Intel i5 v Intel Core 2 Quad - any advice?

Molanole

Hi everyone

Happy new year to you all. Hope someone can help.

I'm thinking of purchasing a new Dell desktop as it's about time I made my way out of the technological dark ages. I've been looking at the Dell inspiron desktops currently on their website but I'm a bit confused about processor speeds. One has an Intel i5 processor, the other an Intel Core™ 2 Quad-Core Q8300 Processor.

I do a lot of work with large datasets which my work Core 2 Duo PC struggles to cope with - it gets there eventually but can be slow going. I'm hoping that my home PC will be better. Other than that, I mainly use my PC for music, web browsing, emails, the usual stuff.

My question is therefore - will there be a discernable difference between the i5 and the Core 2 Quad?

Thanks very much in advance for any advice.

Mola

turbobob

Large datasets doesn't mean much to me, sorry. Is it struggling because it's out of memory or is this work very processor intensive? What software is it using?

Anyway the Core i5 can be significantly faster in some tasks than a Q8300. In other cases not such a difference. I would suggest reading the article here - http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634&p=1

One thing that is different about the Core i5 is the "turbo mode" which basically means the processor overclocks itself in certain circumstances. If you are using an intensive single threaded application it will clock the one core up to 3.2Ghz (at the standard basic clock rate).

Molanole

turbobob wrote: »

Large datasets doesn't mean much to me, sorry. Is it struggling because it's out of memory or is this work very processor intensive? What software is it using?

Thanks for this. My PC at work is running Vista and although I've no idea if it's a memory or a processor problem, I think it's because it's processor intensive. A little notification comes up in the corner showing me progress when it's simply trying to open a file where it tells me it's using two processors and will take an age to open. I then spend time making cups of tea or doing some filing whilst the PC works on opening the files... lol Have already been told at work that I won't be able to have a better PC.

I'm not techy at all. I just need something which is going to be able to cope with my work. Incidentally, it's huge excel files with many thousands of records I work with. Mainly to create reports, pivot tables etc....

Thanks again.

gaming_guy

how much RAM does it have?

(not hard drive space and most computers have 2gb - 4gb ram installed)

if you run vista on 1gb ram then i would upgrade it ASAP as vista is a resource hog

timbim_2

IMHO excel files that big should really be in access. You might benefit from building the machine yourself, and using some really high end parts such as a Western Digital Velociraptor hard drive, much faster than a normal SATAII, but less expensive than a solid state drive. Also make sure to get the maximum memory, the i5 may well prove to be better due to its DDR3 capability, if used with a DDR3 motherboard and memory, that alone may provide a big speed advantage for memory intensive applications.

Molanole

gaming_guy wrote: »

how much RAM does it have?

(not hard drive space and most computers have 2gb - 4gb ram installed)

if you run vista on 1gb ram then i would upgrade it ASAP as vista is a resource hog

Not a clue - we get what we're given at work (but thanks for the tip - I'll investigate when I get back into work to see if there's an angle I can pursue that way!)

Molanole

timbim wrote: »

IMHO excel files that big should really be in access. You might benefit from building the machine yourself, and using some really high end parts such as a Western Digital Velociraptor hard drive, much faster than a normal SATAII, but less expensive than a solid state drive. Also make sure to get the maximum memory, the i5 may well prove to be better due to its DDR3 capability, if used with a DDR3 motherboard and memory, that alone may provide a big speed advantage for memory intensive applications.

Thanks. I agree it should be in access but it's exported straight into excel from our database. Building a machine might well be a step too far for me but thanks for the advice. Really helpful.

Mola

RobTang

Excel isn't ideal for very large datasets, no matter what processor you have. your better off dropping it into a database engine and using excel as the gui / output.

However as an owner of an I7-920 and core 2 quad Q6600 (both similarish speeds to the I5 and Q8300)

the I7 is consistantly a 1/3 faster in raw benchmarks. and the general feel is much much when you start loading it down with multiple applications.