Intel dual-core processors: worth the extra $$?

Anybody here driving one of the new P4 820 processors and what are your experiences?

I left the realm of consumer computing a long time ago and have spent just way too much time in the corporate world, so I'm a little bit out of touch, even when it comes to redesigning my own desktop computer, or thinking about it. I could easily go the tried-and-tested corporate configs (and I really like those because we design for stability), but I was just curious about this new P4 820 that's come out.

Sorry AMD fans, no AMD on my desktop. I have one requirement I absolutely will not compromise: I want an Intel board. As in, the board is made by Intel and qualified by Intel, not just the chipset. Obviously, they aren't about to support the AMD procs.

One of the concerns is that I haven't really taken the time to sit down and measure how multithreaded my workload is, but based on my previous experience, a dual-CPU system didn't help me much back then. I do very little gaming, most of what I do nowadays is digital imaging (them 8 megapixel shots from the SLR gotta go somewhere), apart from the routine administrative tasks that my current P4 2.66Ghz has no problem handling. Oh, and web browsing

Personally, I don't think Intel processors are worth the extra markup prices but to each his own. Since,as you said, you have been away from comsumer computing for a while. You might want to check up the current market situation regarding Intel and AMD and also chipset makers. There are currently a new leader in the chipset sector, Nvidia. By sticking only with Intel everything, you are actually having the least bang for your bucks.
www.tomshardware.com might give you some insight regarding the current consumer computing scene.
For the task you are mentioning, you current P4 should be sufficient... Do you have problems running your apps???:huh2:

i want a dual core amd so bad.i love amd.if ya get one with a good chipset there very very stable server stable even..then just reseach drivers for the chipset.i may try intel someday though.hey

For photo processing I'd say there is little advantage to dual core chips. It would be possible to write an image processing routine that was multi-threaded across CPU's but I'm fairly sure that running regular filters or encodings wont take advantage of the extra processor. I am a huge fan of multi-core chips and multi-processor systems for things like music production where many simultaneous and CPU expensive processing are going on. But for web surfing and image tweaking? It will help, as some of the system tasks and other background stuff wont share the CPU. But the change wont be as impressive as you might hope.

I would spend the extra money on just a faster board and chip to start with.

That being said, I do lots of different things and I can't wait to update to a dual core dual processor machine Or even more than that but I'll get some good use out of it since I sit at my machine all day long and run dozens of programs and compiles and things at once.

If you're doing photo processing in photoshop, then many of it's built in and other filters DO take advantage of a second CPU. And it can be quite a help in doing work with very large images. But if you're not doing print work at ludicrously large file sizes, I still think your best improvement would be just a faster single chip.

Single faster chip is definitely the current best way to go. There just aren't enough programs that can fully utilize dual core technology at the moment.

At www.tomshardware.com, there's a little review comparing single and dual core chips, and the results show that the single cores are faster than the dual cores in almost any situation.

Dual core chips will definitely be required in the future, but that will probably only happen in one or two upgrade cycles' time.

I'd have to disagree with James S to a certain point. Photoshop supports multithreading for most/many of the filters and can take advantage of dual core or dual processor systems. Functions won't require HALF the time but they will finish faster.

Whether you will benefit from multi CPU setup depends on the programs you used. Personally, I am waiting for more 64bit apps to come out so I can use my AMD64 to the fullest
KevinL, don't you trust the people in Sim Lim???:nana:

Gimp user here. The money went to the glass, not to the software (the price of Photoshop would buy me yet another lens, which is why I compromise). Somehow I doubt GIMP is sufficiently multithreaded. You guys have a good point.

I can envision the dual-cores being useful on the company server farm, where everything is multiprocess, multithreaded, multi-whatever up and down the yinyang, but perhaps not for my desktop.

flashgreenie: Not any more than you would trust your friendly Wal-mart salesdrone when asking 'What's the best flashlight?' you might not even end up with a Maglite.. you could do a lot worse

I'll bet that dual-core will throw off enough heat to heat your house. I like cool and quiet so I only use Pentium Northwoods. Unfortunately Intel doesn't make them anymore so I have to buy them on eBay.

I've got the Asus (P4PE) and the Intel (D865) motherboards here. Both solid as a rock. If I ever buy another one it will be an Asus. My Intel has a mind-boggling bug in the BIOS. They have 22 BIOS updates for this board the last time I checked, but they never fixed this problem. The BIOS can either see both my SATA drives and not my CD drive or it can see the first SATA and the CD drive but not the second SATA, depending on how I set the options. Unbelievable, and a real pain whenever I have to boot from CD.

Then they disabled the "ESCAPE" key for security reasons. It makes no sense to me. That's the key that gives a boot device selection menu, so you don't have to change the boot device order in the BIOS to boot from CD or floppy or whatever. One of the handiest keys there is, but it ain't available on the Intel any more.

Northwood.. what chips were those again? I think my current rig is running one.

The Northwood was the Pentium they made a couple of years ago. It was replaced with the Prescott. The Prescott silicon die has smaller "stuff" allowing more transistors in a smaller space. Unfortunately it also generates more heat.

Take what I say with a grain of salt, because I don't have a Prescott. They sell millions though so they must not be so bad.

If you want to know what's inside your computer case, download the free Everest Home Edition.

Here's my CPU:


You can also see the temperatures and about a million other things:


Oh by the way, I do not have dual processors. The hyperthreader shows up as two CPUs for some reason. And this is my bleepin' Intel motherboard.

Mine most probably should be one of those. I SHOULD know better too, considering I put it together in the first place.. (or maybe I should be happy that I'm so cheerfully removed from computing technology while still retaining the benefits).

I do recall the name of the board though, an Intel D845PEBT2, nice board.. 2 good years, no hardware failures. Older i845 chipset, 533Mhz max, single channel DDR. I am not looking forward to replacing this rig but it may be necessary (for reasons other than tech ones) in the months to come. I like 'em rock solid reliable.

My other computer has the Intel 845 chipset. It's the Asus P4PE mobo. It's about 1 year older than this one, I think. This one has the 865 chipset.

I have forgotten, if I ever knew, what the difference is. Well this one has the 800 MHz FSB and my 845 has the 533 MHz FSB. Apparently that makes this one 30% faster running SuperPi.

I think they're up to the 900 series chipsets now. These have serial PCI, or as Intel calls it, PCI Express. Some of them are considerably faster too, according to the benchmarks I've seen posted here. I guess if you are doing video editing, the speed would be nice. But I don't need it.

The new CPUs have more pins too so they are incompatible with my mobo. The moral of the story is, whatever machine you get, it will be hopelessly outdated in a couple of years.

If I HAD to buy an Intel dual-core, it would be the upcoming dual-core Pentium M that is replacing the PrescHOT cored P4. Intel says GHz does not matter (I have heard that somewere) so they are going for processing power per watt just like AMD, IBM, VIA, Motorola, Transmeta and others.

It will be several months before the Pentium M dual-core shows up... and you know they are going to charge a ton of money for them. Myself, my A64 3000 is running cool and quiet in my home theater PC and I will probably upgrade late next year to a dual-core Athlon64 as it is a simple replace the CPU trick.

Leave the obsolete P4's alone and wait for the M dualies or get AMDs dual-core with nVidias chipset motherboards for your new rig. I enjoy the silence of my rig and it runs very cool in a small box.

About a month ago I went to a local Linux trade show in SF. While AMD did (and continues to) impress me, the other, less expected performer was - IBM. Kevin, if you are going to setup a "do not want it to fail" system, with lots of processing power - you should really consider the IBM workstations with their processor - if you are going to run Linux.

I understand your concern about the clone boards - that is always a challenge in home builts.

Dual core intel chipset is not worth it if you don't do gaming or autoCad designing work. The chip is intened for heavy duty graphic applications. single core chipset will be sufficient for all other applications.