A possible future system

[unknown555525]

Firstly, even a single core of a Core 2 duo running at 2.4GHz will never be a bottleneck in any current game.

I used to own an E6750 running at 3.4GHz , and I've upgraded to a Q6600 running at 3.0GHz, and things are much better now.

Also, programs do not have to support multi cores to reap the benefits of Quad or more cores. Right now when I load up windows XP PRO x64, the OS runs on the 4th core, when I launch a high definition video in Windows media player, it runs that off of any of the other cores randomly, then If I keep that video playing, move it to my other monitor, and lauch a game that only supports one core, that game automatically runs on one of the other cores that isn't being used, and now I can watch a high definition video, and play a game, and run the OS all on different cores while everything runs flawlessly because none of the programs I have running are fighting for CPU use since they each have their own CPU to run off of.

Ok, so mabe most people won't ever have the need to play a game and watch HD videos at the same time, but what I'm explaining is that both XP, and vista will automatically assign whatever program you want to run, to a core(s) that isn't in use. Having quad cores has been amazing, and more and more and even more games these days are taking advantage of this.

It's not hard to see the benefits of more cores, if the game or program really can scale to use every core simultaniously, then you really can put those numbers together, an e8400 would be rated at 6GHz and a Q6600 would be rated at 9.6GHz.

[screwballl]

a single core of a C2D will be a bottleneck as most recent games are made to use multiple cores in some way, but not as much so as a lower end video card or less than 2GB of memory.
With XP and Vista, if a program is only assigned to use one core, it will only use the first core. If you start up 1 or 5 other programs that can also only use 1 core, they will all use the same first core. Only if you assign the affinity can you change which core it uses. Even then it is only temporary, until the program closes or windows is restarted. Some multi-threaded programs will give up some of the power from the first core if a single threaded program is started and it will continue to run using the rest of the power available in Core1 and whatever available in Cores 2, 3 and 4.

relating to speeds:
A E6600, dual core at 2.4GHz is still 2.4 GHz per core. You cannot combine them to get 4.8GHz, it is 2.4GHz x2... do you add 2 sticks of 800MHz memory for 1600MHz? or 4 sticks of memory for 3200MHz?
CPU cores are like a lanes on a highway. A Pentium 4 single core is a single lane at a specific speed, a C2D dual core is 2 lanes at the same specific speed, a C2Q quad core is 4 lanes. Some vehicles can only use one lane, other can use all lanes, but whether it is single core 2.4GHz, dual core or quad core at 2.4GHz, traffic can only move through there at 2.4GHz (or whatever speed it is rated for, regardless of the number of "lanes").
Thats ok this has been a common misconception since the introduction of multiple cores to the public.

[StevieRay]

Brilliant analogy. VERY VERY helpful. Thank you!

Same to you Unknown, great break down.

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by screwballl

relating to speeds:
A E6600, dual core at 2.4GHz is still 2.4 GHz per core. You cannot combine them to get 4.8GHz, it is 2.4GHz x2... do you add 2 sticks of 800MHz memory for 1600MHz? or 4 sticks of memory for 3200MHz?
CPU cores are like a lanes on a highway. A Pentium 4 single core is a single lane at a specific speed, a C2D dual core is 2 lanes at the same specific speed, a C2Q quad core is 4 lanes. Some vehicles can only use one lane, other can use all lanes, but whether it is single core 2.4GHz, dual core or quad core at 2.4GHz, traffic can only move through there at 2.4GHz (or whatever speed it is rated for, regardless of the number of "lanes").
Thats ok this has been a common misconception since the introduction of multiple cores to the public.

That is a good analogy, but I want to point out that the differing processor architechtures would play a role in performance. I know that is beyond the scope of the analogy, but I just wanted to add that bit in there. A single core Pentium 4 processor at 2.4GHz will never perform as well as a 2.4 Core 2 Duo part with one core disabled (so it is essentially a single core). Other than that, the highway traffic lanes is a good way to think about it.

[unknown555525]

What I meant when I said that you can add up the speeds, is yes, a 2.4GHz quad core will always run at 2.4GHz, but theoretically, a program that can utilize every core equally would perform similar to a single 9.6GHz cpu with the same core.

But remember I just said theoretically

Also, I haven't used this myself, but if you bring up the windows task manager, you can assign any non-system process to run on either of the core(s) that you, yourself chooses. Right click on a process in the task manager and click set affinity. This would be great if doing something like compiling something, or decoding video while playing crysis etc...

[screwballl]

Originally Posted by unknown555525

But remember I just said theoretically

Also, I haven't used this myself, but if you bring up the windows task manager, you can assign any non-system process to run on either of the core(s) that you, yourself chooses. Right click on a process in the task manager and click set affinity. This would be great if doing something like compiling something, or decoding video while playing crysis etc...

Most of the time there is no need to really mess with this unless you have several programs running on the first core that may be slowing down. Anymore even in XP I find that there is no real need to mess with this.

[Gig-O-Ram]

Thanks Screwballl, and Unknown, for clearing that up for me. As I said, I've always had trouble getting it straight how these multicore chips work on these points. But the analogy you present makes a lot of sense, so I will keep this in mind when I get to choosing a CPU.

[Tech Geek Deluxe]

Newegg has the E8400 retail for $200 right now with free shipping.

[Gig-O-Ram]

Originally Posted by Tech Geek Deluxe

Newegg has the E8400 retail for $200 right now with free shipping.

While that sounds absolutely awesome, I still need to wait for my money to stabilize. When I feel that's happened, this thing of doing a new build will move forward.