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Weekend Open Forum: How many cores power your PC?
Fortunately, competition hasn't slowed down in the entry level and mainstream segments. Unable to keep up with today's fastest offerings, AMD has made a solid effort to deliver balanced value and performance on all its chips, keeping Intel on its toes or at least putting enough pressure on them when it comes to pricing. They further emphasized this by introducing their first six-core desktop part earlier this week, priced quite lower than Intel's Core i7 980X.
Of course, these chips are not meant to compete against each other, but the fact remains, today you can get a full range of CPUs manufactured on more efficient processes and with up to six cores, for little over $200. That's something anyone who carries out heavily threaded tasks such as intensive 3D work or video encoding can certainly appreciate.
With that in mind we want to revisit this topic and ask you, how many cores are powering your PC today? Do you believe further increasing the number of processing cores will pay off in terms of actual performance given today's software standards? And if so, do you plan on upgrading to a six-core chip from Intel or AMD anytime soon?
User Comments: 98
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Intel E8400 Core2Duo @ 4GHz. on air. Funny my machine doesn't act obsolete, but I still have the feel that it's falling behind the newer offerings. The perceived need seems to focus on the faster DDR3 ram as opposed to the extra cores. Wish I knew someone who could let me try a system with more cores. I don't think the demo Dell et al machines at Fry's can give me a feel.
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4 cores here (Core i7 920)
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AMD PHENOM II 550 BE , unlocked 3rd Core.
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I'm using an Amd 4 core CPU. This is a great machine but I have to admit I don't do half of what this computer can do. I more than likely won't upgrade for a long time. It had been over 5 years since my last Computer which ran the first Amd 64 bit processor at 2 ghz. If it didn't continually keep needing new parts toward it's passing I would still be using it. I build better ones than I own. Lol
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After having upgraded to a q6700, (and pretty much an upgrade every year or so) I have not replaced it yet. I don't see the need for something faster than this. Maybe if octo cores come out, and use maybe 1/8 the power this q6700 needs, I'd upgrade!
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cyrusjumpjet said:
Core i7 920 at stock...
and loving it
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I said I have a Phenom II X3 710, but it's worth mentioning that I wasn't successful in unlocking the 4th core, so it's 3 core only.
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six cores here. AMD Phenom II X6 1090t
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Got my e8500 at 4.30ghz. I don't think I can or want to push it any further.
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spikester48661 said:
AMD athlon 64 x2 3800 at 2.5GHZ working well for me.
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2 cores 2.40ghz on main desktop
1 core 3.066ghz with hyperthreading on 2nd desktop
1 core 208mhz on mob :p
1 core 333mhz on psp
1 core 200mhz in dsl modem
1 core 200mhz in wireless router
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I sold my Q6700 (4 cores) & was running an E6600 (2 cores) in the meantime. Today I should be upgrading my main system to an Intel i7 860 wich has 4 physical cores (8 logical thanks to HyperThreading).
My laptop is still running 2 cores.
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4 cores, but even 4 cores can't beat an SSD!
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Core i5 Quad in my rig running @ 3.43GHz, load temps at 58 degrees C, very quick. SuperPi at 1meg test is done in 11.5secs
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isamuelson said:
Running an AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE edition. Unlocked the 4th core and overclocked it from 2.8ghz to 3.61ghz (multiplier X18).
As far as increasing performance, only when the program is written to utilize the cores. Otherwise, not for single-threaded applications.
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Still using Dual Core- Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 at work and the E6400 at home. Everything runs fine, I have no complaints about CPU/Computer performance.
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Running Q9550 quad core @stock speed (2,83GHz)
Will upgrade when Intel release long term platform such LGA775
Intel keep releasing new platform every year, make me hard to decide what to upgrade
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Hmm for sometime to come, I think this Yorkfield quad core will deliver decent enough power for what it is worth
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still using old E6300 since 2006. thinking of upgrade to a Q9xxx series but is it worth without upgrading the platform: mobo, ram, graphic, etc. maybe not.
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Core i5 Quad in my rig running @ 3.43GHz, load temps at 58 degrees C, very quick. SuperPi at 1meg test is done in 11.5secs
My QX6700 @3.2Ghz (59*C load under Prime95 x64) runs it quite a bit slower at 16 seconds in SuperPi. Wouldn't think 223Mhz would make that much difference but the i5/i7s are very good.
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Intel E3200 2.4Ghz Duel core...Blew my face off the first time i ran it....Mind i was using an AMD 2200+ for a few years lol
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LNCPapa said:
i7 940 in LNCorei7
i7 930 in BeefyArm
i7 720m in Compe
All of them at stock speeds - the rest have fewer cores or are slower than these. Slowest machine actually powered up right now is P4 3.0 HT, but that might be inheriting my old E8400 if I can get the mobo functioning properly again. Might be easier to just link here.
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i too own the same bt do you think amd's wouldbe preferable over an intel's since they used to run hotter i don't trust them
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