What are the benefits of quad core compared to dual core?

[HFS+]

i got a quad core macbook pro and i was wondering what the benefits of quad core are to dual core to a typical college student.

 

[IonusX]

i got a quad core macbook pro and i was wondering what the benefits of quad core are to dual core to a typical college student.

multi-tasking is improved noticeably as well as multi-threaded applications (disc burning, video/audio encoding)
if you do any light gaming it would also be of benefit, however your onb a mac so thats basically off the table.
movie watching might benefit

 

[Kristijonas]

multi-tasking is improved noticeably

Are you sure that going from Sandy Bridge B840 to i5 2300 would provide noticeable multi-tasking improvements? What exactly do you mean by multi-tasking?

 

[upsdriver]

Are you sure that going from Sandy Bridge B840 to i5 2300 would provide noticeable multi-tasking improvements? What exactly do you mean by multi-tasking?

You're comparing different architectures. If you took an i5 2500 and turned off 2 cores, you probably won't notice a difference in day to day tasks. Additional cores will help in things like video encoding and certain games.

 

[TuxDave]

If you work with massive excel sheets, the extra cores help.

 

[Mars999]

multi-tasking is improved noticeably as well as multi-threaded applications (disc burning, video/audio encoding)
if you do any light gaming it would also be of benefit, however your onb a mac so thats basically off the table.
movie watching might benefit

Hold on there, he can run Win7 on that and get great gaming results... So dual boot it and game on the Windows side if you can get a OSX version and keep OSX for everything else.

 

[toolbag]

Nothing. Most typical college students search the web for information for reports or work with word or excel, all of which can be done with a p4.

If you are a student that works with music cutting tracks or a video editor then more cores will give you better times.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

You have got to pay attention to the generation of the chip as-well. While a quad core is generally better off than a dual core, it may not be a fair comparison. A first generation AMD quad core is not as fast the latest Sandy Bridge dual core. It gets more complicated when you break it down to specific apps, too.

 

[Zorander]

It depends on whether your applications can make use of the additional cores or not. Multi-threaded apps, especially video encoding, will definitely benefit. On games that support more than 2 cores, it will translate to a generally smoother experience. If all you do is web browsing, facebook and the like however, I doubt there is much noticable difference.

 

[Smartazz]

If by typical college student you mean web surfing and word processing, hardly any difference.

 

[VirtualLarry]

For things like Distributed Computing, which can generally use all the cores and GPUs you can throw at it, it matters a LOT.

For ordinary desktop tasks? Not much, but it can make multitasking a bit smoother. (Even if you are running DC in the background on said quad-core at the same time.)

 

[amenx]

For laptops I'd rather go dual core. Better battery life.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

i got a quad core macbook pro and i was wondering what the benefits of quad core are to dual core to a typical college student.

You'll get to pay student loans longer with a quad core.