Dual Core effect

[RockGuitarDude]

I understand that dual core usually shows an increase when multi-threaded applications. Would running 2 programs at the same time receive this sort of benefit?

Example:

Running a game such as World of Warcraft and alt-tabbing out to browse for information on the internet. When I try to do this on my current Athlon 64 2800+ (1gig ram) I get a lot of lag while browsing. Would I be able to run something like this in the background with better efficiency using dual core? (Granted that I get sufficient RAM.)

I find myself doing this a lot so if I can fix this, it would be great. When we see dual core laptops (non-apple) I hope to get one if this is a good solultion.

 

[sonoma1993]

yes you will be able todo that more efficent.

 

[RedShirt]

It "should" help.

Please keep in mind that depending on where you are (lagforge) in WoW, your RAM could be maxed.

I have a 3.0 GHz P4 with Hyperthreading and I upgraded from 1 to 2 gigs of RAM. I run dual monitors. Before when I'd start to work on my second monitor, my system would be REALLY sluggish for a long while, and then I would finally be able to work on something.

I think it was due to 1GB not being enough and the computer accessing the swap file. Once it pulled what it needed from the SWAP I was able to work, but then when I went back to wow, it was all choppy and bad for a little bit.

Upgrading to 2GB solved this problem. It is so nice

However, I am unsure about your situation, as the P4 with hyper threading does tend to do a little better in multitasking than a single core Athlon 64. This is why I?m thinking a dual core would help your situation, but you also may want to consider RAM.

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: RockGuitarDude
I understand that dual core usually shows an increase when multi-threaded applications. Would running 2 programs at the same time receive this sort of benefit?

Example:

Running a game such as World of Warcraft and alt-tabbing out to browse for information on the internet. When I try to do this on my current Athlon 64 2800+ (1gig ram) I get a lot of lag while browsing. Would I be able to run something like this in the background with better efficiency using dual core? (Granted that I get sufficient RAM.)

I find myself doing this a lot so if I can fix this, it would be great. When we see dual core laptops (non-apple) I hope to get one if this is a good solultion.

A dual core will make that a lot easier, although that is a minor benifit. You would be able to run your game, and have something like video encoding going on in the background with no slow downs.

 

[TSS]

like stated before, it'll be a little more efficient, but if you have a large swapfile and slow HDD it'll still be sluggish.

the biggest benifit with dual core will be that you'll see that the browsing is alot more smooth. also flash stuff still plays at full power. provided you got enough ram you might even boot up a second game.

 

[RockGuitarDude]

Very exciting to hear!

If I could bother you all with another question, is there a place I can see benchmarks for the newer mobile video cards? I was looking at getting something with a 6600 mobile card but can't determine the performance difference between that and the 6800 go.

I really would like to play WoW completely maxed with all anti-aliasing / filtering effects etc at a high resolution.

 

[alimoalem]

i'm not sure either of those cards would cut it if you want to play with maxed settings

 

[Bobthelost]

I doubt dual core would make all that much difference, there might be a tiny improvement at the switch over point but mainly i'd blame it on the RAM.

Dual core excells for mutlithreaded apps, or when you want to run WoW while running folding@home in the background. Single cores can multitask too, and you're not talking about a very heavy CPU load for the background app.

Way to check if you're maxing your ram is to open task manager and look at the "commit charge (K)" peak value, if it's greater than your installed RAM then you need more.