intel_quad

This is a question often asked by many a PC enthusiast or someone simply looking for new family PC.

A quad-core CPU has four processing units on one chip (this first quad-core from Intel was actually two dual-core CPUs on the same chip).
Unlike clock speed increases, multiple cores don’t scale linearly. In other words while a 3ghz CPU is twice as fast as a 1.5ghz CPU,  a quad-core CPU is not four times as fast as a single core. A quad-core CPU is only about 25% faster than a dual-core CPU (Core 2 Duo).

Running multiple cores is very complex. The performance varies depending on hardware configuration, software etc. Those four CPUs are sharing bandwidth on the motherboard used to access Memory (RAM), hard disk drives, etc. Very little software has been optimised to utilise all four cores. It’s very difficult to write multi-threaded applications that utilise multiple cores. It may take many years before the majority of mainstream applications are able to use multiple cores.

Operating system like Windows are multi-threaded, and support splitting applications between CPUs. While this make sense for a dual-core system on the desktop, it would very rarely require four CPUs.

Modern CPUs are able to multi-task common applications quite easily. Things like a virus scan, or ripping a DVD require two CPUs to allow the system to work on two different tasks without slowing down the computer. But, how often are you going to be running a virus check, encoding a video, unpacking compressed files, and surfing the net with a half dozen other applications open, all at the same time?

No doubt that multi-core CPUs are the future, but it may take years before software developers learn how to write software for multiple CPU cores. Right now the Dual Core CPU’s are the best. If you can see yourself purchasing all the latest software in the future then perhaps going quad core now will help to future proof your computer.