I'm between dual core and quad core.which do you recommend? specs are:

2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7

2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7

Re: Dual core vs Quad core

Option 2.

Re: Dual core vs Quad core

habla lucien! If those are macbook pro specs i'll go for the quadcore no doubt !

Re: Dual core vs Quad core

Option one, obviously!

How parallel are processes these days? How often will you max out all four cores?

Re: Dual core vs Quad core

Personally, I'd pick the 2.7ghz Dualie. How scalable is the Quad? Cos if you can push that up to similar speeds then that'd sway my decision that way.

Re: Dual core vs Quad core

I've got a Q9550 on my personal computer myself. Is it overkill? Perhaps. It really depends on what you are planning on doing with the computer. I did a lot of research in finding out what would be the best for me. I'm running dual Nvidia 460GTX's (so in SLI), after looking into it I found out that usually your CPU ends up being the bottleneck and slowing graphical performance. So I opted for the Quad core and actually over clocked it. I've got a beastly heatsink and an Antec 900 case. I've yet had any heat issues and pretty much every game I've played lately has me at or above 60fps. I've yet to play Crysis, but everything looks and runs beautiful.

Re: Dual core vs Quad core

I would go with option 2 personally. Those chips have turbo boost in them when other cores are idle... more cores is always better. More and more apps are becoming multithreaded to take advantage of all these core. For example, NI just updated Traktor Pro 2 to have multi-core optimizations... and Serato uses all available cores for analyzing files... plus with Intel's hyperthreading, 4 cores becomes 8 cores in software... Serato analyzes 8 files at a time on the new MacBook Pro. Pretty legit IMO.

Re: Dual core vs Quad core

Quad core of course! It is the one to beat. :)

Re: Dual core vs Quad core

Have you already gone and purchased this? If there was any CPU I'd buy now it'd be the Core i5 2500k

Re: Dual core vs Quad core

quad core without a doubt, i bought a quad core q6700 3-4 years ago and it still eats everything alive even though its only 2.66 GHz

Re: Dual core vs Quad core

All you people with your quad cores. I just upgraded the Pentium Dual Core E2160 (1.8ghz / 800fsb) to a Core Duo 2 E6550 (2.33ghz / 1333fsb). To be fair, I did build the machine on the cheap to take to university with me but an E6550 for £25 was not to be sniffed at. Everything seems nice and snappy now.

Re: Dual core vs Quad core

^ this.

doesnt matter same thing same range more output more heat moar space

Re: Dual core vs Quad core

Depends on price and usage.