By: Peter Stewart
There's a war going on and the latest battle continues to offer
the promise of good prices to consumers looking for the best
stuff for their computer.
Since the inception of dual-core processors a little while back
the race has been on to see who can get the better chip with
this dual-core processor technology.
During the final days of the single-core battles, there was a
stalemate between AMD and Intel. Intel's clocked higher but were
unable to match the speeds that the AMD managed at lower clock
speeds.
The oldest difference between them has been their suitability
for specific tasks. AMD have had the gaming sector in the bag,
especially in terms of the value for money possible with their
lower clocked chips, which could be overclocked to the same
speeds as their top models. Intel has the crown for general
performance. When it comes to office related tasks, Intel
processors are able to outperform AMD chips in these areas.
As the ability to clock the chips any higher became more and
more difficult technically, the next step was to just add
another core, theoretically allowing twice as much number
crunching in a dual-core processor. This is not exactly how it
works however.
Modern operating systems and programs have not been designed
with multiple-core or dual-core processors in mind. They were
designed to make use of one core on one processor. The major
expense that went with multiple processor computers was the
circuitry needed to split tasks up amongst the processors and
sharing cache.
Dual-core processors simply act like two places for tasks to go.
Instead of single tasks getting split up and performed in two
different places, as is the case with traditional single core
processors, single threads get split up amongst the cores. This
essentially means that each program gets assigned to a core.
Because of this there is absolutely no increase in speed for
gaming from dual-core processor chips. Only once the games
themselves have been programmed to take advantage of dual-core
processors will there be a difference. This is due to the
intensive nature of games and the number crunching needed for
intense graphics, which for now cannot be split over multiple
cores in dual-core processors.
So back to the battlefield.
AMD were the first to introduce their dual-core processor
solution to a desktop computer. This gave them a slight lead
over Intel. Despite this, AMD gave people a bit of a surprise
with their new offering.
Always having been renowned for giving far more than expected
for the price, these new dual-core processors were very
expensive. Part of what managed to give AMD a hold in a market
previously dominated by Intel was their good pricing. This shock
did not go down well with consumers.
To add insult to injury, Intel's dual-core processor offerings
came in at remarkably good value. Both of their initial
dual-core processors cost less than AMD's lowest priced model.
That's right, AMD's cheapest dual-core processor cost more than
Intel's most expensive. This definitely put the ball in Intel's
court and was downright disappointing for AMD fans.
AMD did manage to introduce a cheaper model to compete better
with the Intel offerings. Despite this, Intel was still the
forerunner in this area.
Performance remains an area that is sketchy.
With the relatively new technology involved it is hard to draw a
clear conclusion on who is faster. With operating systems only
recently oriented towards fully utilizing dual-core processor
technology, it is still new territory. Both offer increased
performance, but as to who will rule the roost, we'll have to
see.
For the meantime it would probably be advisable to just watch.
Being a cautious buyer I prefer to buy into a sure thing, once
things have settled down, prices will balance out and all the
related technology will be in place. Then we will be able to get
a true opinion on where to put your hard earned cash.
About the author:
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