Core 2 duo vs. Quad core

Daduk · Post by **Daduk** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:51 pm

22 April there will be pricedrops of the Intel Quad cores and core 2 to duo processors.

I need a new pc really bad now. Ik work on an old 2.4Ghz. but what is wise to do?

If I buy a core 2 duo E 6600 processor I will be up to date and up and running with Cubase an Live 6. But in two months or so the Quad Core prices will drop from 800 to 550,-.

What would you guys do?

daduk

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:57 pm

I'd buy now.

ikke · Post by **ikke** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 5:04 pm

i have a feeling that this is the worst time to buy a new comp. even mac! just a feeling i have.. no facts. i was in the same boat but decided to stick with my current system for awhile

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 5:22 pm

hello,

i had a single processor cpu laptop and jumping from that piece of crap to a core2duo a whole new world of functionality has opened up to me.

i do imagine that quad core would be absolutely fucking awesome, but the jump as it is is amazing.

My Core Duo (first gen) can't handle much, but my core2duo laptop rips shit on the 1st Gen desktop.

This should keep you well and truely happy until the second round of price drops with the quad cores.

this next range of price drops is exactly what i have been waiting for before upgrading the desktop from a coreduo to a core2duo.

what i did was buy a motherboard capable of running both, but the entry level coreduo.

what you can do is buy a motherboard which can run core2 and a quad core and then get the cheapest core2 you can find until quad cores come down to a price you are happy with. that way you're not blowing your mobo $$'s

Daduk · Post by **Daduk** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 12:26 am

Hmm, thanks guys for your replies.

Sweetjesus, that motherboard advice is a very smart one! That is what I think I am gonna do.

I'll keep you informed about my config.

Cheers,

Daduk

Casual Beats · Post by **Casual Beats** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:12 am

Agreed. I just did exactly what sweetjesus recommends.
I picked up a mobo that supports both the duo cores and quad cores and picked up an e6600 cpu. Going to oc it to 3.6 ghz and use it for a year or two. By that time, the high end quad cores should be at very reasonable prices.

freqn · Post by **freqn** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:08 am

buy what you want now, save up $ until then, sell then upgrade to something else, but don't wait too far into the time when the prices drop on quad core stuff, or you will loose out when you sell. At the first hint of dropped prices on the better stuff, I would already have my present sys listed, if not sold, to insure you get the best price.

Soarer · Post by **Soarer** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:09 am

sweetjesus wrote:hello,

i had a single processor cpu laptop and jumping from that piece of crap to a core2duo a whole new world of functionality has opened up to me.

I'm interested in how much more power I will get if I buy a new core 2 duo 2 Ghz. laptop. My current system is a single processor 2.8 Ghz shuttle computer.
Will I get more than double the power? Is one of the core 2 duo 2Ghz processors (or 1 of the 2 cores) the same power as a P4 2Ghz? I really have no clue. ?

The laptops I have seen so far only has room for 2 Gb ram and for Vista Home Premium 1 Gb ram is recommended. So is 2 Gb ram even enough for a laptop that I hope to be using for 3 years?

I'm not buying yet but hopefully within half a year.

I hope you can help.

dave999z · Post by **dave999z** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 5:29 pm

I'm curious, all things being equal, would a Mac Pro with dual quad-core xeons blow away a Mac Pro with dual dual-core xeons? In other words, would it be twice as fast (translating to twice as many plugs)? Less? More?

I need to buy a Mac Pro asap. However, with the quad-cores already available and pin compatible with the dual-cores, I'm pretty sure Apple will soon be selling dual quad-core xeon Mac Pros.

Are OSX and Live designed to harness that level of multithreading? (i.e., will it really utilize eight cores efficiently?) or is it a diminishing return at some point?

glu · Post by **glu** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:39 pm

damn, looks like this boat is full of company. I'm on it too. I have been dying to upgrade, right now I feel like it would be dumb move to make, mac or pc. Everything is in the cusp of change.

I am holding back... I have for 3 months now.. I wonder how much longer I will last...

muscleandhate · Post by **muscleandhate** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 7:00 pm

dave999z wrote:I'm curious, all things being equal, would a Mac Pro with dual quad-core xeons blow away a Mac Pro with dual dual-core xeons? In other words, would it be twice as fast (translating to twice as many plugs)? Less? More?

I need to buy a Mac Pro asap. However, with the quad-cores already available and pin compatible with the dual-cores, I'm pretty sure Apple will soon be selling dual quad-core xeon Mac Pros.

Are OSX and Live designed to harness that level of multithreading? (i.e., will it really utilize eight cores efficiently?) or is it a diminishing return at some point?

A Quadcore in comparison to a Dualcore will never, I presume, actually translate to being literally twice as fast. Remember that there are other things that affect speed, even just within the architecture of the processor alone not to mention the computer as a totality.

OSX will no doubt be designed to take advantages of the hardware that Apple supplies to run it on, which kinda makes sense, though I'm thinking 10.5 here. As for Live, then in 6.0 they so say 'multicore' and 'multiprocessor' so I'd assume it would exploit quad-core technology, but how effectively I don't know.

zazamoth · Post by **zazamoth** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 7:15 pm

Quad!!your kidding!!

I was just about to buy a new compter!!..so wait, does that now mean that the Intel PENTIUM D DUAL CORE 3.4GHZ ...is now out of date..? i hadn't heard a damn thing about quad core..

what do you think? would it be worth buying a computer with the Pentium D dual core 3.4..would that be good enough now! I don't really know much about building computers and i have a very tight budget.