Dual core worth it?

[jellydoughnut217]

so is it worth it to pay the extra cash for a dual core processor? or just to stick with a single core? Do you think games will take advantage of dual core ne time soon?

 

[JNightshade]

Eh... I'm pretty sure it's useless for gaming.

 

[sinkoman]

Eh... I'm pretty sure it's useless for gaming.

Not neccessarily.

You could maybe have your Spyware, Virus, and Adware scanners all running at once while playing a game, and you won't get bogged down ingame.

You could have more hardware monitors running at once, and maybe even record FRAPS movies without getting slugishly low FPS.

I think that dual core is nothing but good.

 

[NeptuneUK]

nev0R!!! traditional single c0re all teh way!!! lawl

what i mean is... erm. the dual core ones are gving the same performance as much cheaper singe core ones, give them a few years to break the boundry. theres not really much of an advantage at this very moment in time apart from bragging rights for example:
"MY CPU has 2 cores how about you? huh noob? ahah single core noob!!"

 

[NJspeed]

Dual core is definately the future, but if you don't want to spend the $$ now, buy a newer system or motherboard which will allow you to upgrade to a dual core later on. I just bought a new system but I'll go 3.0ghz with HT for now... and in a year or two, I'll upgrade to some dual core chip thats probably not even out yet.

 

[NeptuneUK]

^definately what he said

 

[fifty7var]

It depends on what you use you computer for. I do a lot of multithreaded scientific computing, so Dual Cores are a neccessity. For the average user, it will just prevent the system from getting bogged down as easily (like the olden days where more ram gave your computer a kick in the pants)

 

[gweedodogg69]

i will be getting a 4800+ soon, sell my 4000+ and then get another 7800 GTX

 

[Asus]

'Worth it' is completely based on what you want from your PC.

What would make Dual Core worth it is if you either stress your machine with multiple programs running or if you have a program that can take advantage of 2 CPUs by itself (audio/video tools, encoding, rendering, compression tools etc).

For me it would be worth it because I never just have my game running. I have AntiVirus, Spyware, monitoring programs and MP3 player going...not to mention a web browser. I also do video/audio encoding and those programs would take advantage of dual core.

If you close down all your programs and Antivirus/Spyware scanners before you launch a game then a Single Core CPU would be better for you since you can get more for your money.

I wouldn't worry about if or when games start to take advantage of Dual Core. By that time you will have a new PC.
But my next upgrade will be with Dual Core and PCI-E system (AMD based).