Should I go Dual Core or Quad Core? Intel C2 DUO E6850 vs. Quad-Core Q6600
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From: Bob Fry on 3 Jan 2008 19:22 >>>>> "M" == Matt <mattb95(a)hotmail.com> writes: M> Will all applications for Windows eventually become M> multi-threaded and fully utilise a quad core setup? Sure. About the time Windows itself becomes stable and bug-free. What sort of apps are you running? At the moment, off-hand I think only very specialized parallelized, shared-memory numerical apps will truly take advantage of multiple cores. Or if you are running several apps at a time that use cpu then multiple cores will help. Otherwise I'd go for the faster clock rate. -- The citizen who sees his society's democratic clothes being worn out and does not cry it out, is not a patriot, but a traitor. ~ Mark Twain
From: Ken Maltby on 3 Jan 2008 20:02 "Bob Fry" <bobfry(a)mailinator.com> wrote in message news:lk76igm7.fsf(a)mailinator.com... >>>>>> "M" == Matt <mattb95(a)hotmail.com> writes: > > M> Will all applications for Windows eventually become > M> multi-threaded and fully utilise a quad core setup? > > Sure. About the time Windows itself becomes stable and bug-free. > > What sort of apps are you running? At the moment, off-hand I think > only very specialized parallelized, shared-memory numerical apps will > truly take advantage of multiple cores. Or if you are running several > apps at a time that use cpu then multiple cores will help. Otherwise > I'd go for the faster clock rate. > -- > The citizen who sees his society's democratic clothes being worn out > and does not cry it out, is not a patriot, but a traitor. > ~ Mark Twain One area that well often benefit from some form of distributed processing is, video processing. There are many who wouldn't think of creating a "render farm" but would be glad if they could have access to some of the benefits of such a setup. A Quad- core approach may just match the scale and needs of the home video Editor, at this time. Luck; Ken
From: Bob Fry on 3 Jan 2008 23:59 >>>>> "KM" == Ken Maltby <kmaltby(a)sbcglobal.net> writes: KM> One area that well often benefit from some form of KM> distributed processing is, video processing. One form of distributed processing used for many years is--using a graphics card. For the home user, even video processing is better handled using a good graphics card. Graphics processors are simply very specialized vectorized processors, far more efficient than trying to do the same thing with a general purpose cpu. -- "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" -Mark Twain
From: Ken Maltby on 4 Jan 2008 01:43 "Bob Fry" <bobfry(a)mailinator.com> wrote in message news:8x36i3st.fsf(a)mailinator.com... >>>>>> "KM" == Ken Maltby <kmaltby(a)sbcglobal.net> writes: > > KM> One area that well often benefit from some form of > KM> distributed processing is, video processing. > > One form of distributed processing used for many years is--using a > graphics card. For the home user, even video processing is better > handled using a good graphics card. Graphics processors are simply > very specialized vectorized processors, far more efficient than trying > to do the same thing with a general purpose cpu. > The video processing that I was referring to is not something accomplished by the GPU of the normal video card. Except for special hardware encoder cards ( Like Matrox's Real Time cards) used during the editing and encoding of video; the software editing programs rendering and encoding is done using the CPU or CPUs when more than one is available. The time this adds to the process of editing and authoring DVDs has always been a great aggravation, and improvements in this area are very sought after. The traditional approach, of those with the budget, has included creation of a render farm, made up of many computers linked together and all working on parts of the rendering or encoding of the video. Luck; Ken
From: Patrick Vervoorn on 4 Jan 2008 10:23
In article <kN2dnbZfqaIaSODanZ2dnUVZ_rWtnZ2d(a)giganews.com>, Ken Maltby <kmaltby(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote: > >"Bob Fry" <bobfry(a)mailinator.com> wrote in message >news:8x36i3st.fsf(a)mailinator.com... >>>>>>> "KM" == Ken Maltby <kmaltby(a)sbcglobal.net> writes: >> >> KM> One area that well often benefit from some form of >> KM> distributed processing is, video processing. >> >> One form of distributed processing used for many years is--using a >> graphics card. For the home user, even video processing is better >> handled using a good graphics card. Graphics processors are simply >> very specialized vectorized processors, far more efficient than trying >> to do the same thing with a general purpose cpu. >> > > The video processing that I was referring to is not something >accomplished by the GPU of the normal video card. Except >for special hardware encoder cards ( Like Matrox's Real Time >cards) used during the editing and encoding of video; the software >editing programs rendering and encoding is done using the CPU or >CPUs when more than one is available. The time this adds to the >process of editing and authoring DVDs has always been a great >aggravation, and improvements in this area are very sought after. >The traditional approach, of those with the budget, has included >creation of a render farm, made up of many computers linked >together and all working on parts of the rendering or encoding >of the video. While I don't have extensive experience in this field, I _have_ 'recoded' a few DVDs from 4.7+ GB to exactly 4.7GB using 'Nero Recode', and I noticed this tool makes use of all 4 cores on my Q6600. So this is one area where a Quad-Core will significantly outperform a Dual-Core CPU. See also the equivalent Benchmarks on, for instance, Tom's Hardware site, the CPU overview. Beyond that, I thought long and hard about the Q6600 vs the E6850 since they were, give or take a few EUROs, exactly the same price when I was putting together my new 'Game-Rig'. After reading some articles about upcoming 3D engines, I decided I would take the gamble of going for the slower-clocked Quad-Core vs the Higher-Clocked Dual-Core. Time will tell if I made the right choice, but the Q6600 is certainly a lot of (perhaps theoretical) horsepower compared to an E6850. So if a lot of these get sold and are in the market, developers will notice this (see for instance Valve's periodical HW survey via Steam) and hopefully make use of this extra horsepower. Regards, Patrick. |