Dual core vs. single core CPU

[Kernel Error]

I am getting ready to build my new computer and was looking at possably getting the FX-57 (single core) or the more expencive FX-60 (dual core). I wanted to know if going dual core for that much more money is worth it or would the cheaper single core be just as good.

[Shadowryche]

From what I've read, you really should only get the Dual Core if you do a lot of intense multitasking. Benchmarks between the single and dual cores for gaming purposes really aren't that significant.

Though I have no personal experience distinguishing the two.

[HeimdalX]

FX60. Dual core is the way to go... Being able to do other stuff with your computer without hindering your gaming at the same time is worth it.

[Bonez]

dual, i'm running a dual 2.2 and i know i can outdo single 2.8's and 3.0 AMD's (3.6 - 3.8 intel)

[Thrasher_Z]

It really comes down to if you want to be able to scan for viruses and encode video while playing BF2. If thats not the case then the FX-57 is all there is and up until the FX-60 was released the 57 was whoopin on the duels in all but few aps.

At any rate if you can hold off AMDs new socket is going to release soon which should bring current proccessor prices down. Currently the M2 it is sopposed to be out Q2 of 2006. So between April and July.

[Saur]

I'd go Dual. Buying a new comp with a single processor would be like buyin' a mobo w/ AGP when PCI-express is the new thang.

Also if the FX60's price is eww, the X2 4800+ is half the cost and only 200mhz less. (though the fx60's uncapped multiplier makes it easier to oc :X) so whatever's clever.

I'll post up my prospects for a new rig in a bit

<3 Saur

[Bonez]

It really comes down to if you want to be able to scan for viruses and encode video while playing BF2. If thats not the case then the FX-57 is all there is and up until the FX-60 was released the 57 was whoopin on the duels in all but few aps.

At any rate if you can hold off AMDs new socket is going to release soon which should bring current proccessor prices down. Currently the M2 it is sopposed to be out Q2 of 2006. So between April and July.amd is re-releasing the socket 940 with DDR2 support, not an entire new socket.

[Mad5cout]

It depends on what you are using it for. If you are multi taksing and want to be able to run two very high demand processes at once, then get a dual core. BUT if you are on a budget and are only getting this to run a game or one primary process at a time, you should get a single because you will be able to spend your money focusing on the speed of one processor and get a faster one.

[Thrasher_Z]

It really comes down to if you want to be able to scan for viruses and encode video while playing BF2. If thats not the case then the FX-57 is all there is and up until the FX-60 was released the 57 was whoopin on the duels in all but few aps.

At any rate if you can hold off AMDs new socket is going to release soon which should bring current proccessor prices down. Currently the M2 it is sopposed to be out Q2 of 2006. So between April and July.amd is re-releasing the socket 940 with DDR2 support, not an entire new socket.

Call it what you want but since the current 940s mem controller doesn't support DDR2 they are not compatable sockets standards. It is called a M2 socket not a M2 processor for a 940 socket.

I also agree with SAUR on the savings. An OC'd Toledo X2 core or any OC'd SanDiego core is going to produce comparable performance as their $1000 relatives.

Never the less DDR2 being a newly supported tech for AMD should put these at the top of the price list and bring current processors down.

Edit: I was just comparing the M2 socket to a 940 and they are similar at a glance but the pin arrangement does differ.

[Kernel Error]

I'll post up my prospects for a new rig in a bit

<3 Saur

Thats cool i could always use more advice :yaya:

[Nutcracker]

Just to second, or third, or 43rd what everyone else is saying - if you're going to drop that much cash definitely go dual core. You may not see that much difference in any single application today but as dual core machines become more ubiquitous, individual programs, and most likely Windows Vista (assuming that to one day be your OS of choice) will be coded to better take advantage of multiple cores the way some server apps do today.

Plus you can surf the web and play CSS at the same time, easily switching between the two. Heck, it's worth it for those situations where you accidentally hit the Windows key at the wrong time and end up at your desktop while someone's ramming a knife into your back.

(I can't be the only one this happens to...)

I also agree with Saur - the 4800+ is a much better price/performance value.

[sir_digalot]

i ould go dual too simply because they will start optimising code and o/s for the dual core setup, since most of them also support the equivilant of hyperthreading in some form too, to execute multiple threads at once it would make sense, i have run dual processor systems for as long as i could afford too, unfortunatly for the most part, they suck hard boiled eggs in terms of gaming, because the games never use both processors like say photoshop or maya does, even as far back as 2 years ago, i had a dual p2 400 system my daughter had a single p3 850 and mine could easily keep up with hers on rendering nad multithreaded processes like photoshop and such, addedt othe fact you can do somewhat more with less of a perfomance hit, these days my older p4 system is not the best but i do not have the cash to upgrade much, certainly not a new mobo and ram and gfx card, so i am stuck with a single core thing...

allthough in a few years ( it may seem long but it will not be that long) they will totally revamp and remodel pc architecture to somehingthat is way more efficient then currently used then we will all have to go out and upgrade, hopefully though they will allow backwards compatibility with existing system using vm's or emulators, but, i would not be suprised if they didn;t.

dual care, as much ram as you can get on the thing, 4 pci-e slots, and 4 sli'd 7800 gt's as well as a creative x-fi... i think you should be set with that for at least a month or two, then, and you may get at least 80fps on F.E.A.R. at 1024 res full quuality :lol ;)

[Gruthar]

allthough in a few years ( it may seem long but it will not be that long) they will totally revamp and remodel pc architecture to somehingthat is way more efficient then currently used then we will all have to go out and upgrade, hopefully though they will allow backwards compatibility with existing system using vm's or emulators, but, i would not be suprised if they didn;t.

Eh? I'll bite...

I've heard of a few changes in different areas of PC architecture. At one point Intel was pushing a new, supposedly more efficient case factor/motherboard layout (BTX instead of the current ATX.) Still waiting to actually see it happen... We've already seen some significant change in our processor architecture, with 90 nm dies, dual cores, and the introduction of 64 bit processors to domestic markets. Sure, the basic ol' i386 machine language has expanded over the years, but it's still reverse compatible, it's still base 2. You can have just about any cockamamey architecture imaginable, but as long as the basic machine language doesn't change, it'll still run. As far as I know, there's no reason for it to change. Even if something like a quantum co-processor is added, old code will still run on future generation i386s. The thing that kills compatibility is the OS, not the actual computer architecture. *cough* Vista *cough*.

[Bonez]

well the next big thing in PC's is carbon transistors or something like that, a quater of the heat for double the clock.

[sir_digalot]

who said the current design on a x86 machine was very good at all? hence all the clock speeds and stuff, even motorola have a more efficient system, hence apples were cool, for the few... look at the nex next gen consoles none of them are even considering an x86 architechture, including the micorosft owned xbox.. they are all using alternate designs, okay we wil still use 1's and 0's to represent data, on or off, but the fact that a machine will not be using the same processing methods and reading snstructions differntly. x86 is well, it is 1960's technology, we flew to the moon on a 8086, the shuttles had 3 8088 computers in them for years, these are "cutting edge" or were, we are getting more processing power out of alternate instruction designs then we are out of the limited architcture of old. unfortunatly we will need to emulate the x86 for legacy system,and since it nearly is all x86 we are screwed for now... but thats life... that was what i was getting at... in a round about way

[Gruthar]

Interestingly enough, the next gen consoles you cite as your example all use some variant of the PowerPC processor, whose architecture has also been around for a while... since 1991. HP and Intel attempted to gradually replace the x86 with the IA-64 architecture, also known as the Itanium processors, which were expected to edge out and replace the x86. Because of flaws with the L3 cache and the code footprint, it was a colossal failure. The Itanium 2 exists, but it'll probably never expand to anything beyond supercomputers and mainframes. Yes, there's a good chance the x86 will, eventually, be dumped, but it's much farther off than just a few years - it still works damned well, and the market share for the x86 is so huge, though, that the next generation architecture - if there is one - will probably have some hardware level emulation/interpretation, if not the OS. If there's anything the history of computing can teach us, it's that when it comes to hardware, it's all marketing. That's still true today, as Apple quite recently switched all its Macs from the PowerPC to the old Apollo-capsule-era x86. :D

[Thrasher_Z]

x86 refers to the reverse compatibility in instruction going back to the 8086 released in 1978. This reverse compatibility is what has kept computing/software advancing. By having a standard to build up from for all that support x86 instead of rethinking the wheel and starting over from scratch. Then expecting every one to follow suit and start over new is kinda like Intels RDRAM or BTX standard. Niether one aided computing as a whole and where put to the wayside next to arrogance that spawned them.
What reason would there be to change from the x86 because computer would be using photon or quantum physics to do computing rather than transistors?
As for the IA-64. The AMD64 puts more emphisis on the point I am making. AMD bring forth 64bit computing, staying reverse compatible and remaining efficient with current software average users incorperate in their daily usage has kept their advancements rising for all to reap benificial gains.

[loopcycle]

save your money and build a dual core later...
quad cores are on their way.


INTEL QUAD CORE (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/02/11/BUGCOH6P2B1.DTL&type=business)

[Gruthar]

It's gonna be a server chip, which means it'll cost you your soul and the motherboards that you would need to run it are probably not well suited to gaming.

[Gruthar]

Just to shed some more light on the evolution of the x86 and to continue beating a dead horse, here's an article from Ars Technica that basically says all I possibly could:

http://arstechnica.com/cpu/2q00/x86future/isa-future-1.html

Page 3 on basically gets to the crux of the article.

[loopcycle]

...it'll cost you your soul...

as long as the devil has 0% financing i should be set.

[Thrasher_Z]

Just to shed some more light on the evolution of the x86 and to continue beating a dead horse, here's an article from Ars Technica that basically says all I possibly could:

http://arstechnica.com/cpu/2q00/x86future/isa-future-1.html

Page 3 on basically gets to the crux of the article.

I figured by the way your original post on this subject was stated, that you were trying to restate something you found interesting but didn't understand. Considering your response was a link to the article that confused you I must have hit er on the head eh?

To quote the article you posted (page 3 by the way):
So once you take the presence of the x86 architecture (and legacy ISAs in general) as a given and begin to appreciate such ISAs for the valid and important class of problems that they represent, you can see how questions about when and where x86 will "hit its limit" are moot. In fact, they don't even make sense. Instead they become almost like weird koans

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?

When will the x86 architecture hit its performance limits?

Once we look at the direction that current and future architectures are heading, it'll be even more apparent that the question of the "limits of x86 performance" is an un-question. It no longer exists as a meaningful way to think about the advancement of computing. The only question you can ask anymore that even remotely resembles the old obsolescence question is, "how long will x86 software be around." That's the only question that makes sense, and the answer is "probably a long, long time."
END QUOTE

compare this to my response. Hmmm

The article you were reading was about how to change processing architecture and stay compatible with current instruction. Thus making x86 architecture irrelevent to the processing architecture.

BTW when was that written '99 or 2k? :yaya: :thumbsup: