I'm leaning towards the X2 right now as I do mainly a lot of hardcore multi tasking but not all that much gaming. Which would you guys suggest?

3/18/2006 5:20:56 PM

when you say "hardcore multitasking" what applications and tasks are you specifically referring to?

3/18/2006 6:42:14 PM

I would go Dual Core. I've noticed that when I'm running applications that hog resources (Dreamweaver, Adobe) it seems to work better. when you have Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop, 10 IE windows, 2 mozilla, SQL database tool open you start to notice the difference. At least I do. I don't in gaming though.

3/18/2006 7:09:51 PM

ok look, this should go without saying but ignore anything Raige has to say

open your task manager

look at your CPU utilization

unless it's pegged at 100% for long periods of time under your workload

you don't even need to be thinking about dual core, and probably not a processor upgrade at all, but mostly not dual core. you will actually be limiting your single task instruction throughput through two slower cores as opposed to one faster core

now, if it is pegged, unless you see that two or more processes (or know that two or more threads of one process) are competing for compute resources, you still don't need to be thinking about dual core, you need a faster single core

no part of having a dozen idle applications open counts as "heavy multitasking", it counts as being lazy, disorganized, or ADD... not necessarily a bad thing, as I am all three

if the latter case is what you find to be your typical workload, go with a faster single core and more memory if you are noticing slow response times in your applications... more memory is a sure way to improve performance when switching between multiple tasks as Windows will page idle portions of memory to disk as it needs more physical memory, resulting in high response times when switching to previously idle tasks... more memory also allows larger caches for filesystems and web browsers, which can improve load and response times

3/18/2006 7:33:47 PM

I love you incognegro.

3/18/2006 7:43:02 PM

i love all this buzz about how we all would benefit more from a faster single-core processor, fact is that though this may be true now, it will all change in the next year, the future is dual-core, so depends on how long you want to go before your next upgrade

incognegro is right btw, just take into account where applications will be in <12 months, most likely you'll see more 64-bit, multithreaded apps show up

[Edited on March 18, 2006 at 9:19 PM. Reason : .]

3/18/2006 9:18:25 PM

Thanks Incognegro for a thorough response.

I'm building another computer so I can turn my current one into a media center basically. So no, I technically don't "need" to upgrade but I'd much rather spend the extra money now and get something I'll be happy with.

3/18/2006 9:20:07 PM

incognegro for mod

3/18/2006 9:58:05 PM

I'm not so sure we'll see that much action on the multithreading front in the next 12 months, honestly. Fact is, writing parallel code is hard. Many common tasks are not very good loads for a parallel system. There's got to be a large enough data set that it can either be approached in a fully parallel fashion (all threads performing the same operation); or approached in a pipelined manner (with each thread partially processing a data set and then passing it to the next thread). However, for pipelining to approach and surpass the speed of a single-threaded algorithm the intermediate steps must require at least as much time to process as it takes to tranmit the intermediate results between cores. I'm too lazy to look up the inter-core latency for anything, but it's going to be on the order of tens to hundreds of cycles. Not too many present-day algorithms are appropriate for either manner of parallelization and as such new solutions must be conceived for those problems. On the flip side, I do see managed code as a big step in the parallel direction. Virtual machines might execute one or more threads of translated code, in parallel with optimized JIT translation. Run-time optimization of code can increase execution efficiency several times over unoptimized code (e.g. best case scenario: recognizing an infinite NOP loop and treating it as a termination yields a infinite increase in efficiency). Sadly, I am not aware of any virtual machines that use this approach, but I haven't really looked either. Ultimately, I'd put "reinventing modern computing" on a time scale of more like a decade than a year.

Not to say that there won't be any "killer apps" that make very good use of threading within the next year, just that it'll be a long time coming before efficient utilization of multi-core processors is commonplace.

[Edited on March 19, 2006 at 7:31 AM. Reason : [/Incognegro's thoughts on the multi-core desktop]]

3/19/2006 7:18:00 AM

Quote :

"I would lean towards dual core, gives you more versalitity. You can be doing a heavy processor instensive task and still use your computer for other things at the same time. It also keeps your system from locking up if you have a misbehaving process consuming 100% (or 50% if you get dual core) of your CPU cycles. "

I'm not sure which applications are dual-core capable and not, but I do know the little app DVD Shrink will scream thru DVD encoding now using both cores if I want it to.

Sure you might be limiting your top end by a few hundred megahertz but i think the versality you gain with dual core is well worth the trade off.

3/19/2006 10:17:13 AM

there are quite a few little apps here and there, especially for encoding and rendering that are starting to take advantage. And games are as well, though only superficially right now.

Go with the dual core. You're already buying a processor that's retardedly faster than what you need, so you might as well get the one that has the most overall potential down the road.

3/19/2006 11:49:38 AM

Quote :

"You're already buying a processor that's retardedly faster than what you need"

Sounds like a plan to me. One of the companies I work for is basically paying for a huge chunk of this, thus the reason I'm not caring about the price... If anybody has a suggestion for something that would be a better idea, I'm open for suggestions.

3/19/2006 2:15:57 PM

Incognegro:

Quote :

"words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words. Ultimately, I'd put "reinventing modern computing" on a time scale of more like a decade than a year."

pwn!

3/19/2006 8:37:06 PM

yes, that was the conclusion, to a vaguely structured essay, which would be something approaching the appropriate form for a presentation of ideas to a (supposedly) academic audience

3/20/2006 2:56:58 PM

sure, but will it play quake?

3/20/2006 4:04:49 PM

lets hope so

3/20/2006 5:33:37 PM

Quote :

"I'm not sure which applications are dual-core capable and not, but I do know the little app DVD Shrink will scream thru DVD encoding now using both cores if I want it to."

here too is where I'd like to see some serious improvement w/ my desktop...it takes like an hour or so to get through some...p3, 733mhz

3/20/2006 7:33:12 PM

what i think i meant was in 12 months, not within 12 months, reason being is i believe vista will change a lot of people's minds about switching to dual-core, once that happens 2007 will be the year of dual-core gaming (maybe sooner in anticipation of getting new computers for the holidays that run vista)

sure i may lose 5-10 frames/sec., but i can do 5 other tasks in the background while i'm playing

[Edited on March 20, 2006 at 8:24 PM. Reason : .]

3/20/2006 8:19:06 PM

so basically nobody has made a real good concise point except Incognegro... all i hear is "well in 12 months, blah blah blah" i dont give a fuck about 12 months from now, nothing I can buy right now is going to be worth a damn in 12 months.

I guess Incognegro did give some decent advice at least, I'm gonna look thru a few more reviews and stats of the two then make my final decision/place the order. Everything else is here already except the RAM and one of my hard drives for the RAID setup.

Basically at this point it is 64bit 2.6ghz (FX-55) VS. X2 dual core 2.4ghz/4800+

You guys keep saying the dual core portion isn't all that great yet, not implemented in most programming yet, blah blah blah, but is the 64 bit stuff not the same way?? I may be completely wrong, but I thought it had to be coded for in the same way that dual core stuff had to be. I already have a copy of the 64 bit Windows XP, but what else (if needed?) is designed for the 64 bit processors??

3/20/2006 11:04:00 PM

A simple recompile is all that is necessary to take advantage of the 64-bit extensions in most cases. Not so for the dual core processor.

3/21/2006 12:35:26 AM

you'll need new drivers for 64-bit for all your hardware too... but most common apps out there now offer 64-bit...

also, most people do care about how long their computer will last. me on the otherhand, i swap out a new part on my PC about once every month or two, so yeah this isn't a complex question you're asking if you got the money to spend.

#1 you said you multitask #2 you don't game much, the choice should be simple and quite obvious, get the X2, you won't notice the 200mhz frequency difference between the two unless you game, whereas you'll notice a ~15-30% performance gain while multitasking...

3/22/2006 12:10:58 AM

Everything I've been reading is essentially saying the FX55 is very over priced. I'll probably go with the dual core afterall.

3/22/2006 3:40:13 PM