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Guest
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 Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:24 pm Post subject: General Dual Core Question |
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Hi,
I've just bought a system with an enrty level core 2 duo processeor
(1.8Ghz x2). I was just wondering, if I was to buy a game that had a
minimum system requirement of 2ghz, would it run? Neither core on its
own runs at 2Ghz but presumably the work load would be split between
the 2 cores? Is it only newly released titles that take advantage of
dual cores?
Thanks |
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Tony Hill
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 4:12 am Post subject: Re: General Dual Core Question |
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On 21 Feb 2007 05:07:23 -0800, andrewduerden@gmail.com wrote:
| Quote: | I've just bought a system with an enrty level core 2 duo processeor
(1.8Ghz x2). I was just wondering, if I was to buy a game that had a
minimum system requirement of 2ghz, would it run?
|
Almost certainly yes. Chances are if a game says it needs a "2GHz"
processor the designers didn't know much of anything about computer
hardware and actually meant that it needs a "2GHz Pentium 4 or faster"
to run. Each of the 1.8GHz cores on your processor is faster than a
3.4GHz Pentium 4 chip (and from this simple fact, it should be obvious
that simply specifying "needs 2GHz to run" is totally meaningless in
absence of any other qualifications).
| Quote: | Neither core on its
own runs at 2Ghz but presumably the work load would be split between
the 2 cores? Is it only newly released titles that take advantage of
dual cores?
|
Generally speaking only newer games take advantage of dual core chips
effecitvely. In fact, even some new games see only a small benefit to
the second core. However, as mentioned above, it's almost certain
that your CPU is MORE then up to the task of running any game out
there. Now your video card, well that could be another question
altogether! 
--
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca |
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Guest
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| Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:21 pm Post subject: Re: General Dual Core Question |
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| Good answer! Thanks Tony |
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Yousuf Khan
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:33 am Post subject: Re: General Dual Core Question |
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andrewduerden@gmail.com wrote:
| Quote: | Hi,
I've just bought a system with an enrty level core 2 duo processeor
(1.8Ghz x2). I was just wondering, if I was to buy a game that had a
minimum system requirement of 2ghz, would it run? Neither core on its
own runs at 2Ghz but presumably the work load would be split between
the 2 cores? Is it only newly released titles that take advantage of
dual cores?
Thanks
|
If it's simply asking for a "2 Ghz computer", then it must be a really
old game. Gigahertz ceased to be meaningful about 2 years ago, when even
Intel stopped using it. Actually it ceased to be meaningful much earlier
than that, but Intel wasn't prepared to give on it yet at that time.
Each of those 1.8Ghz Core 2 cores by themselves is faster than 3.0GHz
Pentium 4 core, let alone two of them.
Yousuf Khan |
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The Lone Gunman
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:39 am Post subject: Re: General Dual Core Question |
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Yousuf Khan <bbbl67@yahoo.com> wrote:
: andrewduerden@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
: If it's simply asking for a "2 Ghz computer", then it must be
: a really old game. Gigahertz ceased to be meaningful about 2
: years ago, when even Intel stopped using it. Actually it
: ceased to be meaningful much earlier than that, but Intel
: wasn't prepared to give on it yet at that time.
:
: Each of those 1.8Ghz Core 2 cores by themselves is faster than
: 3.0GHz Pentium 4 core, let alone two of them.
Ok, I'll bite. Why?
TLG |
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chrisv
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:16 pm Post subject: Re: General Dual Core Question |
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The Lone Gunman wrote:
| Quote: | Yousuf Khan <bbbl67@yahoo.com> wrote:
: andrewduerden@gmail.com wrote:
snip
: If it's simply asking for a "2 Ghz computer", then it must be
: a really old game. Gigahertz ceased to be meaningful about 2
: years ago, when even Intel stopped using it. Actually it
: ceased to be meaningful much earlier than that, but Intel
: wasn't prepared to give on it yet at that time.
:
: Each of those 1.8Ghz Core 2 cores by themselves is faster than
: 3.0GHz Pentium 4 core, let alone two of them.
Ok, I'll bite. Why?
|
Because it's a better design that accomplishes a lot more work per
clock, that's why. |
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The Lone Gunman
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:30 pm Post subject: Re: General Dual Core Question |
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chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:
: The Lone Gunman wrote:
:
:: Yousuf Khan <bbbl67@yahoo.com> wrote:
::: andrewduerden@gmail.com wrote:
:: <snip>
::
::: If it's simply asking for a "2 Ghz computer", then it must be
::: a really old game. Gigahertz ceased to be meaningful about 2
::: years ago, when even Intel stopped using it. Actually it
::: ceased to be meaningful much earlier than that, but Intel
::: wasn't prepared to give on it yet at that time.
:::
::: Each of those 1.8Ghz Core 2 cores by themselves is faster
::: than
::: 3.0GHz Pentium 4 core, let alone two of them.
::
:: Ok, I'll bite. Why?
:
: Because it's a better design that accomplishes a lot more work
: per clock, that's why.
Could you be more specific, or at least point me to a link (or two) that can
sort of lay out the nuts & bolts of it? Thx. |
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chrisv
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 12:10 am Post subject: Re: General Dual Core Question |
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The Lone Gunman wrote:
| Quote: | chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:
: The Lone Gunman wrote:
:
:: Yousuf Khan <bbbl67@yahoo.com> wrote:
::: andrewduerden@gmail.com wrote:
:: <snip
::
::: If it's simply asking for a "2 Ghz computer", then it must be
::: a really old game. Gigahertz ceased to be meaningful about 2
::: years ago, when even Intel stopped using it. Actually it
::: ceased to be meaningful much earlier than that, but Intel
::: wasn't prepared to give on it yet at that time.
:::
::: Each of those 1.8Ghz Core 2 cores by themselves is faster
::: than
::: 3.0GHz Pentium 4 core, let alone two of them.
::
:: Ok, I'll bite. Why?
:
: Because it's a better design that accomplishes a lot more work
: per clock, that's why.
Could you be more specific, or at least point me to a link (or two) that can
sort of lay out the nuts & bolts of it? Thx.
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Google is your friend. |
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Robert Myers
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 12:17 am Post subject: Re: General Dual Core Question |
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On Feb 23, 7:30 am, "The Lone Gunman" <l...@invalid.net> wrote:
| Quote: |
Could you be more specific, or at least point me to a link (or two) that can
sort of lay out the nuts & bolts of it? Thx.
|
Most of this was beaten to death when the NetBurst architecture first
came out. Netburst could run faster because it did less work in each
clock. One way in which that effect is obvious even from a high-
altitude view of the architecture is that NetBurst had a much longer
pipeline than competing architectures, including the Pentium III.
Each stage in the pipeline had less to do, but there were more stages.
That made pipeline stalls on NetBurst much more expensive than on PIII
or competing AMD designs, because it took many more clocks to clear
the pipeline of useless instructions. NetBurst would have done better
if code were less branchy and more predictable in memory fetches,
because it is branch mispredictions and cache misses that most
frequently stall the pipeline.
Intel made two heavy bets that software could be made predictable:
IA-64 and NetBurst. Andy Glew, who works for Intel, has said that
Intel doesn't understand software, and he may be right. Because of
Intel's acquisition of Multiflow and heavy investment in compiler
research, I think it more likely that Intel bet incorrectly that it
could bend software to its architecture (and that, in fact, it
understood software better than anyone else). Much has been learned
in the process but, at the moment, it looks like Intel lost heavily on
its bet. The processors that are most popular and successful at the
moment are successful precisely because they cope well with
unpredictable code.
Robert. |
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Yousuf Khan
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 3:58 am Post subject: Re: General Dual Core Question |
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The Lone Gunman wrote:
| Quote: | : Because it's a better design that accomplishes a lot more work
: per clock, that's why.
Could you be more specific, or at least point me to a link (or two) that can
sort of lay out the nuts & bolts of it? Thx.
|
Most of the proof is in the benchmarks.
Yousuf Khan
--
There is no failure, only delayed success |
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The Lone Gunman
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:58 pm Post subject: Re: General Dual Core Question |
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Yousuf Khan <bbbl67@yahoo.com> wrote:
: The Lone Gunman wrote:
::: Because it's a better design that accomplishes a lot more
::: work per clock, that's why.
::
:: Could you be more specific, or at least point me to a link
:: (or two) that can sort of lay out the nuts & bolts of it?
:: Thx.
:
: Most of the proof is in the benchmarks.
Lame answer. My thanks however, to Robert Myers. |
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