Computer question

[Jack M]

I haven't shopped around for a

new computer in years. I am seeing laptops advertised with Intel Core

Duo processors at speeds of 1.66GHz. This seems pitifully slow to me,

as my 4 year old computer has a 2.4GHz (single core) processor. Are

they apples and oranges? Is a 1.66GHz dual core processor more

comparable to a 3.32GHz single core processor?

Thanks,

-Jack

[skatha]

I'd think the question I would ask is 32-bit or 64-bit CPUs?

The technology is shifting over to the 64 once the hardware becomes more readily available-read Windows Vista......

[Sinecure]

Just get a Macintosh. Its pretty much what you can expect to see from Windows in another 3-4 years.

Oh, and to answer your question, yes apples and oranges. The best analogy I came up with when I sold computers was to think of it like a freeway. You can have a 2 lane freeway with a 70mph speed limit yet be able to cover ground much faster on a 4 lane freeway with a 60mph speed limit when there's any amount of traffic. Plus you can get way more cars down the road on the 4 lane freeway, at the same or slower speeds.

But like I said, get a Mac - you'll be so happy you did. Just save your old PC for the rare times you need Windows for something (we use Virtual PC for the few times when we need to bill Microsoft - they require ActiveX controls for their invoicing system and they don't make ActiveX for Mac.

[FTA2R]

do a comparison of processors on the manufacturer's website. sometimes just knowing what "family" they are in (and hence, what type of user they are targeted to) is enough to know what you need (which can be very diff't from what you want, lol)

check out cnet's "exact choice" feature. plug in some questions about what type of user you are, it'll make a recommendation. i doubt it's a completely exhaustive rec, but it'll do for most. i went with their dig. cam rec. and have no regrets.

if you do the research, which you obviously are, you really can't go wrong whatever you choose. good luck.

[Derf]

There's two thing to take into consideration:

1-It's a laptop, and laptop are always slower (slower processor and hard disk) to get a decent battery life.

2-The progression of processor speed has slowed down a lot as we are now very near the physical limitation of the precessor's design, hence why we are now seeing 64 bits and/or dual core processors.

And for your second question, a dual core processor is like a dual processor system, but with the two processors on a single chip. As for the speed comparison, it's not like you can add up the speeds. It depends if your operating system and your applications are optimized for dual processor/dual core systems, meaning the computing threads will be split onto both processors. A regular application will work like there is only one 1.66 GHz processor and an optimized application will work like there is one processor, but a little less than double the speed.

Hope it helps

[bobdea]

are competitive with any other x86 processor, might handle multi threaded apps better in theory

the clock speed is lower but they are slightly more modern than the pentiums that are around faster busses and such, in the end for day to day use I really can't tell the difference between the fastest pentiums, core duos or the AMD64s

might I suggest a apple, they can run windows native now since they use IA32/x86 processors, OS X is more stable than windows in general, more secure by a long shot and they tend to use higher quality components in places where vendors like dell skimp for example with the power source

I have had a bunch of macs and very few hardware problems with them, my PCs have not done as well, even with high end machines

64 bit machines are great if you need massive amounts of RAM, say 8gb but after that they don't hold a huge advantage at the moment with the intel architecture

vista beta can be downloaded from MS now, it's good, been playing with it for a few days, has allot of features that have been present in mac OS for about four years now

virtual PC is no longer needed, just boot windows either with boot camp and run windows like any other PC or use virtualization with some software thats out there, no emulation= just as fast, unlike VPC

[eastcoasticerider]

I just got the INtel based Mac aand they came out with a program called "Bootcamp" to allow you to run Windows XL on the mac.............I have always enjoyed the "Amish" computers..(macs) you can have so much fun right out of the box...and I really think graphic applications just run and interface better.....(Adobe stuff)........ :p

[Neil Gendzwill]

My understanding is that the M series processors are actually faster at a given clock speed than the current desktop ones because of all the pipelining in the desktop model - good in theory, but not taken advantage of by the software, and more a way for Intel to boost their speed ratings (good for marketing) than any real performance upgrade.

[Scorpio]

Jack, what's your purpose for getting a new computer? Business-Word Processing/spreadsheets? Gaming? Editing photos, music, movies? downloading porn? or just plain emailing/surfing the net? Just make sure you you get a computer which suits your needs. You don't need to the most awesome tricked out gaming rig w/ dual core procs blah blah blah if all you're gonna do on it is check email and occassionaly download music off of iTunes.

[FTA2R]

i read 1 benchmarking study that concluded the higher you go in terms of processor performance, the less you are getting for your money. this isn't that true at the "flagship series" level, but once you get into "the best," it is true. i believe that this is a commonly accepted observation in the computing community. dont' quote me though, i don't read slashdot (or any of those sites) too regularly

also note many things can be tweaked if you really wanna get into it (BIOS, etc)....

[CarveItUp]

I agree with Neil - I think the M processors are faster than their ratings might suggest. Perhaps they are rated differently. I went from a 2GHz P4 laptop to a 2GHz pentium M and it is WAY faster (I run heavy CAD/CAE type applications (CATIA V5, SolidWorks, FEA, etc).

All that said, I think one of the best (and possibly most overlooked) upgrades to a laptop is the hard drive speed. I have a Dell Precision M60 and when I got it, there was a choice between a 4800RPM (I think) and 7200RPM hard drive. Obviously the faster drive is more expensive but it makes loading heavy apps and accessing swap files much faster. Most desktops come with 7200RPM drives.

Derek

[bobdea]

intel should have a new line of CPUs out, given they have the same name as the current "core" processors the performance is supposed to 35% better or something like that and they claim they claim it will be the biggest performance boost they have had in the last few years, they key point here though is that these run on less power than the pentium 4s as well

[Derf]

If I recall correctly, the Pentium M is an evolution of the Pentium 3 architecture and the Pentium 4 is a totally different architecture. At equivalent speed, the Pentium 3 is ~30% (I can't confirm it though) more efficient than the Pentium 4 AND consumes less power.

[bobdea]

the P4 just had a crazy pipeline to be able to run it at high clock speeds

I am glad that the industry has gotten over clock speed and more on bottom line performance with low power consumption in mind

[Dave Pushee]

I think that dual core PCs can be a benefit for many users these days. My theory is that this lets your application have CPU time even while your firewall/antivirus software is chewing up time. I think most people have a lot of processes running in the background most of the time now.

[Jack M]

this computer is actually for my dad who is retiring soon. He'll be managing his portfolio and also some for other people.

As for mac vs. pc, I have always been a pc guy because I just get the impression that macs are "computers for dummies". It is glaringly obvious to me that Apple thinks they are smarter than me. Well, maybe they are, but more to the point, they don't seem to give their users any credit for having any computer aptitude or even brains of their own. This was confirmed recently when I bought the Apple AirPort last year to send music from my computer to my stereo. The installation manual basically said "just plug it in and it will work". It didn't. I had to call support and they told me the secret to get the thing working. I find their attitude towards computer users is condescending. They go to great lengths to insulate you from the inner workings of their products, much moreso than Microsoft.

[jdgang]

I haven't shopped around for a

new computer in years. I am seeing laptops advertised with Intel Core

Duo processors at speeds of 1.66GHz. This seems pitifully slow to me,

as my 4 year old computer has a 2.4GHz (single core) processor. Are

they apples and oranges? Is a 1.66GHz dual core processor more

comparable to a 3.32GHz single core processor?

Thanks,

-Jack

Duo Core means just that two cores(processors) on one chip. Which means the following Windows and Windwos based porgrams are single threaded applicatios which means only one instruction can get executed at one time, granted millioins of instructions are executed every second but it still one at a time with a dual core systems you have in essence two separate processors which can execute a single instruction at a time but at the same time. The OS takes care of that for you and as Derf pointed out the applications have to also be written for dual core. As for the MAC/PC debate..thats a mute point once MACs switch over to Intel but OS X is easier to learn and use than Windows.

[bobdea]

but OS X needs EFI to run unless you hack it

therefor still only macs run OS X even with virtualization software that is available for windows no one has OS X running in a virtual machine except for those that run emulators and emulators are F-ing slow and unreliable

even with a virtual machine you're gonna need alot of ram, OS X really needs 512 or more to be happy and fast

[mirror70]

Jack,

I have a 2.16Ghz Dual Core laptop that I got in Feb. In a nutshell, it f-ing rips.

It blows my dual 1.4Ghz G4 desktop out of the water, smokes my dual 2.0Ghz G5 in anything CPU-intensive, and offers true desktop performance in a 1.0" thick package. It runs SolidWorks faster than my 3.4Ghz P4 desktop, and runs it more stably, too.

If you have any qualms about the performance of the dual core CPUs from Intel, link me to a benchmarking app and I'll post my results.

Derf and jdgang -

You are both incorrect with regard to applications having to support dual core CPUs. The OS handles everything for this, and the applications don't need any changes at all to take full advantage of them, except for a handful of benchmarking apps which still only address one CPU for certain functions - but that happens because these apps specifically override the standard APIs for this.

[Derf]

Derf and jdgang -

You are both incorrect with regard to applications having to support dual core CPUs. The OS handles everything for this, and the applications don't need any changes at all to take full advantage of them, except for a handful of benchmarking apps which still only address one CPU for certain functions - but that happens because these apps specifically override the standard APIs for this.

I do not agree with you on this one. Yes, the OS will split the load between the two processors/core when there is several processes running, but if an application is single threated, the OS can not split a single thread. As an example, if a video encoder is single threated (not programmed for multiple CPU) and you encode a video, the encoding thread will only use a single processor.

[LeeW]

Get a Mac.

[D-Sub]

Get a Mac.

anyone else want to people when they say this?

Jack already stated that he is a PC guy, so telling him to "get a mac" is borderline stupid. He'd have to relearn an entire OS, and on and on.

grrrrr.

all that stuff. :)

not only that, but Sinecure already pulled the damn (get a mac) crap a few posts up, Lee

[bobdea]

with dual core or multiple CPUs on different dies mac OS might actually be better

BSD is what OS X is based and was intended for this type of machine from day one it's pretty recent that MS has supported anything like that in the home

apple was making dual CPU machines since 1998 or 99, right now they have one with two sets of dual core cpus

one thing I have noticed with windows is that if one thread hangs then more often then not all you get stuck in that app where mac OS you can at least click to the finder or another app while the app get it's **** strait or decides to crash

in a year many people are going to have to learn a new OS anyway, vista is radically different than XP and 2000, even in some really annoying ways that are great for a first time windows user or a mac user but not for you died wool windows junkies

it took me a bit to get used to it, I do prefer macs but Vista IS competitive to a degree in the usabillity area where I don't think XP is at all

the main problem I see with vista is that at this point allot of the old software does not run well and in some cases at all maybe this will change with the final release but I can see MS wanting to give people more reasons to upgrade since they know the home market is the only one that is going to touch it for the next two to three years

when the hottest new games say requires vista or they make a neutered version of IE7 for XP that does not support some weird "web standard" that is only support in IE 7 for vista people will upgrade

I wonder what mac OS 10.5 is gonna look like since it's gonna be available at about the same time, anyone here got a developers preview?

[LeeW]

I know D-Sub, hence it doesnt stop me from saying it, yes?

I just think Mac's better, even tho I dont own one myself. Been using one for a couple of years, and Im alot more comfortable with it. Been a PC guy for more than a decade. Just a bit tedious at times.

And yes, I know somebody else said it too, so Im saying it again. :p Get a Mac. -smirk-

[jdgang]

I do not agree with you on this one. Yes, the OS will split the load between the two processors/core when there is several processes running, but if an application is single threated, the OS can not split a single thread. As an example, if a video encoder is single threated (not programmed for multiple CPU) and you encode a video, the encoding thread will only use a single processor.

that is correct just like if you buy a 64 bit processor but your programs are written in for a 32 bit. They do not magicaly starts addressing a 64 bit register just because its available. A single threaded applications will only use a single processor but if you use your mouse for something else maybe the hardware interrupt will be accepted on the second processor instead of the first.