Do dual core processors provide any real benefit?

[xtknight]

Yes. A dual core system can process twice as much at any given time as a single core system assuming same model of CPU. Can you exploit that power? Sure. Multitask. Use multithreaded apps.

Are you asking 'would you get any benefit' or 'would one get any benefit'? Me specifically? Yeah, I would.

 

[nealh]

Zim..I appreciate what you are pointing out

I think everyone agrees a dual core will perfrom in the right situations far superior to single core

But in the forums often all you hear is how awesome the perfromance is...well for many they may not do the tasks necessary to see the benefit and get jaded by a fad

I really want a X2 3800 or dual opteron but the fact is I really do nothing that will properly see the performance enhancements like many users...but I would love a dual processor at 2.6...it would be a little slower than my single core but doubt it would be noticable to me...and just the idea of the extra processors sounds cool

I have a 3200 winny@2550 and venice 3200@2750..I feel no difference between the processors...so why did I get the venice, I got a sweet buy, and love the fact I hit 2700+
I needed to build a box for my wife and wanted to keep costs down the X2 3800 was not out and speculation was a least a month

So I got it and happy I did it is a great processor

I drool at the thought of dual core nearly as fast..or even a sinlge opteron at 3ghz...wow that sounds great. I am sure I would not notice 3000 vs 2750...I just really cant tell this stuff well...

I do see the speed differnce between my wife's P42.4b@2.9 vs my A64 3200@2750

 

[AkumaX]

I for one welcome our dual core overlords.

 

[Gatt]

I've been Dual Core for several weeks now, and I've seen what Dual Core can do for gaming.

Galatic Civiliations is a multi-threaded game. It's not the most stable under Dual Core, but the speed difference is very dramatic. On my 2.6ghz Intel taking turns would last 30-60 seconds. On my Dual Core, perhaps 10 seconds at most. That says to me that Dual Core has alot of potential in gaming.

Further is the new Dual Core drivers from Nvidia, which showed a fair boost in performance over the Single Core versions. So not only can Dual Core accelerate AI and perhaps lead to better AI, but Dual Core systems can offer significant benefits in frame rates as processor power becomes available. Once GPU's are coupled with PPU's, this could prove to be even more significant as the second core becomes something of a backup when demands on those chips increase.

Dual Core holds alot of potential, it's just that the Apps aren't ready for it yet, similiar to 64bit processing. I'm assuming that Vista and the games of 2006 will show the power of today's Dual Cores quite readily.

 

[mikemcc]

You make some good points about the potential for dual core, Gatt. The potential -- much more than the current situation -- is largely what leads me to dual core in the new system I will build in mid-November.

Unfortunately, I can only afford to upgrade my system about once every 18 months to 2 years. (A wife, three kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats, and so on makes the computer budget much lower than it was when I was single.) The good thing is that, if I keep to this timeframe for most upgrades, my wife does not give me any grief when I buy top-of-the-line components. I'm a university professor and don't do much video encoding, though I do download stuff from my Tivo to my computer. I mostly do PhotoShop and other kinds of things that most tech writers do. And I am a casual gamer -- though BF2 is becoming more than just casual, for some reason.

For right now, I figure a speedy single core would be just fine for me and what I do. But I'm betting (about $200) that, over the next two years, more and more programs, applications, and games will come out that will take advantage of dual core. I can't say this definitively, but I believe that, over the next 6 months, out to two years, I will be happier with a dual core than a single core. If I'm wrong, well, I guess I blew $200...

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Zim

Originally posted by: Duvie
I am talking about (2) F@Hs running in background 24/7...

I wonder how many people bought their X2 in order to run two instances of F&H? Surely it's just a by-product of having an X2 that you can do that, and not a reason in itself to own a dual core processor.

And BTW, running an X2 at full throttle soaks up about 100W of power. You'll be paying about $10/mo on your (or someone's) electricty bill for that.

My 3800 I got exclusively for F@Hx2. And I get about $10/month usage on my A64 3200+ socket 754's that I also fold with. Just now, I get the extra core for the same $$ and my results went up. I am now number 3 for Anandtech in F@H, so these do help. Yes, my electric bill is about $100/month, and it used to me $30. And I have 7 machines 24/7, but 10 cores !

 

[RFC Rudel]

Originally posted by: Zim
I've had my Athlon X2 for a few months now and the time has come to be honest with myself. I bought the chip mainly out of curiosity, expecting big things from it. Now that the honeymoon is over I have had a sober look at the benefits I've received from having a dual core processor. I have come to the conclusion that they are very few.

Prior to my X2 I had a mobile Athlon XP Barton overclocked to about an XP 3000+. It did all I needed it to in a timely fashion: surfing, video encoding, Visual Studio development, etc.. Enticed by the lure of the next stage in processor evolution, I bought an X2. (Of course I also needed a new mobo and video card, but was mercifully spared the expense of new memory). Having used the X2 for a while now, I am going to propose that I see no, yes *no*, substantial benefits from it over my older cpu.

I have the Windows task manager in my system tray and have been training an eye on it over the last few months. Almost never does it go above 50%. If I look closely, it?s usually only one core that?s getting hammered, while the other one is on holiday. Even applications that I assume are multi-threaded don?t seem to distribute well over the cores. Also, my feeling is that my system just isn?t as responsive as it should be at times. When one core is getting hammered, the system becomes noticeably less responsive. This isn?t the fault of the cpu, of course, it?s an issue of how software (not least the OS) is using it. Still, we can?t spend our days drooling over benchmarks. Sooner or later we want to use these things for something practical.

I realize that each person?s experiences will be different because each person uses their computer in different ways. However, I propose that multi-core processors are currently ahead of their time, and until we get some software that can get the most from them, single core processors are every bit as useful.

READ


http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=1716798&enterthread=y

 

[PandaBear]

I have a quad thread compiler script running non stop at work, dual core will be a huge boost for me.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Leper Messiah
Nothing ever lags for me. I can be running a whole mass of crap, AV, firewall, AIM, winamp, firefox, etc, and games, and it still doesn't lag. I can alt+tab out of 2k4 and my system is as responsive as if it wasn't running, which didn't happen with my winnie 3000+.

That's good to hear...I'm still on an Athlon XP (yes, old school, I know) and one of the things I hate is not being able to alt-tab out of games without everything freezing for about 30 seconds. More RAM would probably help too (even though I do already have 1GB), but I think an X2 is almost certainly going to be my next CPU when I finally do get around to upgrading.

 

[biostud]

I've had mine up running for a week and besides the extra performance over my old XP 2700+/9800pro, I wouldn't say the extra core has been put to much work yet. But I think it takes some time to get used to be able to do multiple tasks without slowing me down. I don't regret getting this system over an Venice 3000+ as I'm pretty sure it will last me a couple of years, and during that time I will learn to use my extra core.
I haven't really had that much time yet to toy around, but I'm really looking forward to it

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: Leper Messiah
Nothing ever lags for me. I can be running a whole mass of crap, AV, firewall, AIM, winamp, firefox, etc, and games, and it still doesn't lag. I can alt+tab out of 2k4 and my system is as responsive as if it wasn't running, which didn't happen with my winnie 3000+.

That's good to hear...I'm still on an Athlon XP (yes, old school, I know) and one of the things I hate is not being able to alt-tab out of games without everything freezing for about 30 seconds. More RAM would probably help too (even though I do already have 1GB), but I think an X2 is almost certainly going to be my next CPU when I finally do get around to upgrading.

I noticed this tabbing out of "lost cost" too, I could just access whatever program I wanted without waiting for the processor to be ready.

(Take the jump, I know you want to )

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: biostud

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: Leper Messiah
Nothing ever lags for me. I can be running a whole mass of crap, AV, firewall, AIM, winamp, firefox, etc, and games, and it still doesn't lag. I can alt+tab out of 2k4 and my system is as responsive as if it wasn't running, which didn't happen with my winnie 3000+.

That's good to hear...I'm still on an Athlon XP (yes, old school, I know) and one of the things I hate is not being able to alt-tab out of games without everything freezing for about 30 seconds. More RAM would probably help too (even though I do already have 1GB), but I think an X2 is almost certainly going to be my next CPU when I finally do get around to upgrading.

I noticed this tabbing out of "lost cost" too, I could just access whatever program I wanted without waiting for the processor to be ready.

(Take the jump, I know you want to )

Yes, I do want to.

(And yeah, Lost Coast was particularly bad for me...I think it really was literally approaching 30 seconds there sometimes when trying to switch back into the game...)

I'm wondering if I shouldn't just make the plunge right now (like within the next month)...it doesn't really look like anything much better will come out in the next nine months as far as I can tell. The only thing I kinda worry about, is that if I upgraded now I'd have to get that ASRock board so I could keep my AGP 6800GT and upgrade to a PCI-E card later (next summer probably)...and I'd want to do some overclocking on the X2, so I'd have to voltmod the motherboard.

 

[Zim]

This article: Single-Core CPUs Ain't Dead Yet seems to support my argument, at least in part...

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Zim
This article: Single-Core CPUs Ain't Dead Yet seems to support my argument, at least in part...

Conclusion
Investing in a fast dual-core system for performance reasons does not pay off today.

Way to quote out of context... :roll:

If you read the entire paragraph, he seems to be comparing traditional two-chip SMP with high-end dual core SMP - not exactly the same thing.

 

[Zim]

Originally posted by: ProviaFan

Originally posted by: Zim
This article: Single-Core CPUs Ain't Dead Yet seems to support my argument, at least in part...

Conclusion
Investing in a fast dual-core system for performance reasons does not pay off today.

Way to quote out of context... :roll:

If you read the entire paragraph, he seems to be comparing traditional two-chip SMP with high-end dual core SMP - not exactly the same thing.

True! I never read THG stuff anyway!

 

[Hacp]

buying an X2 right now is not worth it, but if the cheapest dual core in the future is within 60 bucks of the cheapest single core, I would reccomend it without a heartbeat? Why? Because the extra benefits the dual core processors do provide in SMP alert applications make it def worthwhile.

 

[Capt Caveman]

It matters how you use your system so I don't believe making such a general statement is right. Heavy multi-taskers, power-users, folks that use onboard sound/raid, gamers using nvidia graphic cards or multi-threaded games(yes, there are one's currently out there), users of multi-threaded apps, etc. all currently gain from using a dual-core system.

Originally posted by: Hacp
buying an X2 right now is not worth it, but if the cheapest dual core in the future is within 60 bucks of the cheapest single core, I would reccomend it without a heartbeat? Why? Because the extra benefits the dual core processors do provide in SMP alert applications make it def worthwhile.