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Quad Core Processors, Are They Important? Should we upgrade to QuadCore Processors or is it just a waste of mone

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It's not a necessity yet, but for sure it's a long term investment. Plus, I don't mind the extra cores, I do a lot of movie editing, it will make encoding things so much faster. Right now, duo core is a requirement, not quad, maybe in 2 years, but not now.xboxrulz

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Important I have to say yes, its not only a significant development advancement but also a solid investment as xbox said as well it CAN be utilized already with proper applications. Whether or not its a necessity is another question entirely. I think it's obvious its not a necessity as I'm running an old single core processor and can still manage to play the new games comming out (not well, but my vid card also sucks haha). Other applications all also still run so the necessity angle is obviously not a factor. However to see speed boosts the core idea is the only way they have to continue expanding processor speeds at the rates consumers demand at this time so I assume we'll see more and more cores as time goes on, unless they figure out a new material or process to use in the processor construction.

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The big issue (and why we see more multi-core chips coming out now) is that we are reaching the limit of how high we can crank clock speeds...it's to the point where the die size is not small enough for the electrons to get through the chip before the next clock cycle starts.So until a new, smaller fabrication process is developed, we're gonna see the clock speeds plateau and the number of cores increase.

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It's pretty amazing, but the problem is the speed of light, and of electrons, is too slow! This is why the big supercomputers have very high degrees of parallelism (thousands of processors!) It also means that programs that will take advantage of the multiple processors have to be designed for the task. This is where multi-threaded programs perform well. It is also a natural for servers that are running multiple tasks. The place where major computer science is involved, is where a really large-scale problem, like world weather modeling, needs both massive CPU usage, and coupling of the results from each CPU. Fortunately, "normal" people seldom have to deal with such problems! ;)

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It realy depends on what you want, need, already have or want to get. First of all, what you already have and want to get. I am refering mostly to software because this is what uses your cores. It's nice to have 4 cores, but if your software is only capable of using 2 cores then it's rather useless (unless you can run multiple instances of the software ;) ).Four cores allow you to do some heavy multitasking tough, but think about this: how often have you multitasked this much that you realy needed 2(3) additional cores ? I already have had such situation, but not that much that it's worth buying 2 or 3 extra cores :P .So imho, quad cores processors aren't important at the moment for the average (and above average) user. Quad core processors are only interesting for people that realy need it and this group of people is rather limited and tends to be a group of professional users.

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I have a dual core processor at the moment, and I have to say its nice to have that little more speed. For the moment, I believe that most people (the average population) doesn't need 4 cores. Applications like Video Editing, Gaming Consoles or Servers that require lots of speed will benefit from 4 cores (or more if thats the way its goes) but for most, it would be wasted.The way that computer applications and computers themselves are going, there will be a day when 4 cores will be standard (that might be past our time, but you never know ;)) and new applications and games will require the speed. But with that comes other requirements, which will probably increase as times goes too!

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By the way, this just came to my mind, those who realy need more cores don't even need quad cores cpu's, they just buy themself some Opterons or Xeons and put them in a multi-cpu configuration. The only advantage Quad Core offers is that fact that it's a all-in-one solution.

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I agree that it depends on the user, I believe that most people don't really need quad core processors yet, but in the future it might be a need, but maybe even something else will appear, as most people I mean people who use simple software and browse the web and do other online stuff.. Gamers who want to play really new games with all the possibilities, usually has to upgrade their computers quite often and need to invest a lot of money every time something new appears ;) and of course as been said, for video editing, rendering and etc. some extra speed can't do any harm, but most of that stuff also can be done by having lots of computers in the network or a company and as I know every computer can help and share it's CPU time for other computer for whatever he is doing, I do it with my brothers computer, we share the CPU time every time we compile something in Linux ;]

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Quad Core NecessityQuad Core Processors, Are They Important?

After upgrading to a Core2 Quad machine, the Macro function of OpenOffice.Org Calc no longer functions correctly.  Also, the 3D function of Husqvarna Designer 1 software no longer functions correctly.  Both work perfectly on an old single processor machine.  I don't know whether it is because of being multi-core, or simply the faster speed.  Either way, comprimised functionalty is the result.

Does anyone know of a solution?

Gordon

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It depends...I own a 12-core Mac pro, and it helps me a lot, because I do a lot of video editing/encoding. I was actually surprised when I upgraded from my previous core 2 duo, which I already considered pretty fast. If you do a lot of video work, it is quite important, because you will be wasting a lot of valuable editing time if you don't have fast processors.Hope I helped!

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Have a look at your PC.Do you have several windows open at the same time ? For instance a Microsoft Word session and a Web Browser window and looking for a file inside a Windows Explorer?Then you can take benefit of several cores.I am really happy with my Quad Pentium system, I have far more cpu power than when I had a single cpu system, and I find it far more comfortable.

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I am currently using a custom built computer and an Apple MacBook Pro which both utilise dual-core CPUs (Core 2 Duo and Core i7 respectively). Personally, since I do not do any video editing at all and use it for gaming and graphics applications (e.g. Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator) at most, the current dual-core CPU configuration is sufficient. Personally, considering my current uses, I would prefer a dual-core CPU with a higher clock speed than a quad-core CPU with a lower clock speed, as most of the applications I use on a daily basis would not benefit or be able to utilise all the cores of a quad-core CPU.On a side note, recent technological improvements such as Intel's Turbo Boost Technology which can 'shut down' inactive cores and boost the performance of active cores (which is great if you are running an application without multi-threading support).

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Have a look at your PC.

Do you have several windows open at the same time ?

For instance a Microsoft Word session and a Web Browser window and looking for a file inside a Windows Explorer?

Then you can take benefit of several cores.

I am really happy with my Quad Pentium system, I have far more cpu power than when I had a single cpu system, and I find it far more comfortable.


Euhm, you won't even notice the difference between the slowest Core Solo and the fastest Core i7 Quadcore in that situation. You don't need a lot of fast cores for doing ... nothing.

To put it simple:

Single core: great for office stuff

Dual core: great for gaming and maybe some photoshop

Quad core: great for video editing, rendering and some photoshop functions

Six core and plus: great for video editing and rendering, only if the software is optimized for the number of cores

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