Will any core duo processor multitask better than my P4?

[daveymark]

SO I went to the tomshardware charts, but I was confused. I currently have a P4 550 3.4ghz

I'm considering an upgrade, mainly because I want to be able to burn dvd's while surfing/playing games. Will any duo processor suffice?

e.g. the 2.66ghz one?

 

[shabby]

I dont think you'll be able to burn anything while a game is loading, why not wait 5-10 minutes and then play a game?

 

[daveymark]

Originally posted by: shabby
I dont think you'll be able to burn anything while a game is loading, why not wait 5-10 minutes and then play a game?

I've done one better. I have the lappy do the burning.

It'd be nice to not have the lappy out though. are there any cor duo processors that can do this? how about that 6300?

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: daveymark

Originally posted by: shabby
I dont think you'll be able to burn anything while a game is loading, why not wait 5-10 minutes and then play a game?

I've done one better. I have the lappy do the burning.

It'd be nice to not have the lappy out though. are there any cor duo processors that can do this? how about that 6300?

It really depends on the I/O system too...as long as you're burning to a drive on a different channel from the one your game is on (same goes for wherever your source files for the disc burning are), you should be fine. Having a dual core won't help much for multitasking if your processes are all fighting for the same hard drive at the same time.

 

[eelw]

Really shouldn't matter as long you have buffer underrun protection. I am routinely encoding videos to h.264 when I burn DVDs on my P4c 3.4GHz. Haven't tried it on my E6400 since the burner is still on my older system. But I can now playback two 1080p videos at the same time without any frame dropping

 

[DrMrLordX]

Gotta agree with eelw here, good burners won't produce coasters due to multitasking these days. However, if you want us to do a CPU comparison, you're going to have to be more specific than "e.g. the 2.66ghz one? ". Which CPU do you mean? If you're talking about the Pentium D 805, don't bother with it.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX
Gotta agree with eelw here, good burners won't produce coasters due to multitasking these days. However, if you want us to do a CPU comparison, you're going to have to be more specific than "e.g. the 2.66ghz one? ". Which CPU do you mean? If you're talking about the Pentium D 805, don't bother with it.

QFT. The Pentium D used to be the best bang for the buck cpu for a long time. However, since the recent price drops from AMD and Intel, the 805 became obsolete. The 805 is close to $100. If you buy an 805, you would be buying it with overclocking in mind. There is another $50 for a heatsink right there. For that price, you could have bought an X2 3800+ which will likely overclock to at least 2.4-2.5Ghz on the stock cooler.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
QFT. The Pentium D used to be the best bang for the buck cpu for a long time. However, since the recent price drops from AMD and Intel, the 805 became obsolete. The 805 is close to $100. If you buy an 805, you would be buying it with overclocking in mind. There is another $50 for a heatsink right there. For that price, you could have bought an X2 3800+ which will likely overclock to at least 2.4-2.5Ghz on the stock cooler.

While what you said about the X2 3800 is true, will he still be able to slap a C2D on his motherboard, with nothing more than a BIOS update?

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: dguy6789
QFT. The Pentium D used to be the best bang for the buck cpu for a long time. However, since the recent price drops from AMD and Intel, the 805 became obsolete. The 805 is close to $100. If you buy an 805, you would be buying it with overclocking in mind. There is another $50 for a heatsink right there. For that price, you could have bought an X2 3800+ which will likely overclock to at least 2.4-2.5Ghz on the stock cooler.

While what you said about the X2 3800 is true, will he still be able to slap a C2D on his motherboard, with nothing more than a BIOS update?

I was speaking in context of a completely new build. However I do agree, if all he has to do is update his bios, swapping out his current processor for a Pentium D would be a solid choice.

 

[DrMrLordX]

If he wants a cheap Pentium D, he should get the 915, not the 805.

 

[daveymark]

I was considering offloading the whole PC and buying a new dell.

 

[Dribble]

Originally posted by: daveymark
SO I went to the tomshardware charts, but I was confused. I currently have a P4 550 3.4ghz

I'm considering an upgrade, mainly because I want to be able to burn dvd's while surfing/playing games. Will any duo processor suffice?

e.g. the 2.66ghz one?

I would have thought you could surf/game and burn at the moment - it's not like burning cd's takes much cpu time. Obviously for multi-tasking a dual core processor will be better and each core of a E6700 (2.66ghz one) is much faster then your P4 anyway.

 

[myocardia]

I just thought of something. The reason you can't game while you burn CD's/DVD's now isn't because of your processor, it's because you only have one hard drive. Get a second hard drive, and store everything you'll be burning on it, and you'll be able to game while you burn, with your current system.

 

[Dribble]

Originally posted by: myocardia
I just thought of something. The reason you can't game while you burn CD's/DVD's now isn't because of your processor, it's because you only have one hard drive. Get a second hard drive, and store everything you'll be burning on it, and you'll be able to game while you burn, with your current system.

HD's are quite capable of loading games and passing info to the CD burner at the same time. The only time that would really be an issue is if you had an IDE hard disk and it was sharing the same cable as the CD/DVD drive as IDE's sharing is rubbish (master device just blocks slave), but this is very unlikely to be the case.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Dribble

Originally posted by: myocardia
I just thought of something. The reason you can't game while you burn CD's/DVD's now isn't because of your processor, it's because you only have one hard drive. Get a second hard drive, and store everything you'll be burning on it, and you'll be able to game while you burn, with your current system.

HD's are quite capable of loading games and passing info to the CD burner at the same time. The only time that would really be an issue is if you had an IDE hard disk and it was sharing the same cable as the CD/DVD drive as IDE's sharing is rubbish (master device just blocks slave), but this is very unlikely to be the case.

It's quite possible that he is maxing out his hard drive transfer rate just loading the game.

 

[Parasitic]

I do it all the time, playing GW and burning a DVD.
It helps having GW on my Raptor and my data files on a second HDD though, that and having a Plextor with 8MB cache too.
4400+ x2 so far is simply awesome.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Parasitic
I do it all the time, playing GW and burning a DVD.
It helps having GW on my Raptor and my data files on a second HDD though, that and having a Plextor with 8MB cache too.
4400+ x2 so far is simply awesome.

Try burning from your Raptor, while you play a game that's installed on it.