I always thought that more cores is good for doing lots of things simultaneously, [snip] Yup.
Two questions:
1) For typical desktop use, is it more sensible to buy a six-core 2,5GHz processor, or a dual-core 3,6GHz? In other words, should I prefer more cores, or higher clock speed? I would go for the latter - for regular desktop use, even a single core is more than enough. I disagree. For a user machine, as opposed to a server, 2-to-4 cores yield better responsiveness and apparent speed than a faster processor. Even for simple things, becauese Linux is very smart about farming out different tasks to multiple cores so that the whole workload flows more smoothly. I challenge anyone to, in a double-blind test, notice any difference between 2 and 4 cores for a regular office/desktop workload. (no compilations, video editing, CAD/CAM, Mathematica, raytracing etc.)
I have had a 4-core AMD as my main desktop for 2-3 years and I notice no difference when I work on elderly single-core machines in another building. The only place I do notice a difference is on my dual-core laptop with 3Gb, which can be unbearably slow at times :-(
Today any modern machine will obviously come with a minimum of two cores, but if asked to choose for a regular workload, I would still opt for raw speed instead of parallelism - no system is stronger than the weakest link, in this case us. (humans). Having said all that, spend the money on memory, that's got way more potential to speed up your system than any GHz or extra cores.
Thanks for the input everyone. One of the big benefits I noticed with multiple cores (versus single) is that if a process hangs on one core, the machine still responds. That only justifies the second core -- not the third, fourth, etc., where my experience is in line with what Per and tparker report i.e. little practical benefit from additional cores (>2). I was just intrigued by this because I remember how we hiked from the Pentium II 300MHz (1997) to the Pentium4 3.4GHz (2004) in less than a decade, but then with the transition to 64bit and multi-core systems the clock speed never really went up much higher. In time I trust software will catch up and learn how to make best use of the additional cores. Dennis, I certainly take on board your points on cache, FSB speed, etc. In the balance of things, and having read a few reviews and comparisons, AMD's FX4100 (4x3.6GHz) looks like a fair deal right now for €110. And yes, I also always buy components, rather than ready machines. For home use, anyway -- I can't beat Dell on assembly cost when it's for productive purposes! Thanks again everyone, have a good weekend. Haro -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org