Dual core vs Single core speeds.

M

miker8

CAGiversary!
I was planning on getting a new computer and was wondering about the difference in speeds (for gaming) between my old 2.8Ghz Pentium processor and a new 1.86GHz dual core processor. Would this be an upgrade in speed, a downgrade or about the same. I know very little about these new processors so any help would be appreciated.
 
Getting a Core 2 Duo 1.86Ghz processor is going to be faster than your old 2.8Ghz Pentium. Dual Core processors have 2 cores of whatever speed it states. So a 1.86 dual core has 2 1.86 cores in the processor.
 
It is basically an upgrade in speed. Technically, a 1.86 dual core is x2 1.86. That does not mean you get 3.72ghz. Each of those cores can do their own task, so you can run more simultaneously, not faster. However, since one of those cores will be taking care of your game, and the other can take care of everything else, it equates to better performance.
 
The raw clock speed might be a bit misleading. The Pentium D is also dual core, but the fastest ones (3 ghz+) get out performed by the slowest core 2 duo (1.8). The Pentium D is however, better than your old Pentium 4.
 
Thank you for the link to that site and the other responses. It seems that the dual core is much faster than my current processor.
 
basically, comparing clock speeds between different architectures (like core 2 duo vs. Pentium 4) is absolutely pointless. They are completely different. The C2D will outperform your P4 by quite a large margin.

Remember: Faster clock speed does NOT necessarly mean faster clock speed.

This myth that clock speed is all that matters was really pushed by Intel during the P4 days even though at the time the Athlon 64 was beating it by a good margin in terms of performance. Its all about the architecture.
 
It's all about efficiency. A pentium 4 at 2.8 is physically running faster than the 1.86 core 2 duo, but it's doing way less with those cycles. The core 2 duo's are as fast as they are mainly because of how much processing they do per cycle. This is why clock speed is only really relevent when comparing 2 versions of the same model processor. A 2.8 pentium 4 is slower than a 1.86 C2D, but a 2.8 C2D would spank and 1.86 C2D. Newer C2D's are also faster due to faster FSB and more cache.
 
One thing nobody is mentioning is ram on the chip. I have 2 machines with duocore chips. Both have 4mb on each processor. My dual processor machine is a monster with 2 3.0 dual core Xeons with 4mb on each chip.
 
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