I am considering buying a new computer. It seems like dual-core processors are the state of art these days. What is your experience -- is dual core better that a bit faster single core cpu? I mean what is the difference for the real work -- do you feel the system is more responsive? Are there programs which are able to use the two cpus? What about computing applications?

I don't intend to run many number-crunching applications, mostly browsing, text processing, some image processing etc.

For most things, faster and more powerful processors do not help much. With money limitations, spend it first on RAM. 1GB is my minimum now, and the next new build will be 2GB.

"some image processing"--if you get into this very deep, then dual-core or dual-cpu will definitely help. It depends on the SW used.

As always: it depends ;}

If you're going to do multi-tasking with some heavily
CPU intense task (e.g. compiling OpenOffice in the
background) you'll find that browsing in the foreground
will be snappier with a Dual-Core machine, simply because
the "hungry" task can hog on one CPU w/o impacting the
other (if what you're doing on the second happens not to be
I/O bound like your compile).



Cheers,
Tink

Well, I would actually like to know whether dual core "feels faster" for everyday stuff -- it is mostly browsing, openoffice, startup time etc. I do occasionally some number-crunching where threaded atlas could give a significant performance improvement, but it is not so often I need it.

The point with memory sounds reasonable.

Does anyone know if gimp is multi-thread aware?

I'm running a P4 3.0 ghz on one machine and a 3.4 ghz Pentium D another. I notice no significant difference when doing routine functions. But it handles some things, like batch resizing of photos, much faster.

I find no real noticeable difference between the Dual core and the single core CPU's for day to day tasks.. rather a let down actually. for this reason I haven't bothered to upgrade my home machines until either the CORE speed of the CPU's increase or more software is written to take advantage of multiple cores..

if the price difference isn't that significant go ahead with the dual core configuration, no reason not to.

this DELL PC with a gig of RAM, an integrated ATI video card, DVD Burner, and a 150GB HD was around $550.00 with tax and shipping out the door. Debian Etch runs great on it, for the price at the time, there was no reason whatsoever to avoid a Dual Core CPU.

So I have played around with a Intel Core 2 1.8GHz for a while.

It feels definitely faster than my laptop (soon 3 years old), but I suspect it is mostly because of faster HDD.

When running non threads aware java programs, the speed difference corresponds roughly to 1.5GHz vs 1.8GHz. When parallelizing the main loop (operations on a huge integer set) the speed increases by around 50%. This is the first parallel application in my life, so perhaps the gurus could press even more out from this box.

So my preliminary conclusion based on these bad tests -- no difference for everyday stuff, around 50% better performance for thread-aware applications.

Thank you for replying!
Ott

To get anything out of multiple processors (more than one), the software needs to be able to work specially with >1 cpus. It means that the programs you run must know how to share the job for multiple kernels, not just one. Your SMP kernel may know how to do stuff, but user-level software is another thing. I don't believe it's nothing new for everyday stuff like reading news and typing nonsense into OO.org () but if you do run more cpu-intensive programs that can take advantage of more than one processing unit, then it is worth it. Another good thing in multiple processing units is that, if I'm not completely mistaken, they should produce less heat than one cpu that is as powerful as the two combined. One of the major problems in single-cpus is heat: they're hot as he..well, hot anyway. Several processors can ease this up, but like I said, if the software can't handle more than one cpu, the otherone just sits there and waits

Like 64-bit systems, I wouldn't buy dual-core system yet. Why? It isn't of that much use - yet. In the future things will probably change (unless photon-cpus or something come into picture!), but as of now I haven't got much more out of multi-cpu systems than from one-cpu. And if you indeed neet several cpus, get a system with 16 processors or so

Right.

It seems like Core 2 cpu-s are substantially more expensive than single-core ones at similar clock speed (see e.g. http://www.mikeshardware.co.uk/CPUPricesIntel.htm). Well, the C2 models may have other goodies too, besides of the 2 cores, I am unaware of.

But in software development, parallelization seems to be the way to go. C2 seems getting more and more common.

A new observation: running another program in parallel, only results in around 15% speed increase. I suspect the problem is slow memory access and cache misses. If this is true, the conclusion is simple -- use dual channel memory (I have only one block installed).

Depends what price you are looking at.If you go for the absolutely cheapest deal you can get a cheaper single core.
In the US dual core starts at 60 US$ and there would be no reason not to get a dual core while you are at it.

After all what are your alternatives right now:

Cheap/cheap - AMD single core /flamebait: I wouldn't get a netburst spaceheater if somebody paid me to do it.
Cheap - AMD dual core
Mid/ceap - Intel core2 e4***
anything higher - Intel

Above cheap there is no reason to get an AMD plus there aren't many reasons to get an Intel higher than a e4*** if you are content with overclocking you CPU.

Edit: Me cannot write today - makes note to self about beer consumption

hands down a DC system is faster then one that is not.

i feel it in gaming, video editing, and encoding avi files to flash.

my older rig was a P4 1.8 HT 800Mhz FSB rig with 2G of ram. my newer rig is an AMD 939 chiip X2 3800+ also with 2G ram (both 3200 speed btw) and the newer rig is just WAY more powerful in everything except for game support under Linux via Cedega. i have yet to try any native games on this rig under linux, but my windows games are just light years faster on the new DC rig then the older one.

same thing goes for video editing and flash encoding.