Intel Core Duo

Is it a marketing hype or do you REALLY seee a BIGGG difference????

I must know because of the R60 which is sOON to come... Intel Core Duo is like AMD X2 CPUS???


I must know! Please! I don't wanna spend money and then feel like a stupid ...

Thanks

Steve

 

You will notice a difference when doing lots of processor-intensive stuff at a given time. However, while some people have gone completely nuts over this and assume any single-core machine will be useless in two years, they are still perfectly viable machines. That being said, if you can afforda dual-core computer, might as well go for it.

 

The 1.83GHz Core Duo was about 30% faster than my 1.8GHz Dothan Pentium M. As HM notes it really depends on what you are doing. If it is CPU intensive, the Core Duo will will no question.

 

So Core Duo 2 GHz is Comparable to 2 GHz AMD X2??

 

The difference between Core Duo and Dothan CPUs lies more in the overall way what sort of applications you run. There are some well multithreaded build apps, which benefit a lot from a Core Duo CPU and hence you will see some amount of performance improvements for these. On the other side there are also a bunch apps which actually don't benefit much from a Core Duo CPU and thus you will not see any big performance improvement for certain sort of applications (mostly apps which don't have been build in a multithreaded threaded manner).

So it actually always depends on the sort of used apps, but most future apps will be for sure build in a manner, that they will benifit much more from Core Duo CPUs.

 

Core duo is built on a single dye with an integrated 2MB cache...the two cores "talk-to-each-other" within that cache. Additionally, they are built on a 65 nanometer thread so that their connections are smaller and require less power; (((there's a still semi-unresolved power drain problem if you connect an USB device))) and MSFT has/will provide a fix. Many notebook results imply that a work-around has been applied at their respective factory.

The Core duo platform is the application of the Pentium M with a 65 nanometer CPU coupled with another one integrated through a 2 MB connection. They have been compared to P4s by 1.8(their XMHz)...so a 1.66 T2300 would be as speedy as a P4 3.0 HT...roughly...but this is on a notebook.

 

There will always be an opportunity to "feel stupid". A short time after you buy ANY notebook, or any piece of consumer computer/electronics, a newer "better" one will appear. So, your task is to compare the pros and cons of what is currently available to the potential pros and cons of what is coming out soon. If you get a Yonah, you may feel stupid when Merom comes out, especially if you can't upgrade. For most people doing what most people do on a notebook, a single core CPU is all they will ever need.

Andrew

 

YES YES AND YES Huggggge difference in my opinion. Simple things like boot up and starting Windows is much faster. Then when you start doing things like creating restore Cd's and continue to work on the system with ZERO lag it is amazing. BTW I have a PM 1.83, PM 2.0 and now a Duo 2.0. I can tell the difference.

 

I hope the Educational website offers the Z61m...or at least starts offering cheaper T60's.

I'd love dual-core for college, but I can't swing $2,000+warranty.

 

Had to weigh in on this discussion as it is rapidly becoming near and dear to my heart...

I am not bought in to all of this hype. I have three laptops at home:

1. Personal Home/Family Computer - Powerbook G4 1.5ghz
2. Dell D610
3. Dell (old school latitude c600 - PIII 750mhz...yeehaw!)

Of these three computers, nothing stands out to me performance wise. In fact, my trusty ol' c600 seems to do everything I need to do (use tons of Office apps all at once)

The main thing for me is RAM...cant get enough...

"2 gigs you say?" ... I'll take it!

So, the main thing is to really understand what apps you have that are taking up processor resources and figure out if these are multicpu engineered. As far as I am aware, apps like Photoshop, etc are fantastic with a dual core machine...but that is in the RENDERING type work...not simply applying colors and shades and "touching up files. Again, when it also comes to something like DVD burning, you'll likely see an upgrade. However, I am still not convinced that those apps are the reason people what this...Im thinking alot of the comments and opinions on this comes from the fear of having outdated technology.

Its important to remember that the majority of the time it is actually something else holding our perfance back...old vid cards, low ram, etc,

For the life of me, I just cant seem myself maxing out that 2gh z60m processor...the video card is also more than enough for me

Dont worry about processors unless you are planning on doing something that is already optimized for this

 

If all you do is office, nearly any PIII+ machine with enough RAM is good enough. People buying advanced dual-core computers, hopefully, are doing more than office.

 

Yes we surf this forum also