I am about to buy a new computer and I wanted dual core but I am not sure which one to go for, any ideas?

budget?

I'm looking to spend £1000 tops on the desktop. But I don't a monitor need any extras just the main box.

I'm looking to spend £1000 tops on the desktop. But I don't a monitor need any extras just the main box.

are you looking into buying a laptop or regular pc?

regular

regular

ok than another question, are you looking into gaming? video watching? or large server handlings?

personally I have used AMD processors much more than Intel and I find AMD better suitable .

Some gaming but more so I just want a computer that responds when I tell it to.

I have always had AMD but it appear that when it comes to dual core Intel have taken the lead. So for the first time I am looking for an Intel.

AMD 64FX is a duel core.

I'm telling you AMD got better processors

I agree I'm only stating something that many don't know.

Anything Core 2 Duo is good (don't confuse it with the older Core Duo models).

Bargain processors that perform well are: (less than $200)
Core 2 Duo E6430 (2.13ghz), Core 2 Duo E6600

Fast high-end processors that perform well are: ($300)
Q6600 (quad-core instead of dual)

Next year another processor will appear to be the NEWEST and BEST on the Earth. Will you buy into this stupidity of never ending power?

Next year another processor will appear to be the NEWEST and BEST on the Earth. Will you buy into this stupidity of never ending power?

If you are buying a new machine, it only makes sense to do at least a little research to get the most performance for your money.

Vista is a resource hog compared to XP. And new applications are sure to be released that make use of the power of newer CPUs.

Intel are in the lead right now. Because they are behind in performance, AMD are selling chips at low prices. So don't automatically count them out.

But you must change everything to keep up, is it worth the cost? What are we trying to achieve except making others rich.

But you must change everything to keep up, is it worth the cost? What are we trying to achieve except making others rich.

Many people who upgrade probably don't need to. Vast numbers of people only use computers for the basics, such as email and websurfing. But just about no matter what you do, faster is better. It will be nice when computers turn on as quickly as televisions do now, rather than having to wait for it to load the OS.

Many people like to play games on their computers, and they have been a major driving force behind hardware improvements. Game designers can easily outstrip the abilities of even the most state of the art computer, and they have to instead design them for what people actually have (or can reasonably afford). But there are other applications that require fast hardware (video editing for one example).

Computers are nearing a major breakthrough in processing speed, with quad core CPUs soon to be commonplace, and octuple cores soon to follow. I think this will be capitalized on by software engineers to do things that would be hopeless to try and do with present computers.

But if your present computer does what you want, and is working well, then there is no need to upgrade.

Computers are nearing a major breakthrough in processing speed, with quad core CPUs soon to be commonplace, and octuple cores soon to follow.

But if your present computer does what you want, and is working well, then there is no need to upgrade.


That is what they said when duel core processors were being developed.

I agree w/ pencil. I'm a long-time AMD fan, but right now, the Core 2 design is simply better than AMD's offerings. Yes, the Pentium 4 was a horrid mess, and AMD designed a better chip while Intel was trying to wow everyone with brute force. But the internal Core 2 architecture (a re-designed Pentium 3, for better power utilization) is a huge step up - even with the paltry system bus it is attached to.

AMD currently has lower system power usage per watt, while Intel can boast having the lower CPU power per watt. AMD's Hypertransport bus and system chips use less power, balancing out the larger power draw from the CPU.

Early releases of both Intel's (Penryn) and AMD's (Barcelona) H2 '07 chips suggest that AMD may take the crown back - Barcelona demo units are showing 21-50% advantage over a similarly clocked and watt-rated current model Clovertown.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40749


I also agree with cosmictraveler and repoman - most people don't need to upgrade. They just think they do.

I would normally agree that most people don;t need to upgrade. However, going to dual core will give true benefits. At the moment I am running a 3400 64 Bit, 1.25 Ram etc, but I cannot burn a DVD and use other applications (unless very basic). If I want to run a virus scan then I will be able to use the rest of my computer but very slowly. I am hopeful that dual core will sort this.

quad core Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 overclocked from 3.0GHz to 3.33GHz

AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core ( which would be my choice)

I would normally agree that most people don;t need to upgrade. However, going to dual core will give true benefits. At the moment I am running a 3400 64 Bit, 1.25 Ram etc, but I cannot burn a DVD and use other applications (unless very basic). If I want to run a virus scan then I will be able to use the rest of my computer but very slowly. I am hopeful that dual core will sort this.

Indeed. I've been dual-CPU since about 2000, and it makes a huge difference in responsiveness under load.

it sounds like you need some extra ram. not a better processor

Indeed. I've been dual-CPU since about 2000, and it makes a huge difference in responsiveness under load.

That's definitely true, since I wrote a very cheap javascript method of creating possible answers for anagrams. If run and the number of characters used in the base and number of character positions is high the process actually causes the browser to come up with a 'Not responding' error.

In the background it goes about it's business trying to finish off the long list of possible outputs. It slowly increases in RAM and Harddrive usage and if on a single processor machine would cause 100% CPU load (Basically the system would become unresponsive).

On my Core 2 Duo however only one of the two cores reaches 100% CPU load (Meaning I only reach about 53% Load total between the two). I can still run other programs (RAM permitting) and deal with the task manager to shut the labour intensive process down. (of course I have to flush the browser's cache and the swap drive afterwards too.)

There cool in that respects however this does have a draw back if you aren't computer literate. Usually if a person gets a Zombie server on their system that 'locks the system up', a user will notice it and have to reboot because of the inability to do any thing else other than that. With Multicores it's possible that a person would only notice a degrade in performance since they can still utilise the other core to do tasks.

In a nutshell things could run that originally wouldn't have been able to on a single core.