How long before Core2 becomes like Pentium4?

[Kevmanw430]

Hm, this is funny. Okay, my two cents. Pick up a Phenom II 955 for $113 on Newegg for $113, since that is what you'd get, not an Athlon and then see which wins, C2D or Phenom II. You'd be suprised how L3 cache helps. The unlocked multi dosen't hurt either. I had a 955 that I ran at 3.8GHz UNDERVOLTED, 4.5GHz when I volted it up a bit.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Most apps take advantage of either three or four cores, but not more than that.

Name 6000.

 

[Kevmanw430]

Every decent game, barring BC2, productivity program, and office program released in the past two years.

 

[DominionSeraph]

and then see which wins, C2D or Phenom II.

Mhmmm.
"Lose" doesn't mean "obsolete," though.

My BiL's Athlon 64 3200+ with 320MB 8800GTS will lose to a lot of things. Yet he can still play EVE at 60FPS with 4xAA.

I even traded him an AM2 motherboard with 3200+ for his 939 with 3200+ so he could drop in dual-core for next to nothing, yet he's still putting off an upgrade.
The simple fact is, he doesn't need it.

My system has two cores, each 30% faster than his single. Yet I can use his computer just fine. I like mine better, but his still gets the job done remarkably well.


I'm thinking that most of the quad-core enthusiasts here probably just have horribly optimized systems and so have to throw hardware at the problem to make up for their deficiencies.

 

[Kevmanw430]

That is completely true. Core 2 Duo will not be obselete for a good time, however, it no longer makes sense when you can get cheap Phenom II's that kill it in multi-threaded, or new SB CPU's that win in everything. Core 2 Quads are still sort of viable, if you can get one cheap.

 

[Arkaign]

Hm, this is funny. Okay, my two cents. Pick up a Phenom II 955 for $113 on Newegg for $113, since that is what you'd get, not an Athlon and then see which wins, C2D or Phenom II. You'd be suprised how L3 cache helps. The unlocked multi dosen't hurt either. I had a 955 that I ran at 3.8GHz UNDERVOLTED, 4.5GHz when I volted it up a bit.

4.5ghz is extreme for PhII. Most topped out at around 3.8, 4.0 was generally the upper limit even with good water cooling.

As for L3, well it's a good idea, but it didn't really help overcome the C2Q or anything. Clock for clock a Q9550 and PhII are fairly even, but with both at the same clock speed the higher cache C2Q's are still a shade faster. Not enough to really matter though.

Comparing PhII X4 against C2D is silly. PhII X2 vs. C2D E8xxx is about right. Or Athlon II X2 vs. E5xxx/6xxx.

Fwiw I had a PhII X4 805 and PhII X4 955BE, and liked them quite well. When it came time for my last upgrade, X6 1100 or i5 2500k, it was no contest though.

 

[Arkaign]

That is completely true. Core 2 Duo will not be obselete for a good time, however, it no longer makes sense when you can get cheap Phenom II's that kill it in multi-threaded, or new SB CPU's that win in everything. Core 2 Quads are still sort of viable, if you can get one cheap.

Yeah that is a problem. They are quite $$$ That's the main reason I went PhII last time from C2D, it cost me less to get the mobo+cpu than a decent C2Q would have cost me for my old setup.

 

[DominionSeraph]

That is completely true. Core 2 Duo will not be obselete for a good time, however, it no longer makes sense when you can get cheap Phenom II's that kill it in multi-threaded, or new SB CPU's that win in everything.

You can get a 3.2GHz Pentium Dual-Core from Dell for $310 inc. OS. A 955 will be $420 after rebate if you build it yourself. $500 at cyberpowerpc.

For a parental/office machine, the lower TDP and lower price make the Dell the more attractive choice. So Core architecture still has a place. It's narrow, but that narrow market also happens to be the biggest.

Phenoms have come down in price quite a bit in the last month or so, but they haven't made it to the budget OEM lines.
A $310 955 vs a $310 E5800 would be a tougher decision. For home/office, I'd still give the nod to the Core.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Yeah that is a problem. They are quite $$$ That's the main reason I went PhII last time from C2D, it cost me less to get the mobo+cpu than a decent C2Q would have cost me for my old setup.

+1 This is exactly why I went AMD this time around. Plus the lack of economical yet decently featured 775 mobos with DDR3 support.
newEgg had killer deals on combos last Black Friday (X3 740BE + Biostar mobo, X4 940BE + Gigabyte mobo).

I'm currently bumming a rig at the folks' place (stock X4 940BE, 4GB, crammed in my SSD and 6950) and am quite happy using it. Sure, the 'ol i7 920 @4GHz back home is faster, but also at 2-3x the price.

 

[bigsnyder]

Seems that the JoeQ general public is no longer interested in what is "faster" or "better". It is all about bells and whistles. Just take the GPU development cycles for example, new architectures have longer release windows than they once did. At one time we got new (and I don't mean rehashed or altered) chips every six months, not anymore. I think the CPU market will do the same. AMD in a sense has already done this. When Core2 came out, it brought a level of performance that most (obviously not all) people still do not fully utilize. Those of use who tinker "under the shade tree" with our machines so-to-speak are becoming fewer in numbers IMO.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

You can get a 3.2GHz Pentium Dual-Core from Dell for $310 inc. OS. A 955 will be $420 after rebate if you build it yourself. $500 at cyberpowerpc.

For a parental/office machine, the lower TDP and lower price make the Dell the more attractive choice. So Core architecture still has a place. It's narrow, but that narrow market also happens to be the biggest.

Phenoms have come down in price quite a bit in the last month or so, but they haven't made it to the budget OEM lines.
A $310 955 vs a $310 E5800 would be a tougher decision. For home/office, I'd still give the nod to the Core.

The point here is future proofing. That's what you forget. An Athlon II X4 is not only better now, but even more in the future. Heck, even an Athlon II X3 if you want to save $25.

As for that list of programs you wanted, that's very easy.

Look at any game from 2009 onwards and you'll see most take advantage of three cores but not four. Video encoding applications like Handbrake and Mainconcept take advantage of multiple cores. Productivity, rendering, and file compression applications like Photoshop and Office, 3ds Max, and 7-zip, respectively, take advantage of multiple cores. So does Windows when multi-tasking.

There's just no reason nowadays to go for a dual-core (that has no HyperThreading) when applications are exploiting the cores in quad-cores and they're priced so well. Stop crying about single-threaded apps. Those are limited to audio encoding now, and the Athlon II X4 is pretty close in single-threaded performance to the Core 2 Duo. Again, look at Cinebench single-threaded.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

4.5ghz is extreme for PhII. Most topped out at around 3.8, 4.0 was generally the upper limit even with good water cooling.

As for L3, well it's a good idea, but it didn't really help overcome the C2Q or anything. Clock for clock a Q9550 and PhII are fairly even, but with both at the same clock speed the higher cache C2Q's are still a shade faster. Not enough to really matter though.

Comparing PhII X4 against C2D is silly. PhII X2 vs. C2D E8xxx is about right. Or Athlon II X2 vs. E5xxx/6xxx.

Fwiw I had a PhII X4 805 and PhII X4 955BE, and liked them quite well. When it came time for my last upgrade, X6 1100 or i5 2500k, it was no contest though.

It's pretty much the norm for a C3 Phenom II X4 955 to hit 4GHz at 1.45 or 1.5V on a decent air cooler. Some of the newer batches are able to get 4.2GHz at 1.5V. 4.5GHz is definitely something which you may not even reach with water cooling, though.

 

[DominionSeraph]

The point here is future proofing.

LOL!!

Look, you seem to be under the impression that any task can be split an infinite number of ways to achieve an infinite speedup on an computer with infinite cores. This is not the case.
Most tasks are not embarrassingly parallel. And those that are are generally better done on the GPU.

The Athlon II is slower clock-for-clock, core-for-core than the Core architecture. With single-threaded performance being the bottleneck for so many things an Athlon II quad is not likely to buy you a day.

The Athlon II X4 really has just a very tiny market -- those who need a basic PC but perform some task that can occasionally load four cores.
For anyone who really needs the cores, shelling out an additional $20 for the 955, $80 for the 1090T or ~$140 for the i5 is the smart buy.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'm going to have to come down on the err-on-the-side-of-more-cores option. I get that most people will be fine with two, especially with hyperthreading, in terms of raw horsepower, and that a properly configured computer can work efficiently with fewer cores. But I've been throwing additional cores at the problem long enough to come around to the opinion that brute force is sometimes the most efficient option.

"Quantity has a quality all its own."

 

[LoneNinja]

I was honestly and very pleasantly surprised that my Phenom 9850 and Radeon 4670 were capable of delivering smooth frame rates on BC2. Granted it's on a 1366x768 display, but it'll still run medium lag free. I think Core2(maybe not the early low clocked 65nm dual cores) but at least Wolfdale and the Core2Quads will be around for some time yet. Many new products are being released that are actually weaker, yet far more energy efficient. But if Atom is fast enough for the next 2 years, than so will Core2. lol

 

[Raduque]

I'm using an E8400 Wolfdale @ 3.6ghz. Before this, I had an E6300 Conroe @ 2.8ghz - I bought it in 2005 or maybe 2006. Both CPUs can handle anything I throw at them (I only have the E8400 because I got it for a song - mobo, CPU and 4gb ram for $18).

My mom uses a Pentium Dual Core 1.7ghz - hell my sister is still using a single-core Pentium-M overclocked to 2.26ghz. It easily handles everything she does.

 

[Kevmanw430]

The highest I had my was Phenom II at 4.5GHz under a pretty crazy water cooling system, and even then, the voltages were so high, it would've died very quickly. So, I put it on 3.8. Also, the fact that I was able to build (after rebates) a Phenom II X4 system for my brother at $412, with a 5770, 4GB RAM, and a 640GB 7200RPM HDD, trumps anything you can get value wise from Dell.

 

[Cerb]

LOL!!

Look, you seem to be under the impression that any task can be split an infinite number of ways to achieve an infinite speedup on an computer with infinite cores. This is not the case.
Most tasks are not embarrassingly parallel. And those that are are generally better done on the GPU.

The Athlon II is slower clock-for-clock, core-for-core than the Core architecture. With single-threaded performance being the bottleneck for so many things an Athlon II quad is not likely to buy you a day.

While true, 4x is nowhere near infinite, and games are most certainly doing good at using them (using them well doesn't need a 4x speed-up v. 1 core, it just more of a speedup than having fewer cores). An Athlon II may be slower per-clock, on average, but not by enough to matter. You can basically compare them at clock parity: large cache C2D/Q v. PhII x2-4, small-cache and/or low-FSB C2D/Q v. AII x2-4.

The Athlon II X4 really has just a very tiny market -- those who need a basic PC but perform some task that can occasionally load four cores.
For anyone who really needs the cores, shelling out an additional $20 for the 955, $80 for the 1090T or ~$140 for the i5 is the smart buy.

Hence Llano and Brazos. With the new Pentiums, the Athlon II's last bastion of usefulness has finally been infringed upon. Unless you run POVRay or similar, IMO, the 6-core PhIIs are just too much, compared to SB i3 and i5 CPUs.

As it is, throw a nice new GPU (not necessarily fast, just new), and a bit more RAM, into a Core 2 or Stars box that's a few years old, and maybe upgrade the HDD, and you will have fixed the ills of most such systems. Today, big vendors are stills selling S775 boxes. As in, today, there is still enough new demand.

Personally, I think the Core 2 CPUs will last another 3-5 years, provided minor upgrades are done to the systems.

 

[Inspire]

Dos 5.0

what os? Does win95 even run ok on that old a rig?

 

[Blitzvogel]

Core 2 will never be like Netburst. Core 2 from the get go was powerful, cool running and energy efficient. Netburst really left alot to be desired.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Core2 will never be like the P4 because unlike the P4 a Core2 didn't suck from day 1

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

LOL!!

Look, you seem to be under the impression that any task can be split an infinite number of ways to achieve an infinite speedup on an computer with infinite cores. This is not the case.
Most tasks are not embarrassingly parallel. And those that are are generally better done on the GPU.

The Athlon II is slower clock-for-clock, core-for-core than the Core architecture. With single-threaded performance being the bottleneck for so many things an Athlon II quad is not likely to buy you a day.

The Athlon II X4 really has just a very tiny market -- those who need a basic PC but perform some task that can occasionally load four cores.
For anyone who really needs the cores, shelling out an additional $20 for the 955, $80 for the 1090T or ~$140 for the i5 is the smart buy.

And again with the same crap. I'll repeat it to you once again: most applications take advantage of three or four cores, but not more than that. Single-threaded is clearly the bottleneck today if all you do all day is encode audio, though. For everything else, it's wiser to buy a CPU with more than two threads. Where's your list of examples arguing for your argument that single-threaded performance is more important? Oh, wait. You don't have one. Even web browsers are multi-threaded now, prime examples being Chrome and IE 9. So is MS Office, Photoshop, 7-zip, 3ds Max, Handbrake, and any recent game (from 2009 onwards).

No one said tasks are massively parallel; and a task taking advantage of three or four cores does not make it "massively parallel". Of course, as always, you won't admit you're wrong.

EDIT: also, multi-tasking, like Arkaign said, is better on a CPU with more than two threads.

The Athlon II X4 640 is comparable to the Core 2 Quad Q8400 when it comes to single-threaded performance and comparable to the Q9400 in multi-threaded performance, so comparing it to the Q8200 isn't doing it justice.

 

[Arkaign]

Core2 will never be like the P4 because unlike the P4 a Core2 didn't suck from day 1

P4 sucked on launch and on closing (Prescott, Prescott2M, etc).

But if P4 Northwood sucked, then so did Athlon XP Palomino/Tbred/etc. Because the P4s were just as fast and sometimes faster. Also not that expensive unless one insisted on buying the high end models (top AXPs were also unwise chocies due to $$).

 

[Arkaign]

To throw some weight behind the 'more cores is better' idea ; windows scheduling and the copious amount of processes that PCs run these days. Even a basic quad like the lowly Athlon II X4 (or q8200 for example) will handle running a web browser, a media player, an av program, some windows updates, etc a little better unless you're talking a massively faster dual-core. Of course a faster hdd helps a lot with this kind of load as well, so meh.

 

[SparkyJJO]

P4 sucked on launch and on closing (Prescott, Prescott2M, etc).

But if P4 Northwood sucked, then so did Athlon XP Palomino/Tbred/etc. Because the P4s were just as fast and sometimes faster. Also not that expensive unless one insisted on buying the high end models (top AXPs were also unwise chocies due to $$).

Don't get so detailed on me. I was speaking in general terms