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billege · 05-17-2006, 03:41 PM

I know the Core Duo bus is a hot one to jump on lately, but I gotta say, it's not some magic pill.

FWIW, I've been configuring a Dell Precision M90 for a client this week, and some of last. (My job is "IT professional," also, FWIW.)

Anyway, we've got this M90 pretty much completely tricked out from Dell. Check thier site for the goodies. She's loaded: core duo, 2gb, rabid gpx card, all that fun crap. It's mostly as fast as any other 2ghz p4 laying around the office. Okay? It's not some magic superfast PC that we're wetting our pants over. Core Duo = yah, it's quick in photoshop, and the FPS is surely good too. Not that we'll know, because there will never be a game on it.

My point is that expected, anticipated, "damn that's fast" increase in speed from the dual core just isn't there. In fact, there's less "ghee whiz" factor than I'd hoped. I keep trying to make it sweat running apps at the same time (mostly installers, as I load software) and the same ole bottlenecks are still there: HD and memory bandwidth.

Speaking of which, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the Intel Core Duos have to go way the hell out to the FSB and back to share info between cores? Meanwhile the AMDs have thier hypertransport built into the core. Won't that make memory access faster for an AMD 64 over the Core Duo?

Either way, it's a far more underwhelming experiance on dual core than I'd hoped for.

05-17-2006, 03:41 PM	#23 (permalink)
billege Watcher Location: Ohio	I know the Core Duo bus is a hot one to jump on lately, but I gotta say, it's not some magic pill. FWIW, I've been configuring a Dell Precision M90 for a client this week, and some of last. (My job is "IT professional," also, FWIW.) Anyway, we've got this M90 pretty much completely tricked out from Dell. Check thier site for the goodies. She's loaded: core duo, 2gb, rabid gpx card, all that fun crap. It's mostly as fast as any other 2ghz p4 laying around the office. Okay? It's not some magic superfast PC that we're wetting our pants over. Core Duo = yah, it's quick in photoshop, and the FPS is surely good too. Not that we'll know, because there will never be a game on it. My point is that expected, anticipated, "damn that's fast" increase in speed from the dual core just isn't there. In fact, there's less "ghee whiz" factor than I'd hoped. I keep trying to make it sweat running apps at the same time (mostly installers, as I load software) and the same ole bottlenecks are still there: HD and memory bandwidth. Speaking of which, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the Intel Core Duos have to go way the hell out to the FSB and back to share info between cores? Meanwhile the AMDs have thier hypertransport built into the core. Won't that make memory access faster for an AMD 64 over the Core Duo? Either way, it's a far more underwhelming experiance on dual core than I'd hoped for. __________________ I can sum up the clash of religion in one sentence: "My Invisible Friend is better than your Invisible Friend." Last edited by billege; 05-17-2006 at 03:43 PM..