Processor selection help - Quad vs. Dual Core
By
Jeremy_C,
Posted on: 2010-05-18 16:20 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Here's my question to you: how often do you tab out of game and do other things while playing? Quads aren't used heavily in majority of games, but where they excel is allowing you to load up a bunch of processes and still have a snappy system.
I will also admit I am all about the big AND fast processors, so I might be a bit biased.
Pinnacle server
just another random dude
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Very rarely - sometimes I load up Explorer to look up something on the Wiki, but that's about it.
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Originally Posted by Jeremy_C
Here's my question to you: how often do you tab out of game and do other things while playing? Quads aren't used heavily in majority of games, but where they excel is allowing you to load up a bunch of processes and still have a snappy system.
I will also admit I am all about the big AND fast processors, so I might be a bit biased. |
Both Intel's and AMD's latest desktop quad-cores can do a hyper-boost if the system isn't using all 4 cores. Basically they turn off or downclock the unused cores and overclock the remaining two Cores.
For a laptop though, this tech hasn't quite filtered down, and an I7 is a horrendously bad choice, but I somewhat suspect that you are shopping via video-card and not processor. Given what I know of the most powerful mobile video cards available in laptops right now, those being the GTX 260M from Nvidia, and the RadeonHD 5x00 series from ATi/AMD, all of the currently shipping laptops pretty much force you to either take the "killing your battery life faster than you thought!" I7... or the "I'm sorry, WHAT processing power?" I5.
If you have to buy now though, I'd get the quad-core.
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Actually, the laptop I'm looking at has the GTX 285M.|
Originally Posted by je_saist
Given what I know of the most powerful mobile video cards available in laptops right now, those being the GTX 260M from Nvidia, and the RadeonHD 5x00 series from ATi/AMD, all of the currently shipping laptops pretty much force you to either take the "killing your battery life faster than you thought!" I7... or the "I'm sorry, WHAT processing power?" I5.
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The core overclocking sounds like a cool feature! Any idea if this is on Intel's roadmap for inclusion into laptop processors?
Any thoughts about the clock difference between the dual and quad core I7's?
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http://ark.intel.com/MySearch.aspx?TBT=true|
Originally Posted by SteelMountain
Actually, the laptop I'm looking at has the GTX 285M.
The core overclocking sounds like a cool feature! Any idea if this is on Intel's roadmap for inclusion into laptop processors? Any thoughts about the clock difference between the dual and quad core I7's? |
The Turbo Boost tech in some... select... processors already. Intel officially started shipping them first quarter 2010... but I, personally, haven't actually seen any hitting retail. One of the big reasons AMD just landed a huge deal with HP was due to Intel's difficulty in actually delivering the chips.
They are out there, but you have to be very careful to match the model numbers before you buy.
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Okay... Clock Difference.
Yes, a screaming high processor speed can really help out performance in several games. City of Heroes, for example, tends to benefit from a higher clock speed over more cores since it's only running two processing threads.
That being said, the average IPC, instructions per clock cycle, on both AM'D's and Intel's currently shipping Quad-Core processors, is high enough that they'll still crush older applications without even breaking a sweat.
If it was my money on the line, I'd go for the quad-core, simply because future applications are more likely to be multi-thread dependent than clock-speed performance dependent.
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I'm running CoH on laptop with Win 7 64 bit, and quad core i7 Q720 (hyperthreading enabled). While CoH is running, I see 4-5 logical processors at around 50% utilization. So it seems that either CoH can utilize more than 2 cores, or Win 7 schedules things on more than 2 cores. Unfortunately, my desktop that has WinXP and 2 dualcores is getting killed by i17, so I can't say how many cores CoH utilizes on WinXP 32 at the moment. I'm going to wait until patch with performance fixes made it to live before trying my desktop again.
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Originally Posted by SteelMountain
I am working on spec'ing out a new laptop and am debating whether to go for a quad core or a dual core processor. From what I recall, COH only can utilize 2 cores, so the other 2 in a quad would not contribute to the game. Is this correct?
If so, then it seems I would get better COH performance from an Intel® Core i7-620M, 4MB L3 Cache, 2.66-3.33GHz over an Intel® Core i7-720QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 1.60-2.80GHz, perhaps even by a wide margin, since there is an 0.5 GHz difference between the top core clock rates. Of course, COH isn't the only use for this machine, but it is the only MMO I play, so it will probably stress the system the hardest. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.  |
I am working on spec'ing out a new laptop and am debating whether to go for a quad core or a dual core processor. From what I recall, COH only can utilize 2 cores, so the other 2 in a quad would not contribute to the game. Is this correct?
If so, then it seems I would get better COH performance from an Intel® Core™ i7-620M, 4MB L3 Cache, 2.66-3.33GHz over an Intel® Core™ i7-720QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 1.60-2.80GHz, perhaps even by a wide margin, since there is an 0.5 GHz difference between the top core clock rates.
Of course, COH isn't the only use for this machine, but it is the only MMO I play, so it will probably stress the system the hardest.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.