Core 2 Duo Question

[wulf109]

I keep reading how fast the new CPU's are. Being simple minded I don't understand how a 1.86G CPU can be so fast. The E6300 runs at 1.86G,so why is it so fast. Do I simply double the speed to 3.72G to compare it's speed to a normal single core CPU.

[edDV]

They ran into heat issues just upping clock speed so the new chips have multiple techniques to process in parallel paths. This even allows lowering the clock speed for less heat and power consumption. The Duo has two processors in the same can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_2

[greymalkin]

it's voodoo magic. I don't know why but the core2duo's are a whole new kind of fast. I asked about it in the computer forum a while back but didn't get an answer.

[GMaq]

Hi
You really can't say that Duo is twice as fast, The clock speed is slower but the bandwidth is doubled. I had a P4 3.2 Ghz that I ebayed and bought a Dell Laptop with a 2.0 Ghz Duo, They are roughly the same speed for encoding, but as edDV noted the CPU runs far cooler, I've encoded over 100 movies to MPEG-4 on this laptop with no problems at all, The CPU Fan cycles on and off during long encodes, Getting back to your original question I would say it would be more accurate to take the clock speed and add 60% to come up with an estimated Single Core Equivalent.

[greymalkin]

did you have a desktop and then went to a laptop or did you go from laptop to laptop? That would make quite a difference in your comparison.

[GMaq]

greymalkin,
Although I did go from desktop to laptop the specs aren't really all that different anymore, Desktop- P4 3.2GHz, 800Mhz FSB, 1 Gig of Memory, 7200rpm ATA-100 HDD. Laptop-Duo 2.0 Ghz, 667Mhz FSB, 1 Gig of Memory, 7200rpm SATA HDD. When I say that encoding speeds are roughly the same that is with software that isn't optimized for Dual Core, recently I've upgraded some and some has updated to add multithread support which has increased the encoding speed somewhat,(10-15%) The biggest difference I've noticed is the multitasking ability, I didn't use to dare to do anything else when I was encoding on my old machine, Now I run my antivirus, surf our beloved VideoHelp, and encode all at the same time and I'm sure i could do even more but that's enough for my limited male brain at one time.