Slow Triple/Quad Core CPUs

General Discussions
#1

I was looking around on HP’s website today, and I set up a configuration of one of their cheaper computers just to see what was available. The attached image shows the different CPU options I had.

What benefit would there be in having a much slower processor with one or two more cores? The better dual core CPU is 2.5 Ghz. The triple core CPU is 1.9 Ghz and costs an additional $80. The quad core CPU is 1.8 Ghz and costs an additional $160.

I can understand buying the quad core instead of the triple core. But why would anyone buy either of them instead of one of the dual cores? And why would they pay more for them?

Ignoring the fact that many casual users would seldom have a use for more than 2 cores anyways, how could having an extra core be faster when all the cores are only 3/4 as fast? Maybe the quad core could provide better performance than the dual core, but I doubt that would be the case in practice. The triple core processor in that selection seems to be basically junk to me.

It seems to me like it would be better to have options like the following: 2.3 Ghz dual core, 2.5 Ghz dual core, 2.3 Ghz triple core, 2.3 Ghz quad core. Those kinds of options would actually make sense to me. They probably all use the same socket, so I doubt it would be any kind of a problem.

#2

It depends… maybe you want extremely low power consumption.

Other than that, I can’t find no reason to pick those slow triple/quad cores, unless you have applications that are specifically written for them, like webservers.

#3

Athlon 64 X2 and Phenom are based on different architectures, so it’s not possible to determine their performance difference just by comparing their clock speeds. You better find some benchmarks where those CPUs are compared.

#4

I hadn’t really thought about the different architecture issues, but I suppose that might make alot of difference. It’s hard to figure out exactly what kind of performance you’re going to get these days.

I guess I’ll have to do some research before I buy my next computer. Of course, I’m waiting for Windows 7 to come out first, so it might be a while anyways.

#5

If you only want to play games 2 cores are currently good enough. However, I think that 3 or 4 cores are more interesting for programmers, because those CPUs allow them to experiment a bit more with multi-threading.

I for one only got 2 cores right now and I always found it a bit sad that I cannot see the full potential of my multi-threaded code myself. (I didn’t use multi-threading in any game code yet though.)

#6

Another reason to opt for a lower clocked quad core vs higher clocked dual core is overclocking potencial.

A 10% overclock on a Dual core gets you a 20% boost in total processing capacity, a Quad core gets you 40%.

Choose the right Quad core (2.4ghz SLACR Q6600 G0 Stepping O/C to 3.0ghz), and you get get crazy processing power (12ghz!) for little cost. (~£150)

p.s.

I don’t think those prices you’ve quoted from the hp site are at all competitive, often these ‘customize your setup’ deals realy spike you on the price of upgrade options.

#7

[quote=“Abuse,post:6,topic:32771”]
I think something is wrong there, unless I’m misunderstanding what you mean by “total processing capacity.”

If each processor in a group of N can handle X ops/sec, the total (assuming perfect parallelization of algorithms) would be NX ops/sec. If you overclocked by 10%, each processor could now handle X1.1 ops/sec, for 1.1NX ops/sec, or a 10% overall boost. How many cores you have shouldn’t matter at all.

#8

I think he means if you increase the speed of a core the effect is multiplied. The problem with that is that having more cores on a chip also limits your overclock potential somewhat compared to having a single one.

Anyway I though this forum was about creating games for discussing this kind of stuff there are better places. If you wanted to know how we in general around here think - there’s the offtopic section.

regardless either find benchmarks with your typical workload, or do your own - also mind you that there are other components to a computer like memory hd nic’s and gpu’s

#9

You are ofcourse absolutely correct, my blonde moment for the week ::slight_smile:

#10

You’re right. I should have posted this in the Off Topic section.

Benchmarks usually seem to compare the best CPUs, rather then the relatively cheap CPUs I’ve been looking at. I suppose there have to be benchmarks for these cpus somewhere on the internet though.

I won’t be doing my own benchmarks as I don’t want to buy 4 CPUs.

I was more concerned about the issue in a general sense than I was concerned about these particular 4 CPUs. I probably won’t buy a new computer before the second half of the year at the earliest, and these CPUs might not even be available then.

#11

I had bought a magazine which had bench marks of all main processors in the market. It showed that usually the more processors it has the better it is. Also by looking at it, you really can’t tell if a process is good by its speed or price. Which is why I bought it when I looking for a laptop. Its the model number that helps how good it is.

I guess these days most programs that are cpu intensive will be multi threaded. But I think the current chips now can overclock one core and underclock another if the program is single threaded.