core2duo/X2 <OR> Quad core

[khatarnaak]

Here is the big question.. would a Quad core really help me.. My Pentium 4 is crawling now.. need something faster to replace my desktop. I ordered a $450 refurb quad core 6600 desktop from dell and got 15 bluescreens in a week.. returned the darn thing..

1. What YOUR PC will be used for: surfing, lightroom, photoshop, programming, music streaming
2. What YOUR budget is: $400-$600
3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from: US
4. IF YOU have a brand preference: none
5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are: none
6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads: yes
7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds: no
8. WHEN do you plan to build it: asap

I dont mind ordering a HP quad for $630 so I could run with it right out of the box.. Given what I will be using this for, am wondering if a quad would be faster than a core2duo. I would need a graphics card with dvi+vga for my 2 LCDs. adding a graphics card and extra RAM would be easy later. Dont need a BluRay etc either. But I wont have the time to upgrade again in the next 3 yrs.

 

[khatarnaak]

I really think for stuff like ms office, light programming, light media stuff the processor clock speed would get me more.. Am I wrong in assuming that a 3 GHz Core2Duo would be faster than 2.4 Ghz 6600 quad? Unless the app is making use of quad cores, I am limiting it to the speed of each core.

 

[Denithor]

You hit it dead on there with that last comment - if your apps don't utilize all four cores a faster dual will give you better performance overall.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: Denithor
You hit it dead on there with that last comment - if your apps don't utilize all four cores a faster dual will give you better performance overall.

Correct.

Quote:

To accelerate image processing and improve overall performance, Adobe Photoshop® CS2 software uses multi-threading to split images apart for parallel execution on the multiple cores.

Quote:

The speedup from going to four cores isn't as great in Photoshop as in the 3D rendering tests, but it's still significant (and worth it if you spend a lot of time in Photoshop).

Quote:

Can someone from the Lightroom Team at Adobe tell us whether Lightroom is able to fully exploit all four cores on a quad core system? [Yes, for the image processing heavy lifting Lightroom will utilize up to 8 cores. -TH]

Quote:

Visual Studio 2008 can take advantage of systems that have multiple processors, or multiple-core processors. A separate build process is created for each available processor. For example, if the system has four processors, then four build processes are created. MSBuild can process these builds simultaneously, and therefore overall build time is reduced.

Surfing and music streaming won't take advantage of more than a single thread. But otherwise, the answer to your question is yes...a quad core will really help you.

 

[themisfit610]

LIGHTROOM

Get a quad.

/thread

 

[khatarnaak]

alright.. so its evident that i wouldnt go wrong with the Quad.. specially for photoshop/ligthroom/visual studio.. It starting to make a lot of sense to get the quad 6600 and overclock it to ~3 ghz so I get very decent speeds for even the apps that dont use multiple cores.. going forward hopefully more apps would start using multi cores..

that said, would someone be able to advice me on a quick setup that i could order right away.
processor: Intel Q6600 quad
motherboard: ?
graphics card: 256 MB with DVI+VGA+HDMI out would be nice. not a gamer at all, have 2 LCDs though.
harddrive: 250 GB+ would be just fine
RAM: 4GB atleast
case/power supply: something that could take a little bit of overclocking
drive: DVDRW

would most likely want to play with windows7

 

[xSauronx]

theres a quad core thread that was up in the last 2 or 3 days with some mobo recommendations

 

[Blain]

I wouldn't buy an old Q6600.
They run on a lower FSB, run hotter and don't have the instructions of the newer 45nm quad cores.
If I were OCing, I'd buy the Q8300 (IF your brain is locked into a "quad" core).

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: Blain
I wouldn't buy an old Q6600.
They run on a lower FSB, run hotter and don't have the instructions of the newer 45nm quad cores.
If I were OCing, I'd buy the Q8300 (IF your brain is locked into a "quad" core).

I wouldn't buy a new Q8300 for these tasks. They have 4 megs of L2 cache total, and it's shared with all four cores...whereas the Q6600 has 8 megs of L2, 4 megs of cache shared per Duo. Regardless that the Q8300 is true quad while the Q6600 is not, the cache difference on the Q8300 will likely result in a significant performance hit in apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, VS, etc, as compared to the Q6600.

 

[Denithor]

Q9400 $224 (mwave)
Gigabyte EP45-UD3R $105
Grab the G.Skill 4GB DDR2-800 $40
WD6401AALS $80
DVDRW $20
Low end GPU w/ VGA+DVI $35
Case $50
EA430 $40

Total: ~$600

Waaaay stronger than you'll get from Dell for $600...

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
Regardless that the Q8300 is true quad while the Q6600 is not, the cache difference on the Q8300 will likely result in a significant performance hit in apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, VS, etc, as compared to the Q6600.

The L2 cache difference alone isn't significant. The higher core and FSB speeds have far more impact.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: Slugbait
Regardless that the Q8300 is true quad while the Q6600 is not, the cache difference on the Q8300 will likely result in a significant performance hit in apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, VS, etc, as compared to the Q6600.

The L2 cache difference alone isn't significant. The higher core and FSB speeds have far more impact.

Since the days of the P6 architecture, it has been widely accepted and repeatedly validated that having more cache (especially having twice as much cache) greatly benefits apps like Photoshop. You can have an external clock speed that is 30% faster, but how does that have far more impact if the proc is still busy crunching the numbers and the bus just sits there waiting?

BTW, what exactly is a "higher core"...?

 

[Blain]

"BTW, what exactly is a "higher core"...?"

In the context of the thread, the "higher core" is refering to the Q8300's higher core speed in comparison to the Q6600.

Q6600 = 2.4GHz @ 1066MHz FSB
Q8300 = 2.5GHz @ 1333MHz FSB

 

[khatarnaak]

Q6600 v/s Q8300 is an extremely helpful discussion.. thanks.. really helps taking an informed decision..

 

[Blain]

Google for benchmarks to see the whole story between L2 cache and speed.

 

[s44]

Won't GPU acceleration help much more than any quad?

 

[khatarnaak]

Originally posted by: khatarnaak
I really think for stuff like ms office, light programming, light media stuff the processor clock speed would get me more.. Am I wrong in assuming that a 3 GHz Core2Duo would be faster than 2.4 Ghz 6600 quad? Unless the app is making use of quad cores, I am limiting it to the speed of each core.

Guys, I am really not yet convinced that a quad core q6600 or phenom would run the above mentioned apps faster. I am inclined towards going with an AMD X2 2.6Ghz pre-built PC.. something inexpensive like a $300 desktop and adding more ram and a graphics card for $30 to support VGA+DVI+HDMI. Please help me decide between the going dual core or quad.

 

[Denithor]

Well, I can assure you that you shouldn't get an X2 2.6GHz system for this kind of work.

Photoshop CS4 dual & quad lineup

In CS4 the fastest Intel duals beat the older PhI quads & tris and all of the X2 duals. But the Intel quads & newer PhII quads are faster.

xbitlabs: Photoshop CS3 (and other) benchmarks - dual & quads

Here it's a little different, CS3 apparently isn't quad-optimized so a faster dual-core manages to beat out the quads. But if you look at the lineup, the PhI 9950 trails all of the Intel quads by a good margin so an X2 is going really trail even a mid-level C2D.

I would suggest you build/buy an Intel based system (e5200 or above) as this will certainly do a better job than the X2 2.6GHz you're considering.

 

[khatarnaak]

thanks for the strong recommendation, and benchmarks to back it up.

 

[Denithor]

The 45nm Intel duals (e5x00, e7x00, e8x00) are the best value in cpus today for most applications. They run faster & consume less power than even faster-clocked X2 chips and in most cases even outrun the X3/X4 chips (exception: PhII 920/940).

And most software is not quad-optimized (yet) but it's coming. More new releases are able to seriously benefit from four cores (or even the eight virtual cores provided by hyperthreading on i7 chips) and eventually this will become standard. So the decision today to buy a dual is fine, just keep in mind you would gain some benefit right now from a quad and that benefit is going to increase over the next year or so (basically until you need a quad to run most stuff acceptably).

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
Regardless that the Q8300 is true quad while the Q6600 is not

Huh????

Both are MCM quad-cores, made of dual-core dice.

 

[dbcooper1]

Photoshop likes Intel's dual core CPUs and lots of RAM. High clock speed and lots of RAM. Cache is not that important nor is quad core. You'll also want a fast separate PHYSICAL drive for scratch disk. Did I mention lots of RAM? I run it on XP64 in spite of it's other problems just to get access to RAM above 3.xGB.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: dbcooper1
Photoshop likes Intel's dual core CPUs and lots of RAM. High clock speed and lots of RAM. Cache is not that important nor is quad core. You'll also want a fast separate PHYSICAL drive for scratch disk. Did I mention lots of RAM? I run it on XP64 in spite of it's other problems just to get access to RAM above 3.xGB.

Um. Really? Go review that first link above (CS4 benchmark). Seems to like quads just fine.