dual core only boosts new applications?

[banabubu]

this is a quote from different post

-- So programs natively take advantage of both cores without additional programming required?

++ no, generally speaking the program has to be coded to take advantage of dual cores, otherwise it will run using only one core(most games for example use 1 core).

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Does that mean older programs wont be able to take advantage of dual core? They will be half the speed cpu can give? Not sure if that kind of programming they were discussing

 

[Sable]

Dual/multicore only boost applications which are written to be multithreaded.

BUT if you are running multiple applications that are single threaded the OS will share the load between each core.

AND for games, graphics drivers are now multithreaded (well NV's are anyway, not sure about ATI) so you will see a miniscule performance increase with dual core.

 

[banabubu]

so if running only 1 major program and it was not multitreading then c2d would not be much faster than regular chip in similar ghz speed or does new architecture still make it couple hundred mhz faster actually?

 

[Furen]

The clock speed has little to do with the single-threaded performance except when comparing CPUs within the same microarchitecture. A K8 (Athlon 64) is over 50% faster per clock than a Pentium 4. A Core 2 Duo is between 20-30% faster than a K8. So if you want to compare by clockspeed then you need to adjust your numbers respectively.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: banabubu
so if running only 1 major program and it was not multitreading then c2d would not be much faster than regular chip in similar ghz speed or does new architecture still make it couple hundred mhz faster actually?

Since core2 is an all new intel design, it'll still be faster than AMD or P4 equivalents.

of course for different uses other components matter a lot more than cpu.

1. for gaming - graphics card
2. every day usage - ram + hard drive speed

 

[LittleNemoNES]

well NV's are anyway, not sure about ATI

ATI's were multi-threaded before Nvidia's IIRC

 

[akshayt]

what do you mean by graphic drivers are multithreaded and hence there is no major difference between single core and dual core in gaming performance?