Dual Core - your opinion

[crazyfrog]

I've upgraded from T4x to T60 recently. I am happy to monitor the usage history of my Core Duo cpu with Windows Task Manager and a CPU clock tool.

I notice that the fluctuation of the two CPUs' usage history is always similar (though not exactly). This is also confirmed from the the CPU clock tool.

So my question No.1 may sound silly: did Intel really integrate two CPUs into one chip? or Intel just improved their technology of hyper thread, which makes Windows XP feel the existence of two logical CPUs?

My question No.2 : does any of you feel the improvement of operation from dual core as compared to the old single core architecture except for improvement from higer FSB speed, CPU clock rate and CPU efficiency (e.g. Pentium-M against Pentium 4)?

[Torque]

Yes, the dual core is indeed with two cores.

Personally my experiences with cuo core processors are good. With slave jobs they perform quite a bit better than the PM. I've gone from 15FPS to 25-30FPS when encoding DVDs.

[steveh]

As long as the software is coded to enable multiple cores the speed difference is quite dramatic. It also significantly improves multitasking abilities. It is very much different than hyper threading.
HTH,
Steve

[perry_78]

It is much snappier, and considering dual core is now the norm rather than the exception, it's not really a question of why, but why not.

[Ken Fox]

It depends on what you are doing. If you use your notebook for the sorts of things that most people use notebooks for, such as email, websurfing, and general office applications, the speed increase approaches zero. If you use your laptop for gaming or for doing other very processor intensive things then you will notice it.

I have the 4 notebooks listed in my sig, and honestly, with my own usage pattern, 95% of the time I notice no difference whatsoever in speed among the 4 notebooks, 2 of which have single core and 2 of which have double core processors.

To put this into perspective, I have, however, noticed huge speed differences from upgrading to 7200rpm Hitachi 7K100 drives over earlier 4200rmp and 5400rpm drives. Ram increases above around 768mb have generally intermediate benefit, more than going from single core to double core, but less than I've noticed from upgrading hard drives.

[tomh009]

It depends on what you are doing. If you use your notebook for the sorts of things that most people use notebooks for, such as email, websurfing, and general office applications, the speed increase approaches zero. If you use your laptop for gaming or for doing other very processor intensive things then you will notice it.

That should really be "light use of general office applications." Working with large documents in Excel, Word or Access can definitely to max out the CPU for extended periods of time, and the dual core makes a big difference to usability there. Not to mention graphics applications like Photoshop or Illustrator ...

[Temetka]

I am looking at dual core laptops for 1 reason. I prefer laptops. I always have. Sure I still love building towers and speccing them out juuuust right, but I always end up using my laptop(s) for 90% of what I do. My tower is a glorified burning, storage and game box.

I am considering a dual core laptop in a month or so. Then I can run the 3 games I care about: Master of Orion II (runs fine now), Deus Ex (Runs fine now) and Star Wars Galaxies (runs slow now). I will also have the DVD burner I need. I will sell my tower and buy a nice NAS enclosure and have all my files on the network where they belong.

I do more than gaming. There is the general office / email tasks but I do some video editing and programming on this unit as well. (VB. NET, MySQL) from which I expect a dual core to offer little speed in the programming dept.

If I am going to understand that my needs are met by a laptop, and I prefer laptops, then I might as well get the best laptop I can. For me it's a dual core thinkpad (R60 or T60, I haven't decided yet). If only the MacBook Pro's had better construction quality then I would buy one and return to the glory of OS X. Cheap aluminum does make for a laptop with longevity.

[steveh]

I have both ThinkPads and MacBook Pro's and they are both well constructed with no edge to either. I also have the experience of many examples of both (I develop medical software and many of my clients own both machines) and give no construction edge to either. I know that some on this forum think otherwise, but there are bad examples of both. Amongst all brands these 2 stands far above the others (not even close).

Steve

If only the MacBook Pro's had better construction quality then I would buy one and return to the glory of OS X. Cheap aluminum does make for a laptop with longevity.

[Temetka]

I am glad your MacBook Pro is working out for you. It's just that I service laptops. I can attest to some of the weird things customers do to them. They are beautiful machines, but when put the hands of joe schmoe user, they get trashed. Scratches, stickers, soda spills, cracked screens, broken in half (this has happened more than once, sadly), etc... Now the original iBook, man that machine is a freakin' tank!

Right now I am still deciding and awaiting a few payments from e-bay, so it's not like I have the cash and need to get a new laptop. This gives me some time to explore my options (on both platforms) and read reviews, ask around and make an informed buying decision.

I wouldn't even bother looking if my lovely T41P could be upgraded to a dual core chip. The form factor, colored keyboard (makes things very easy), etc.. is one of the best I have ever had the pleasure of computing with.