Intel P4 with HT vs Intel Core 2 Duo

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Actually both do two threads but the P4 does it through hyperthreading which is some technical trickery to take advantage of what would otherwise be a disadvantage of the P4 architecture.
The Core2Duo will be much faster because it is designed from the beginning to be handle multiple threads.
It also runs cooler and uses less power, which are both good if you are paying for the electricity.
 
pope24 said:
The Core2Duo will be much faster because it is designed from the beginning to be handle multiple threads.
Click to expand...

Is it THAT much faster?

It also runs cooler and uses less power, which are both good if you are paying for the electricity.
Click to expand...

How much electricity are we really talking about here?
 
Yes it's THAT much faster. Netburst is dead. In fact it should never have lived!

<sarcasm> we'll miss you </sarcasm>
 
Whether it is MUCH faster actually very much depends on the software you run. IMHO, Dual Core is a BIG HYPE, not much more for a single stand alone desktop PC. For gaming, the game itself should ideally be programmed for multiple threads. I can tell you that most games are not! The current Doom/Quake/Unreal/HL engines are not designed for dual core machines (they are not multi-threading engines, I know because I have studied them). HOWEVER, in the not so distant future, the games that come out shortly will start taking more advantage of dual core machines! Actually it's fairly easy (for a multi-million dollar company) to make the engine use multi-threads, the main obstacles are thread synconization.

Anyway, point is, my suggestion. For gaming right now ... single core with high clock rate (and as much L1 cache as possible, then L2 cache).
For gaming in the not so distant future, multi-core/multi-threading games will kick ASS if they are run on a dual core machine.

A multi-threading game running on a single core WILL BE slower, because thread syncronization is the main overhead. That is why most game engines are not multi-threading, because most PC's don't have dual cores. The overhead to support multi-threading in a game engine is the detterant, also, if it's not properly synconized, debugging is also more labour intensive!

Anyway, bottom line is, at the moment I don't know of ANY MAJOR FPS game engine that is multi-threading! Because most gamers still have single cores.

BUT, single core's days are numbered!

Intel have been planning multi-core roadmap since Pentium 1 came out with 2 pipelines, the U and V pipe. Each new Pentium enhanced the functionality of the second processing pipeline until Pentium HT, where both pipes have evolved into 2 "vitual" cores, both "virtual" cores can do exactly the same functions as the other now!

Anyway, the other consideration is drivers. If your graphics card or any other driver for that matter are multi-threading, they can take full advantage of Dual Core. Also, if you for example do a lot of compression/conversion at the same time, you can take advantage of both cores by starting another instance.

Hope you got some idea!
 
While the 'Duo' bit is not important for games ATM, the 'Core 2' bit is. The Core 2 architecture has much better game performance than the Pentium (NetBurst) one.
 
at times my 1.6 Centrino seems faster than my 1.86 Core2 Duo and the fan seems to run constantly in my Core2 system and hardly comes on in my laptop.................. not impressed
 
Eben said:
at times my 1.6 Centrino seems faster than my 1.86 Core2 Duo and the fan seems to run constantly in my Core2 system and hardly comes on in my laptop.................. not impressed
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Find it hard to believe a E6300 (Core 2 Duo 1.8 MHz) would seem unimpressive compared to a Pentium-M 730 (Centrino 1.6 MHz). There must be some other system related differential e.g. mem, hd, os, drivers etc.
 
P4 HT is rubbish. I'm not impressed, never have been and never will be.
I also dont' see how a Centrino 1.6 would be faster than a core2 duo 1.86GHz.

Be it the games are threaded or not, you will see the benefit of Dual core on any game that you play that was previously CPU bound. The game doesn't have to be threaded per se, The GFX driver can also show benefits of DC which can distribute the mesh streaming to the two cores, meaning less sequential fetches from the CPU, hence faster performance. I tested a single core 3800+ against dual core 3800+ clocked 400Mhz lower. The DC squashed the single core in games and even at 2.6GHz the single core was struggling to keep up with DC stock...

Either way, forget P4. Go Core2 Duo.
Pentium4 is really a waste of time. P4 D50 @ 3.8GHz scores same as Athlon X2 4200+ (2.2GHz) at stock... :( in Spi
 
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