DUAL CORE or QUAD - CLOCK SPEED???

R4pture_2

Hiya
Hoping that someone on here has a better more in depth knowledge of PCs than I do.
I have been building an repairing PCs for years so im not a complete noob
(well lets face it building PCs is like lego for adults :P)
MY actual knowledge of the technical side of things and compatability issues needs a more in depth lesson I think.
The new quad core technology is puzzling me somewhat.
I am looking to build a new PC for Music production and was debating on either a dual or a quad core CPU
I noticed that the clock speek on the dueal core was 3.2 ghtz where as the quad core has a 2.3 ghtz clock speed,
now this confuses me as i was under impression that the quad ~(being newer) would be better and faster.
therefore why is the clock speed on one (the older) faster than the new one?
What difference is there in performance?
quad is after all twice as fast as dual core isn't it?
these are the two processors below.
I would really appreciate someone with a bit more knowledge pointing out the key advantages and disadvantages of dual core to quad core (also if you could help me to understand clock speed I would be gratefull to
thnx.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=657891

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=712424

yo all of you who have read this and have nio idea what i am talking about sorry :rotfl:

fwor

It's a very complex subject, which for years was obscured by the "clock speed is king" war that AMD and Intel waged until recently. There are loads of factors such as instruction set length, FSB speed, cache size, shared memory between processors and no doubt loads more I don't understand.

But, all other things being roughly equal, the quad core at 2.3Ghz can do more work than the 3.2Ghz dual because all four cores run in parallel. So in theory - if you could find enough things to keep all of the cores running at full tilt - the quad core would do 4*2.3's worth of work in the same time as the dual core would do 2*3.2's worth.

~However~ there are very few applications/operating systems that are written to support SMP (symmetric multi-processor) hardware well. The result is likely to be that only one of the cores handles the most demanding task, and the rest are left handling background task which generally aren't very processor-intensive.

IMHO, quad core is currently priced as a "premium product" which is really for people who want to say that they have "the best" when actually it's probably something that they cannot at present exploit fully.

R4pture_2

Ahh i think i understand a little better.
My current PC is not capale of the power needed to run music production software and VST instruments. IT freezes and clips repeatedly.
I still have no idea if I should go for the quad or the dual but single core deffo doesnt cut it i'm afraid

fwor

Ok - but you don't say what your application or current PC is. Maybe it's got a slow CPU or is short of memory, or maybe the VST emulator is badly written. There are so many variables.

You might like to try what I did when I recently built a PC as a multi-tuner PVR: buy a mobo that can support multi-core CPUs (I chose AM2 but you may want to go Intel), and then buy a cheap dual-core CPU to fit it. Load the application and see how well it works. I found that I could record two TV programs and watch another at the same time, and neither processor would go above 30 percent! Might save you a few quid, and if the CPU can't cope, get one with more grunt, Ebay the original and get most of your money back...

sco0ter

I did do a bit of reading about this becasue my local pc shop is doing a quad core base unit for £460.. It seems that just now there is no real advantage in terms of speed as core 2 duo E6600 and the quad core 6600 both perform the same because the software is not specifically written yet for quad core.

Game benchmarks also come out the same but that will probably be the first lot to get quad core support. What it did say was an advantage was the fact that most software (Audio, Video) encoding will only really use 2 cores and therefore leave the other 2 free so you can still use your PC no problem and not interfere with the running software at all..

epz_2

R4pture wrote: »

Ahh i think i understand a little better.
My current PC is not capale of the power needed to run music production software and VST instruments. IT freezes and clips repeatedly.
I still have no idea if I should go for the quad or the dual but single core deffo doesnt cut it i'm afraid

sounds like you are doing lots of realtime stuff, in that case a quad core will be better since your system will be able to run more stuff at the same time.

also make sure you get fast ram, its so cheap these days you are better getting the low latency ram.

have you checked you dont have anything daft running in the background like a virus scanner or mailware, music aint exactly a cpu intensive app, i could manipulate it in realtime on a P11 266mhz we i say i, i mean my musical mate i just played quake 2 on it.

turbobob

I think it depends totally on the software. In an app that is not multithreaded (and all other things being equal) the processor with the highest clock speed will be better. In an application that is properly able to use the 4 cores, then it is likely the slower quad core will outperform the faster dual core.

The whole clock speed thing is pretty misleading though. For example a dual core Pentium 4 running at 3.8ghz will be much slower than a Core 2 Duo operating at 2.4ghz. In fact a Core 2 will outperform equivalent AMD processors of a higher clock speed. These charts may help you make your decision - http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html

In these charts you can clearly see that the well multithreaded apps (like the 3d rendering programs and video encoders) put the quad cores at the top of the charts. However if you look at the games you will see the AMD's Phenom for example easily outperformed by cheaper but higher clock speed X2's.

R4pture_2

Using a [rogram called Nuendo 3 (similar to Cubase. A;so a million amd one differe3nt VSTs pluggd into that I nelieve in this case the gigher clock speed on the dual core will perform better than the quad?

banger9365

ive had a core2duel E6600and got a core 2quad Q6600
on single programs there the same until you start using more than two programs and the quad just keeps on going and duel starts to stuggle put you need lotts of ram to see the benefit of quad and deul cores ,poeple say that 2GB is alright put 4GB is about right put 4Gb is a liitle stort with a quad i think 8GB will be better for them to shine (put thats my option)

fwor

(In reply to R4pture)

You don't have to Google very far to find specific answers to the Nuendo question. To quote from the fourth search result that I got:

*** start quote ***

Both Cubase SX and Nuendo from version 3.1 onwards should work well with up to four cores, as will Cubase 4.
However, Steinberg acknowledged back in August 2007 that Cubase 4 and Nuendo 4 don't currently provide all the benefits they could at low latency with a dual quad-core system.

You can read lots more about 'Multi-core Processors For Musicians' in the latest January 2008 issue of SOS just out, in which I discuss the history of multi-processing, how it applies to Multiple-threaded Applications, Mainstream Applications, and Audio Applications, as well as Which Audio Apps Benefit, and by how much.

The on-line version for eSubscribers is already up at:

www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan08/articles/pcmusician_0108.htm


*** end quote ***

So it looks like it can use quad core, but may not be "optimised". ~However~ whether your specific use actually ~needs~ that much processing power remains to be seen. As I suggested earlier, you could start cheap and see how well it copes, and upgrade only if you need to. Or you could start by throwing money at it and never know if it was wasted cash.

sco0ter

My local PCshop does this spec... Is it any good??? Was going to go for quad as I do a lot of Video editing and converting and can render my PC useless for hours on end.. It doesnt have an operating system but thats becasue I have XP Pro already (I heard home doesnt support quad) Its £600 including Vista premium BTW


PROCESSOR:INTEL CORE2QUAD Q6600 4 CORES!

DUAL CORE SKT 775 4MB CACHE

VGA: 8600GT 256MB (DIRECTX10)PSU: ATX V2 530 WATT PSU
MOTHERBOARD: GIGABYTE P35-DS3
HEATSINK: OFFICIAL INTEL CORE2QUAD SOCKET 775
MEMORY: 2048MB (2X1042MB DDR2-800 PC6400)
HARD DRIVE: 320GB SATA 2 7200 RPM HDD 8MB CACHE
OPTICAL DRIVE: LITEON / NEC DL 16X+/16X-
22" WIDESCREEN TFT MONITOR
£560