Quad Cores & Dual Cores

As you may be aware, we recently added the Q9300 to our lineup, and we've overclocked enough of them to identify 3.2GHz as our target speed for them. That's slightly disappointing, but not too surprising given the low multiplier (7.5 vs 9 on the Q6600.) I'd currently recommend the Q6600 over the Q9300, since the cost is similar, the speeds are the same, and there's 6MB of L2 cache on the Q9300, whereas you get 8MB with the Q6600. What we really need is for intel to finally ship the Q9450...

On a similar note, we're shipping PCs with the E8500, which is $100 more than the E8400 for about .3GHz more speed. It's a more subjective issue, choosing between those two dual-cores, but when we have a solid target speed for them in a week or two, it should be a clearer choice. (The E8500 has .5 more on its multiplier, so we should be able to get a higher percentage of OC on it than with the E8400.

We get a lot of "dual vs quad" questions these days, and it's understandable. If you're not sure what that means, or why it's an issue, the basic concept is that quad-core CPUs can handle twice as many simultaneous operations as a dual-core CPU, but the dual-cores are able to run faster at the same price. (If price isn't really a problem, then just go for the QX9650 and have the best of both worlds.)

We're in a transitional period where sometimes one makes more sense than the other. Presumably we're moving towards a time when dual-cores just don't make sense anymore, but it's not absolutely certain yet, and we certainly don't have a timetable to look at. From a gamer's perspective, either choice is justifiable. There are very few games which take advantage of dual cores, and almost none that leverage four or more right now. We know that will change, so it's tempting to go quad now in preparation for multicore bliss next year. Or the year after that.

Since we don't know when it will happen, though, we run the risk of cheating ourselves out of enjoying a higher CPU speed for (potentially) years, only to realize that when multicore gaming is in full swing it's already time to upgrade the CPU anyway.

To further confuse issues, it's important to remember that a game doesn't necessarily have to be multicore-capable to benefit from the presence of mutliple cores - specifically if you're the sort of user that has other things going on in the background while you're gaming. This is more evident in the case of a non-multicore game on a dual-core PC, as opposed to a dual-core capable game on a quad-core PC, but in either case there's a tangible benefit to the extra cores.

Personally, I would choose a dual core if gaming performance was my primary concern, and if and when multicore games become commonplace, then I'd upgrade to a quad. This industry changes too fast to invest in technology which you have to wait to benefit from. I'd probably only go quad when I knew beyond doubt that one or more games/applications that I personally use a lot were multicore-capable. And there aren't many out there yet.