptop serves most other functions for me, and I don't do any 3D rendering or video encoding. I'm thinking given prices right now, the E8400 would indeed be my best bet. I had a G0 Q6600 (sold it back in November because I needed money for school) and wasn't really happy with its overclockability (I know 3.6 is nothing to turn ones nose at, but I was never able to break 4.0 and that really disappointed me), so I'm more inclined to go with a 45nm chip. And since the Q9300 is almost $100 CAD more than the E8400, I think my point is settled :)
 
I've been leaning Quad the whole time, but with the pricedrops on the E8400 to $163, while the q9450 and q9550 stay north of $300, I just don't see the point.

Yes, I'd like quad for futureproofing and to multi-task a bit better, but considering I'll be replacing the thing within a year (year and a half, tops), and don't do video encoding or anything, I can't really consider the $140+ difference a good value.

~S
 
semisonic9 said:
I've been leaning Quad the whole time, but with the pricedrops on the E8400 to $163, while the q9450 and q9550 stay north of $300, I just don't see the point.

Yes, I'd like quad for futureproofing and to multi-task a bit better, but considering I'll be replacing the thing within a year (year and a half, tops), and don't do video encoding or anything, I can't really consider the $140+ difference a good value.

~S
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that's why most people look at the q6600 instead of the 45nm quads.
 
Mr. Stryker said:
I made a thread about this (which you could've probably checked out), but half of people were saying go for the E8400 for gaming and other half were saying quad.

I myself picked up a Q6700 because I would probably feel more 'complete' and safer with a peace of mind for having a quad-core that can prove itself during gaming.

Go quad!
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I've personally been recommending over quad-core (over a same-speed dual-core) whether you overclock or not because of one thing that nobody seems to think about: multitaskng.

Oh, the dual-core proponents are willing to admit to it, but they all almost always ask you to halt the background tasks (security, IM, etc.) to help justify sticking with a dual-core. While few games take advantage of a quad-core, more and more background tasks take advantage of additional/unused cores. Lastly, the price difference is not really there at the same FSB between dual-core and quad-core. With LGA775 going away, there is less reason to select anything other than quad-core for a mainstream or higher PC; in fact, given price, quad-core is making sense in the value/budget PC ranks, especially when you are talking a system life of a year or greater.
 
This question should garnish an immediate ban for anyone who's profile rank is above noobie.
 
RamonGTP said:
This question should garnish an immediate ban for anyone who's profile rank is above noobie.
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I knew someone felt the same way!:D Every single week one of these goddamn threads comes up.

@ AndréRocha

Well it's true, quads aren't faster than dual-core CPUs with games. But that's at lower resolutions though. Once you start playing at above 1280x1024, you become more and more GPU limited. At 1920x1200, even 1600x1080 for certain games, it doesn't matter whether you have a Q6600 quad-core CPU or E8400dual-core CPU. Neither will provide a major performance advantage over the other at that high of a resolution. So depending on the resolution, it really doesn't matter whether you go with a quad-core or dual-core CPU.

Oh and my evidence:
CPU scaling in games with dual & quad core processors

I don't think anyone has ever said quads are faster than dual-cores in most games. But in video-editing and other media rendering apps, quads are faster than dual-cores. And the heavy multi-tasking argument has been stated a few times already so I won't repeat it.
 
I'm waiting for OctaCore

QuadCoreFTW.jpg
 
Waffletron said:
Dual for now, then pick up a quad when they drop to $100 post Nehalem :). Thats my plan!
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Wow!, go ahead and wait for that 1.8 quadcore celeron! :rolleyes:
Since the intel maps I've seen has the Q6600 falling off at 163.00, it will never make the sub-100.00 mark.
 
Aww, ok I may have been a little too optimistic. I'm just hoping that when the socket gets obsoleted then prices will collapse as much as s939 did. I remember I was able to snag a 4400+ to upgrade my old 3500+ for $65 at Newegg once AM2 was well established.

I would settle for a Q9650 or so for $200 once Nehalem has rolled in :).
 
Quad-core FTW!

Two reasons:

1. I've yet to have someone demonstrate to me personally a system on "Air cooling" that performs that much better in Games than my similar "air cooled" Quad. It's really all about the GPU and at my 19" Widescreen the 4850 does more than enough currently.

2. It's all about the number of cores in the long term. If you are quibbling over price, you'll likely want to use that system as long as is possible before outlaying more $ in a future upgrade. By this time, majority of game development may be enhanced by the number of cores. Developers are getting pretty good with the latest development tools. These tools now support multi-core CPU's a far greater extent, so newer games are going to "by default" better handle mult-core systems. Typically it takes time to move from one development platform to another as releasing titles quickly is more important for the $. Moving to new tools really only occurs when it's important to implement newer techniques needed to compete against the competitions tricks to entice customers.

So you might as well go for a Quad, G0 stepping and OC the heck out of that in combination with the $40.00 OCZ Vendetta 2 HSF combo!! (reviews http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/ocz_vendetta_2/ and also http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2279) Then take the savings over water cooling and get that 4850 or 4870 GPU.
 
gwarren007 said:
Wow!, go ahead and wait for that 1.8 quadcore celeron! :rolleyes:
Since the intel maps I've seen has the Q6600 falling off at 163.00, it will never make the sub-100.00 mark.
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The Intel roadmaps are irrelevant. Companies will still have stock, and they will drop the price of the stock to sell it. No, it won't be sub-$100, but If I can get a Q9300 for $150~ in December, I will. Until then, dual core.
 
DanBuh said:
why do people keep arguing about this ... quad is better ... it may not be much use as of now unless you video edit (like me) but it will in the future and everyone knows it
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I think people argue because the dual core has the faster clock speed, is cheaper and probably easier to overclock since you're only dealing with two cores.
 
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