Quad core

Pobby

I have had a new computer built for me. It includes an AMD quad core Phenom 9650 cpu. What advantage should I see from this please?

Marty_J

It should be faster than a dual core CPU.

If you have to ask though, you probably should have spent the money on something else, such as a larger HDD or a bigger monitor.

Depends what you're doing with it I suppose. But most people use their computers for web browsing, sending emails, listening to music etc, and quad core is overkill for those purposes.

el_gringo_3

it might be easier to answer that if you tell us;

a) what your last processor was

b) what sort of stuff you use your pc for. Some programs only support one or two threads, some all 4!

c) what sort of OS you were using and plan to use (your PC will be capable of 64 bit OS now, amongst other things).

kwikbreaks

Shouldn't you have asked that question before buying?

When running just one application at a time very little but the interface should feel more sprightly while something is running in the background.

Last I heard was that with the applications available today a quad offers little to no advantage over dual core. Of course I may be wrong if things have moved on much since I last did any research in this area.

Of course it may offer the advantage of bragging rights in some quarters.

el_gringo_3

Kwikbreaks - the big difference to me appears when using rendering programs - povray and the like.

savemoney

Few programs actually use quad core, you might find it better if you multi task

clickclash

Quad Cores are worthless unless you are encoding video, save your money, get Duel.

[Deleted User]

el_gringo wrote: »

b) what sort of stuff you use your pc for. Some programs only support one or two threads, some all 4!

How many threads a process uses is irrelevent, whether the software has been designed in a way to facilitate usage of multicores is.

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Last I heard was that with the applications available today a quad offers little to no advantage over dual core. Of course I may be wrong if things have moved on much since I last did any research in this area.

The main hinderance is that the hardware manufacturers have jumped further ahead than the software developers. Software usually has a lead time of somewhere in the region of two years before coming to market. Restrospectively changing a program to utilise more processors isn't just a case of changing a few things, it's something that has to be approached at the very first stages of development, rather than tacking on at the end.

That's why there's been a relatively slow uptake on programs that can use them. For home computing at the moment the only noticeable improvements are with gaming, anti virus/malware scanning, cd burning, compression and extraction and other mundane tasks in the same vein.

Unless you're using specific programs which take advantage of multicore processors, then having a quad core is just falling into the marketing ploy of more cores = better which certainly isn't the case, where a good dual core processor and spending the money on another improvement would be a more sound purchase.

isofa

Improvement - virtually zero unless you are using a quad core savvy OS and similar application software. (See anewhope's detailed reply for the technical reasons!)

Same as buying a compact camera with 14 megapixels - pure marketing hype - people assume they'll get better pictures, not unless they have a good lens and can bypass the laws of diffraction they won't.

RobTang

The thing is even with basic apps you are probably going to be running more then 4 threads anyway (over several programs), so as long as the OS and chip are doing proper allocation you will get use out of them.

then again most CPUs are silly fast anyway so you probably wont notice.

Still some people do run loads of background apps ive got, media centre, virtualdub, 2 instances of sql server, sql management studio,IIS, msn, anti-virus, outlook, the onenote bg app, VS2008, and a bazillion tabs spread across ie and ff.
And it all runs nice and smoothly, somthing which my dual core wouldn't be so happy about.

kwikbreaks

@anewhope So essentially you are saying that things have not moved on since I last looked (probably over a year ago now). TBH I'm not overly surprised as I got the distinct impression that producing compilers which could make efficient use of multiple cores was a difficult task and hand crafting applications for multicore very time consuming (as well as difficult).

TBH I've lost track of cutting edge processors - I have two machines powered by Atoms and two low end core duo machines. I think the most expensive cost less than a top of the range processor yet they all fill my admittedly not very demanding needs. Even Redmond seem to be having problems producing bloatware that demands high end kit these days despite their valiant efforts.