Dual Core Processors?

[Darklord89]

Hey, Has anyone had any experience with Dual Core processors? I am thinking of buying a comp with a AMD ATHLON 64BIT X2 4400 (Dual Core).
Do you reckon that this is worth the money speed wise etc?
Thanks alot.

 

[Toasty]

If you like to do more than one thing at a time that is computationally intensive, then yes, by all means. Personally (if I had the money) I'd go for either the X2 4200 or X2 4600. They use different cores than the 4400 and 4800 with half the cache size, but they also run cooler (and cost less) and the difference between 512KB cache and 1MB cache is usually not too noticeable in many applications (in most of the benchmarks I've seen, the 4200/4600's get very close scores to their 4400/4800 counterparts, though not all). So, if you don't anticipate needing 1MB cache space, you could save a little and go with the 4200. Any X2 you buy should be well worth the dough though. For benchmarks head over to Tom's Hardware; they compared the X2's and a few other processors not too long ago.

 

[Doomulation]

The cache matters most in games. You'll get a big speed bost with bigger cache in games. But bigger cache is always good.

 

[Darklord89]

Thanks alot for the replys, i think that its because i had a crappy computer for about 5 years now :yucky: so i want to get back uptodate lol. :bouncy: arty: Yea and i do run quite a few programs at once.

 

[General Plot]

And cache size is what separates Pentium's from Celerons (just to give you an idea how important it is).

 

[dukenukem]

Go for the x-2 4200 i'm gonna be going with the 3800+ in the future.

 

[Toasty]

To a certain point the cache size is definitely important. The very first Celerons had no L2 cache at all, and their performance was horrible as a result. Pentium 4's started out with 256KB cache (which is what Celerons have now) and now have been replaced with models that sport 512KB and 1MB (and even a few 2MB) caches. The differences between a 128KB and 256KB cache or 256KB and 512KB cache will both be a bit more dramatic than most changes beyond 512KB. It depends largely on what application(s) you're using - many can still gain significant performance increases from even larger cache sizes, and many can't. If you have a chance to test out the processors with the application(s) you have in mind before you buy one, that's the best indicator you can get of what will work out better for you.

 

[TerraPhantm]

IIRC, it takes approximately 100MHz to make up for the loss of cache on the 4200 and 4600. I have a 4400, which happened to be a great clocker, and couldn't be any happier.