The quad or dual thread.. money for money..

[trog100]

On winrar, it depends on how they were compressed. I personally compress lots of files, and download lots of heavily compressed files and often see over 80% usage on my system (three cores maxed out, dribbles on the 4th)

THe reason is that lots of people choose 'store' in winrar, which is only a container file and does no compression at all. set it to maximum and you'll notice a lot smaller files (10-15% in most case for me) and a lot more CPU usage.

As yogurt mentioned too, ram and HDD can cripple it - if you're opening from say Drive C: and pasting it to drive C:. that means it goes .rar -> temp files -> destination, making three accesses on the same hard drive. That could easily choke the drive, causing you slower speeds (and thus lower CPU usage) Running out of ram does the same thing, as it does smaller tasks/has to wait for ram to be freed again.

This is another example of usage - your files dont need it, so it doesnt matter to you. My files do, so it does for me.

you are a very anti multicore person, but keep in mind that some of us do see benefits from it. Because you dont see it it may not be worth it to you, but try and emphasise that rather than generic statements about how multicore is a scam, it was forced upon us and no one needs it.

i dont say no one needs it mussels.. dont misquote me.. i say its wasted on the average user.. the average user dosnt need it.. the scam part is.. the average user is being told he does need it and will benefit from it....

read what i say before u make comment..

trog

 

[phanbuey]

I need MORE POWAH MORE MORE MORE!...

what the average user needs is MORE cores, which are FASTER with MORE multithreaded software, and better power management. Oh... and SSD Raid set-ups, preferrably no less than 1TB in size. And a GFX card with a Socket like an MB so that you can upgrade the gpu at will, with GDDR4/5 ram slots so you can add more/faster memory when needed.

Fat clients FTW! to each his own supercomputer!

Then, i can have core 8 powering all the shiny, glassy graphics on my vista (go processlasso!) and cores 1-7 running all my apps in their full multithreaded glory @ 5GHz.

Btw, I put all of vista's services on one core using processorlasso's afinity changer, so now core 3 gets to deal with bloat, while cores 0-2 get to play with my apps uninterrupted.

all im saying is that my quad keeps me warm at night. Literally, I am warmer at night.

 

[MilkyWay]

So what your saying is it is user dependent, only some users will need quad core and others will only need dual core cpu.

The average home user dosnt need quad core but some people who use 3d modelling or do heavy duty tasks like that might benefit.
At least servers have their own cpu that can be more than 4 core. Multiple sockets tho.

 

[phanbuey]

it is user dependent, we're way past the point of beating a dead horse. We are now stomping on the stain in the ground where the dead horse used to be.

People being mislead as to what they need is a scam, trog is right there. But if youre being told what to buy by a saleperson and then you buy it just because they said so, then youre an idiot, and you will be scammed.

Arguing whether or not tha average user needs a quad is like arguing whether the average driver needs a truck. Some do, some dont, for [whatever] reasons.

Ultimately what it comes down to is computer literacy. If you know, and you make an educated decision based on your needs, then you cant go wrong. If you were told you needed a quad, and you bought one based solely because Intel/AMD/Best Buy said so... then you need to knee yourself in the face.

 

[trog100]

it is user dependent, we're way past the point of beating a dead horse. We are now stomping on the stain in the ground where the dead horse used to be.

People being mislead as to what they need is a scam, trog is right there. But if youre being told what to buy by a saleperson and then you buy it just because they said so, then youre an idiot, and you will be scammed.

Arguing whether or not tha average user needs a quad is like arguing whether the average driver needs a truck. Some do, some dont, for [whatever] reasons.

Ultimately what it comes down to is computer literacy. If you know, and you make an educated decision based on your needs, then you cant go wrong. If you were told you needed a quad, and you bought one based solely because Intel/AMD/Best Buy said so... then you need to knee yourself in the face.

computer literacy is what this thread is about.. or should be.. the average user by your defintions is an "idiot".. he is computer illiterate.. he is at the mercy of the saleman or more accurately the internet review sites..

he dosnt need a knee in the face.. he needs some usefull information.. if he ignores this usefull information then perhaps some knee face contact might be appropriate.. he he

debate.. in between the fanboy i have one so it must be better stuff might provide some clues.. money for money dual or quad.. lets not forget its faster dual or slower quad.. intel dont give chips away for bugger all..

i will go back to my original post.. the quad version of my E8400 for example costs £640 UK pounds.. my dual version costs £140 UK pounds.. two cores at 3 gig or four cores at 3 gig..

i aint gonna try and say the £640 quad a aint better chip than the £140 dual.. of course it is.. that aint what the thread is about..

money for money.. quad at 2.4 gig as opposed to dual at 3 gig.. which will benefit the average user most.. and i recon we could all have a good guess at what the average user means.. he aint all that rare a beast..

lets also not forget there are many people who do actually read this place looking for information.. far more silent readers than vociferous posters..

trog

 

[phanbuey]

computer literacy is what this thread is about.. or should be.. the average user by your defintions is an "idiot".. he is computer illiterate.. he is at the mercy of the saleman or more accurately the internet review sites..

he dosnt need a knee in the face.. he needs some usefull information.. if he ignores this usefull information then perhaps some knee face contact might be appropriate.. he he
trog

good point. There is no doubt that a large chunk of reviews favor the quad based on multithreaded benchmarks, which are not representative of current reality.

There really should be an 'average guy' review site... you know when they go through like word processing, email, maybe some pr0n surfing and espn.com over the course of a day, and tell you the best system for the money.. including the power bill you have to foot to own one, in real guy terms...

As far as these chips go... if you were to give me a quad core q6600 and I had enough for a 19" monitor, or I could get a e8400 with a 20" monitor, i would take the e8400 with the 20" any day... because i think that extra inch of screen would affect me much more than the performance difference between those two processors...

 

[trog100]

how about the average gamer.. most of then seem to think they need a quad.. i could ask why do they think they need a quad.. ??

try this one.. some super cards and a super quad.. all drool over hardware and at least part of 2006 is optimized for the quad cpu..

pure core speed versus twice as many cores..

http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/NVIDIA_QuadSLI_with_the_ASUS_EN9800GX2/?page=3

my dual at a faster speed beats the lot of em.. how come ????

lets not demean the average user to much.. he he he..

but my two cpu cores and two grafics cards score higher in 2006 than the four cpu cores and quad grafix cards do in the above example.. two cores going faster can quite clearly out perform four cores going slower..

trog

ps.. there is some pretty expensive hardware being used in the above example.. he he he

 

[ex_reven]

how about the average gamer.. most of then seem to think they need a quad.. i could ask why do they think they need a quad.. ??

try this one.. some super cards and a super quad.. all drool over hardware and at least part of 2006 is optimized for the quad cpu..

pure core speed versus twice as many cores..

http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/NVIDIA_QuadSLI_with_the_ASUS_EN9800GX2/?page=3

my dual at a faster speed beats the lot of em.. how come ????

lets not demean the average user to much.. he he he..

but my two cpu cores and two grafics cards score higher in 2006 than the four cpu cores and quad grafix cards do in the above example.. two cores going faster can quite clearly out perform four cores going slower..

trog

...gamers who buy quads give me the shits lol

 

[Tatty_Two]

Trog, you know my views on this subject so I aint gonna bore you or any other poor members with them again, however, I cannot disagree with your views/comments in post No1 but yet again I see that you do not mention multi-tasking, is that because you choose to ensure there is less debate in favour of a quad or because you do not beleive that multi-tasking is relevant to the argument? one thing is for sure, as you have said, there are not that many apps that are multithredded, even less games but everyone of us multi-tasks to a certain degree, granted some more than others but whether it's a dual core at 3gig or a quadcore at 2. whatever gig, if you have 4 or more apps open actually doing things at the same time, them things are gonna get done quicker with 4 cores (usually), that said........I am thinking of getting an E8500 unless there are some Q9550's on the shelves in the UK by the weekend!

 

[trog100]

i have mentioned multitasking tatty.. its a hard one not easy to prove or disprove.. i put it in the "any fool knows" category as yet..

i have ask for some kind of test ideas.. i honestly aint trying to avoid multitasking.. its a big part of what i refer to as the scam.. that and future proofing..

to me simply running windows is multitasking.. tons of services and junk is all being run at the same time.. i know i can play an mp3 and a divx movie plus all the other windows junk running and still bung off a slightly over 11 second super pi run with only two cores..

trog

 

[edro]

One person wrote early on "this is getting boring." I guess it’s not so boring. It is now 4 pages and still the conversation is hot.

Another person wrote "this is a useless thread." I don’t think so. A lot of opinions have been expressed. It is possible that some opinions are merely speculation but I suspect that the majority of the opinions come out of people’s experiences and that is interesting to me. It adds more perspective even if I disagree with them. Thus this is an informative thread.

There are some problems, I think. One is that people don’t always hear what another person is trying to say. Perhaps some things could have been said more clearly but usually it seems that certain points were overlooked and thus a reply might miss the mark of addressing what was said.

Another thing, and this is difficult for me to determine, is that sometimes it appears that people are speaking without respect for another person. No matter how much I disagree with someone’s opinion I can still treat them with respect.

Just wait until you have adult children and they decide to do things differently that you taught them to do. What am I going to do? Put them over my knee? Of course not! I love my adult children and in fact have learned much from them myself. I guess I’m not always right.

Well, this was off subject. I’d weigh in on this topic but I’m afraid that I’m not an average user and I’m also not sure that I could defend my position since I’m really not sure about what my new build can do for me.

 

[trt740]

Trog, you know my views on this subject so I aint gonna bore you or any other poor members with them again, however, I cannot disagree with your views/comments in post No1 but yet again I see that you do not mention multi-tasking, is that because you choose to ensure there is less debate in favour of a quad or because you do not beleive that multi-tasking is relevant to the argument? one thing is for sure, as you have said, there are not that many apps that are multithredded, even less games but everyone of us multi-tasks to a certain degree, granted some more than others but whether it's a dual core at 3gig or a quadcore at 2. whatever gig, if you have 4 or more apps open actually doing things at the same time, them things are gonna get done quicker with 4 cores (usually), that said........I am thinking of getting an E8500 unless there are some Q9550's on the shelves in the UK by the weekend!

you bastard I cannot find one and they are all over europe

 

[edro]

Not an average user

I'm going for the quad but I'm not an average user.

Right now I use 3 computers via VNC to do all my tasks. One PC is mostly for rendering, another is a combo super tivo (3 recorders) and doubles as a HTPC, also some other menial tasks. Last, my “thin client” which accesses both those machines, sets up for the editing/encoding/rendering and spins it off to my workhorse.

What I’m planning to do is to replace my “thin client” with a “super duty” which will make video editing much faster, I can spin off the render/encoder job and start on another one, or watch a movie, also my new build would be the media server for other home users.

To do this I will have a hardware RAID 5 array (4x750gb) plus a 250gb for OS and apps all running on a quad core.

1. I should be able to retire my old workhorse (Athlon 64 3000+) which I often max out at 100% for most of a day (or even days) to encode a large job.

2. I can get rid of this “thin client” (5 year old P4 2.2ghz notebook) and start using a monster video editing machine (the new quad build).

3. I will still keep the dedicated recorder PC but will be able to add another recording card or 2 (eg. Hauppauge MCE 150) since I won’t need it as a HTPC anymore.

Thus I’ll be replacing 2 heat generating computers with 1 and have better control over things, I think..

It is a plan. Even if it doesn’t work out the way I hope there won’t be any real loss. I’ll have a quad core PC. I can always go back to using the recorder PC to double as a HTPC (switch monitors around). But I suspect that I'll be able to encode one job while in another software instance I will be editing video (editing is CPU intensive since it "half encodes" as I edit), also serve up media to others, and check on email.. Hopefully all without having to wait.

Oh, and since I'm getting a penryn I'll have the 47 instructions from the SSE4.1 subset. Hopefully my video editing software will catch up soon. Due to personal limitations I won't build again until maybe 4 or more likely 5 years from now so this one has gotta last. The next gen socket isn't here yet and so this is the last 775, again, I want to make it last. Is that future proofing? I really don't know what that means. I just can't afford another build anytime soon. This is it. (fixed income ya know. I budgeted for this build and went $400 over since I wasn't planning on a hardware RAID.)

 

[Tatty_Two]

you bastard I cannot find one and they are all over europe

makes a pleasant change!

 

[hat]

I can't believe this thread hasn't died yet! For some people a dual core is faster, for some people a quad core is faster. I can't see myself getting a quad core unless I get a good video card for my birthday and I can't think of anything for Christmas and my parents bug me about it "you have to get something" so throw in a Phenom I guess =/

 

[VroomBang]

Well I was tempted to buy a Q6600...but in the end decided against it and went with an E8400. Why? Well 2 reasons.

Firstly, I'm a gamer and none of the games I play use 2 cores properly, let alone 4.

And second, I want energy efficiency as well as a huge overclock. Neither of these can be achieved on a quad, and the latter, only with exotic cooling which I won't be spending my money on.

I paid £135 for my E8400 (not including £8 shipping) and I don't regret my decision, just need to wait for it to arrive tuesday

I'd be curious to know about your impressions when you get the E8400 and start gaming with it. I still haven't decided between Q6xxx or E8xxx. I don't multitask much. I just want the computer to be fast when launching and runing an application or a game. I guess the E8xxx makes sense, but I can't help thinking that new games will be coded to use quads, e.g. one core for the AI, one for the physics etc. But if this doesn't happen soon, there's no point in buying a quad now unless I start multitasking a lot, which I doubt.

 

[Mussels]

I'd be curious to know about your impressions when you get the E8400 and start gaming with it. I still haven't decided between Q6xxx or E8xxx. I don't multitask much. I just want the computer to be fast when launching and runing an application or a game. I guess the E8xxx makes sense, but I can't help thinking that new games will be coded to use quads, e.g. one core for the AI, one for the physics etc. But if this doesn't happen soon, there's no point in buying a quad now unless I start multitasking a lot, which I doubt.

if you arent upgrading the CPU anytime soon, the quad is a safe bet - the moreso if you cant OC beyond 400 FSB on your mobo (same MHz in the end)

If your ram/mobo will get you past 450 or so (900MHz ram and up) then you might as well grab an e8400.

Currently i feel that we're video card limited, my mini rig at 3.2GHz feels just as fast as my 3.6GHz main system, and most apps dont use all four cores - maybe 2-3x a week do i actually run into a situation where i need/use a quad core (winrar, encoding, supreme commander)

 

[trt740]

makes a pleasant change!

It's because the freaking Euro is so damn high in value. Intel wants that currency . I got that from a giant companys CEO who sell Cpu to the US gov. They can hardly get cpus. Thats why the USA can hardly get a Cpu.

 

[Darknova]

I'd be curious to know about your impressions when you get the E8400 and start gaming with it. I still haven't decided between Q6xxx or E8xxx. I don't multitask much. I just want the computer to be fast when launching and runing an application or a game. I guess the E8xxx makes sense, but I can't help thinking that new games will be coded to use quads, e.g. one core for the AI, one for the physics etc. But if this doesn't happen soon, there's no point in buying a quad now unless I start multitasking a lot, which I doubt.

Gaming? A small increase at 3Ghz (same speed as my old E4400 overclocked), but not that much, but I never intended to leave it at stock. My E4400 would never go above 3Ghz stably, which is why I replaced it.

I don't encode, and the only game that properly uses more than 2 cores is SupCom which I don't play, and Alan Wake which isn't here yet.

I'm with trog in thinking this dual/quad stuff is a myth, for most people. It's not necessary, BUT it does speed up encoding and stuff specifically designed for it, which is few and far between, especially in the gaming world.

I just want 4Ghz

 

[Wile E]

If it's useful to someone, it can't be a myth/scam.

Saying multi-core is a scam/myth is every bit as bad as saying that a quad is better for everyone.

 

[Darknova]

I'm with trog in thinking this dual/quad stuff is not useful for most people. It's not necessary, BUT it does speed up encoding and stuff specifically designed for it, which is few and far between, especially in the gaming world.

Fixed.

Urgh, I've only been up for like 10 minutes, gimme a break

 

[Wile E]

Fixed.

Urgh, I've only been up for like 10 minutes, gimme a break

lol. It's ok. You just triggered it, it was more a comment made in a general sense.

 

[Tatty_Two]

It's because the freaking Euro is so damn high in value. Intel wants that currency . I got that from a giant companys CEO who sell Cpu to the US gov. They can hardly get cpus. Thats why the USA can hardly get a Cpu.

Well we dont play with the Euro (Mickey Mouse money )but I know it's pretty strong at the moment against the $ but the £ has been strong for ages now but we dont seem to see any benefit from it at all.

 

[VroomBang]

Well we dont play with the Euro (Mickey Mouse money )but I know it's pretty strong at the moment against the $ but the £ has been strong for ages now but we dont seem to see any benefit from it at all.

the other side of the story is we get to pay a premium in Euroland to get those CPU's. As an example, a Q6600 costs €185 (= $292), against $254 in the US, i.e. 15% more

 

[VroomBang]

Well we dont play with the Euro (Mickey Mouse money )but I know it's pretty strong at the moment against the $ but the £ has been strong for ages now but we dont seem to see any benefit from it at all.

Make the most of your poundies before you end up switching to euros soon!