Thinking about buying a new system soon and I was wondering if the Dual Core systems are really worth the extra $?

Simply.. Yes, you won't go back to a single core EVAR!

Short answer yes with an if, long answer no with a but.

is the but with two t's or one?

If its a gaming machine, wait a bit (talking like few weeks) for AMD's socket AM2 stuff to be all up in the shops then get a rig built up with that.

Alternatively you could wait till Intel releases the new Conroe chip which "supposedly" is going to beat the pants off everything including the AMD chips even at gaming. I'll beleive it when I see it.


Just for interests sake I bought some new hardware and benched my machine in which the cpu = 3200+ s939 amd (2.0ghz real clock). Came across a machine at work with the same specs I run but intel 3.0 ghz dual core cpu. Suprise suprise the AMD won easily.


Intel dual core isn't really much more at all, so go for it if you want intel.

Personally right at the moment I don't think AMD dual core is really worth it. If you don't upgrade often, only every say 3 years I'd probably say get a dual core. Otherwise hold off on it, save the money buying a single core cpu and spend the savings on a better vidcard or something.

last edited by rubba-chikin at 08:28:35 29/Jun/06

Nothing much uses dual core atm, it has little use for most people, much like 64-bit cpus.

And from everything I've heard about the conroe, its so worth waiting for. AMD has only had the performance crown since intel brought out the P4, which was a pretty awful cpu to begin with and has since been improved, although not enough to bring it up to speed with AMD gaming wise.

But the conroe looks more like a return to their P3 days, in which intel was still the quickest you could get for gaming.

Can't wait.

I got one in my laptop - Dual Core 1.83Ghz and in comparision to a P4 3Ghz it performs pretty well.

The only time I noticed something different was when I was burning an AVI to DVD (transcoding/etc) and playing WoW at the same time with minimal slow down.

My mac is a dual 2.0 Intel; my desktop is a dual 2.0 Athlon (X2-3800). Working on a single core 1.7 during the day, it's so slow! :( I wouldn't buy a single core system again.

Conroe FTW!!

Toms Hardware

I'm going to wait until it comes out next month and build a new system based on that.

last edited by Cr@ckerJ@ck at 10:22:13 29/Jun/06

yeah from what i have read intels new dual core chip kiks ass

A handy CPU comparison chart you might find useful, if you don't plan on waiting for Conroe.

I was just thinking about my next system, and have decided to wait until the release of the next windows. That way I won't be running around trying to upgrade my system just to get the next OS working.

Nothing much uses dual core atm, it has little use for most people

If your operating system supports multiple cores (WinXP and Linux do) then that's all you need to have a snappy desktop. Although no single program will be faster without direct multi-core support, this doesn't stop programs from being loaded into a less utilised core when your system is under heavy load.

A misunderstanding is that all of your programs need to be rewritten for multiple cores to take advantage of the second core. This is simply not true.

last edited by parabol at 18:16:39 29/Jun/06

So what's the different between a Core Duo and Dual Core? I'm confused...

yea the conroe chips are gonna kick arse. Good to see the competition again.

BUT! when they come out near the end of July, the 23rd or 24th I believe, the price of the AMD dual core chips are going to be almost halved.

So it's either
a) Buy an AMD now for ~$450-$500 (the lowest one), or
b) Wait till the conroe chips come out and pay ~$450-$600 for the lowest one of those which will clown on the AMD, or
c) Wait for the conroe release so you can buy the same AMD that costs almost $500 now for less than $300.


b) or c) clearly ftw.


It'll be good to see AMD staying competitive despite the difference in performance due to the price they'll set for their current chips. Tough decision I rekon.

Core Duo ( Centrino ) is the Intel Laptop version. Soon there will be Core 2 Duo :D Dual Core is AMD's x2/Opteron/Fx range and soon to be Conroe