Travel Technology - Dual Core vs Quad Core

Which do you guys recommend?

2.450 GHZ of Quad Core

OR

3.16 GHZ of Dual Core

Same price ...I do not run intensive apps...but I do the following when I am on the computer:

AOL Desktop
Burning or ripping a dvd
internet explorer with mulitple windows

As I type this, I have 4 apps running. I have a 4GB RAM and Intel Pentium 4.

The pricing is pretty well constructed, as the total processing power is equivalent within 10%. But the dual core will be >20% faster for any specific app which is cpu-bound, hence much better as a desktop (personal) machine. The quad core would be better as a server (but you don't mention any interest in that). So pick the dual core.

just a desktop but I rip dvd's on it and then use it to stream to my reciever thru a hard line and not wireless.

So I have a big Hard drive but...but not a server.

If you burn/rip DVDs, spend good money on a good I/O subsystem and fast disks. Then worry about the core count.

The pricing is pretty well constructed, as the total processing power is equivalent within 10%. But the dual core will be >20% faster for any specific app which is cpu-bound, hence much better as a desktop (personal) machine. The quad core would be better as a server (but you don't mention any interest in that). So pick the dual core.

agree totally^

stick with dual core unless you really need quad core (server) performance which would mean you are running those kind of apps...

There are certain desktop apps like Photoshop that take advantage of multiple cores and there are some video encoding apps that will suck up the processing power from multiple cores as well. A limited number of games have been known to utilize multiple cores well (though the majority do not).

Finally, if you think you might delve into overclocking, it tends to be the case the lower default-clocked CPUs overclock better/more easily than the higher default-clocked versions. This is a vast overstatement with lots of caveats, but for the beginning overclocker is basically true.

At the moment there are only a few applications / games which can really use the 4 cores. I personally decided towards the Q6600 instead of a dual-core because it can be simply overclocked to run at a speed of a 700.-$ CPU.

So if you use it for "standard" applications and you are NOT wanting to overclock it, I would go for the dual core. It should have a little better performance than the quad in standard setting.

@:-) Pick the processor that uses less power. ;)

That would be the Dual.....