Dual, single or quad core?

[upapilot]

How many of you have:
dual core or
single core or
quad core processors?

[MikeTheC]

http://www.fotosearch.com/bthumb/sdc/SDC131/187480SDC.jpg

Well, I'm a dual-can kind of guy myself.

*no, the OP said "core", not "can"*

*oh*

I'm thinking quad i7 myself. So, um, "quad"!!! ;)

[Sneaky07]

Own a dual core and I am loving it. I hear Quad cores aren't the bang for the buck because software can't fully support it yet. Single cores I believe are going to be a thing of the past though like AGP video cards.

Here's a link to an article explaining: http://www.codinghorror.com (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000942.html)

[upapilot]

And if you have dual cores please join my group Dual Core Confederacy.

[rzrgenesys187]

I have a dual core and it runs nice but next to my roommates quad core there is no comparison. Converting some video files to dvd takes ~4 hours on mine whereas his is ~1 to ~1.5 hours. His wasn't too expensive either

EDIT: Reading the article above it seems this makes sense as it is an encoding task so my comment may be irrelevant to what you might be doing with your CPU

[Hangwire]

Single Core Celeron D - 2.13Ghz
Im still on AGP too :D - 7300GT 256MB

[ajcham]

Single cores I believe are going to be a thing of the past though like AGP video cards.

That goes without saying really - we've hit a wall with processor speeds, so now it's all about adding more cores. Single cores will become obsolete, but then in time so will duals and quads.

[Nessa]

Just duals for me. Quad is too much.

[-grubby]

Single core here...

[mips]

I have a dual core and it runs nice but next to my roommates quad core there is no comparison. Converting some video files to dvd takes ~4 hours on mine whereas his is ~1 to ~1.5 hours. His wasn't too expensive either



Yeah, I love my quad core for that.

[billgoldberg]

Dual core here.

I'm going to stick with it for another half year, then upgrade to the i7.

[handy]

I have a dual & some single core boxes.

My understanding is that single core is still best for games, though I guess games will be (or already are) going to start to be written for multi-core processors.

I guess games will be able to use whatever is available, quad, dual or single?

Though how that pans out as far as Wine/Linux is concerned I have no idea?

[notwen]

Have a lil bit of everything.
1) AMD Athlon XP
2) Intel Atom
3) Intel Core 2 Duo
4) Intel Core 2 Quad

[Eisenwinter]

I have a single core AMD Athlon 64.

I want to buy a new computer, something like quad core, or 8 core CPU, with like 8GB of RAM, but I don't have the money for that right now.

[upapilot]

8 core processor and 8 GB RAM!!! Overkill mate!

[CrazyArcher]

If I have 2 comps and they both have a single core, does it make me a dual-core guy?

[Johnsie]

As far as I know I use single core. I refuse to pay over £100 for a computer. I have the following needs:

-msn messenger
-a text editor
-visual studio
-a web browser
-TVU
-an mp3 player

Most of those programs run ok on basic hardware.

[igknighted]

What about the triple core phenoms?

[Joeb454]

If needs be they can be added to the poll, but I hear they didn't sell too well

[zika]

If needs be they can be added to the poll, but I hear they didn't sell too well

It's a discrimination ... !!! :)

zika with a triple core ... that was a bargain at that moment (whole machine) ...

[MikeTheC]

Progress hasn't stopped, and the game isn't over yet. The thing is that it's become a battle of inches, not miles. Intel and AMD keep shrinking their die size, and a whole host of other tweaks, tinkering and out-and-out architectural re-designs have resulted in overall horsepower gains which otherwise would have required forcing the clock speed up substantially.

Depending on what metric you use, one could argue that we already have the equivalent of 10-20GHz CPUs out there, based on perceived performance alone.

But nevertheless, we are inching our way up to the low 4GHz range, even if progress seems too be so flat as to be positively glacial. In fact, one of the articles I was reading recently about the i7 shows it can be stably OC'd, using just air cooling, up to at least 4.19GHz. That being said, I think it's been amply shown that the multiple-core concept is actually superior to the single-core one, which seems to be in line with everything else we know and take for granted in the real world.

[Rokurosv]

Single core, I'm too poor to buy a Dual or Quad right now....:P

Offtopic: How do triple cores perform? The only I've heard is the phenom.

[Idaho Dan]

Single core desktop and single core laptop here.
They are working for everything I want to do so far.

[blakjesus]

Happy dual core user on a Core 2 Duo.

Last processor i had was a P4 on a desktop (yuk). Core 2 Duos are pretty mean in laptops. :)

[Frak]

Mac -> 2 Quad cores (2 xeons)
Desktop -> 2 AMD Dual-Core FX (Quad core essentially) #Used for compiling and rendering
Regular desktop -> Single AMD 4600+ 64 X2 (2.4GHz) Dual-core
OC box -> Core i7 (Quad-Core) 2.66GHz

[mips]

If needs be they can be added to the poll, but I hear they didn't sell too well

Over here where I live they do not make any finacial sense whatsoever. They are overpriced compared to a Quad core AMD, the savings are marginal and not worth it.

[eragon100]

I am the happy owner of an intel core 2 duo e6300 @ default clock of 1.86 GHZ per core. 2 mb cache, 866 MHz FSB. Ubuntu 64-bit flies on this CPU.
3 GB of DDR2-533 ram might also be helping. :)

[Kernel Sanders]

I bought 3 quad cores and soldered them together. VICTORY IS MINE! :lolflag:

[BDNiner]

2 dual cores for me, both are AMD X2 processors, A 2.2GHz (linux) and a 2.6GHz (windows) box. My GF made me give my one of my P4s 2.8GHz single to her parents and the other one 3.0Ghz single to my brother. They were both multithreaded so they showed 2 cores but really weren't dual core. When she is not looking i will sneak a Shuttle PC into the house and hide it under the bed or something. Just gotta find silent fans.

[r m h]

Quad core

I just built a super workstation for pretty cheap (~$2.5K - I already had the LCDs and DVD burner) considering what I got and its performance:

Intel Core i7
12 GB RAM
6 250GB disk SATA 3Ware RAID array hot-swappable
two dual DVI ATI Radeon 4850s
2 HP LP2465s and 2 HPLP2065s
1300W PS
ABS Canyon 695 case

The Core i7 is a quad core where each core is hyperthreaded - my workstation looks like it has 8 CPUs in Ubuntu - yes I actually do work this box hard, but I have yet to max out all those CPUs.

[TheUnderTaker]

I used to have a dual core AMD x2. But it was a cheap emachine computer and one of the capacitors blew in. It used to have a sempron in i upgraded to amd athlon x2. I really didnt notice a difference in speed except for mutitasking of course. But the sempron was more than enough for me i guess. Anyways Right now i have a single core celeron m 353 which is my netbook 1000HD. It runs good.

[handy]

In the house I have a cluster of 2 dual cores, & 6 single core machines, but they all got in a huff & won't talk to each other.

They dynamically take exception to each other. The only one that behaves transparently to all on the LAN is the one I beheaded. :lolflag:

No wonder they are temperamental.

[BGFG]

I was all in a huff about i7, but the shanghai Opterons look pretty damn impressive. I wonder what will be on the market 4th quarter '09, hopefully then i'll have money :)

[el02]

My PC at home still on single core, just stick with it until next upgrade, prob by that time quad-core.

Company's Dell laptop is on Core 2 Duo.

I am happy with single core on my PC.

[doorknob60]

Dual

[toupeiro]

I run an Athlon 64 x2 today, but will be upgrading sooner or later to an i7...

Desktop Processors:
As big of a fan as I am of AMD, If you're going to consider a desktop quad core processor, the i7 is the way to go right now (if you can afford it). The Phenom just can't really compare to it performance wise, although factor in the cost savings of the phenom compared to the i7 and then the phenom becomes a very attractive performance direction for those with a steak appetite on a hamburger budget.

Server processors:

In the x86(_64) world this is still where AMD remains better based on what tests I've conducted. The new Opterons trounce the new Xeons.

As far as overall multi-core, single die processor performance, SPARC architecture (especially the UltraSPARC T2+) can trounce all competition in a single socket format with its multi-threading capabilities.

[Roberticus]

My understanding is that single core is still best for games, though I guess games will be (or already are) going to start to be written for multi-core processors.

Hellgate London used/uses multicores (up to 8 if I remember correctly). Red Alert 3 Requires dual core. So yeah, games are using multi-cores nowadays. :)

Alan Wake will use multicores when it is released. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLEBOn9K5Nk
"This kind of game couldn't be done on a single core processor"

Myself using Athlon 64 x2 TK-55 (1,8GHz, laptop), so dual core user :)