Which is better P4 Dual Core 3.2ghz or P4 3.6ghz?

[CocoGdog]

Which is better? I ran both with WinXP and saw that the single processor P4 3.6 was faster than Dual Core 3.2ghz, but when does the Dual Core perform better than single processor - in 3d games, CAD, etc..?

 

[Jeff7181]

Dual cores will perform better when running multiple programs, or multithreaded programs. Currently, no games are multithreaded, however, nVidia has a beta driver for their video cards that's designed for use with dual core processors that offloads some of the work the GPU normally does to the 2nd processor core, which apparently increases performance up to 30% in certain situations.

 

[Griffinhart]

And as Jeff mentioned, Multi-threaded apps benefit significantly.

These include any of the various Photoshop apps (inlcuding older versions of Elements included with a lot of digital camera's and scanners) And many video editing apps benefit as well.

You're average user would be hard pressed to see much of a performance difference in games (or single threaded apps) between either processor. In games, your videoboard will often be your limiting factor.

 

[Fenuxx]

Originally posted by: Griffinhart
And as Jeff mentioned, Multi-threaded apps benefit significantly.

These include any of the various Photoshop apps (inlcuding older versions of Elements included with a lot of digital camera's and scanners) And many video editing apps benefit as well.

You're average user would be hard pressed to see much of a performance difference in games (or single threaded apps) between either processor. In games, your videoboard will often be your limiting factor.