Core Duo or Quad?

FF
Posted By
Frank_Fizzinoglia
Aug 23, 2007
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287
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7
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Closed
I am about to get a new PC, and am not clear on whether or not Photoshop CS2 can utilize the full power of the Quad processor or would the Core Duo be a more effective choice?

Any suggestions for the video card and RAM (2 GB DDR2?)would also be appreciated. My OS is Win XP Pro, w/ SP2.

Thanks
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RK
Rob_Keijzer
Aug 23, 2007
Frank,

I have an Intel core 2 Quad (Q6600), and on complex crunching, like the Radiant Blur filter, I can see in the Windows Performance window that all processors are utilised.

This will perhaps not be the case of other things (older plugins come to mind) but I think PS is "quad core aware".

I’m a photographer, not a computer expert, so others here will tell you in more detail about this.

Rob
BD
Brett Dalton
Aug 25, 2007
Heres a good chart for a synthetic test

< http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/core_2_du o_e2160_review/4.html>

it comes down to cash, although at this point the Q6600 is pricing around the same as the mid range Extreme edition Duo’s. Pretty much anything properly threaded the Quad will do better (which is most modern software). With the Duo’s in the test quoted above only out do it in some situations and are overclocked or the VERY expensive models.

BRETT
I
ID._Awe
Aug 25, 2007
If money is an issue, you would be quite happy with the duo, otherwise you can ‘future-proof’ the machine with a quad. If you are not planning to buy immediately, I’m sure that there will be another price-drop on the quads in late September.
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Aug 25, 2007
Some boards may do both. You can upgrade later. Check to see if the board you are using will do that.

OTOH, newer quads might have newer chipsets, which could make the cpu less backward compatible.
I
ID._Awe
Aug 25, 2007
All new boards do both. You may run into problems with the newer P35 chipsets in that they would require more ‘bleeding edge’ tech along with getting the higher FSB.

The important issue to look at is that the RAM/CPU you purchase run at the same FSB, this is where the cost creeps in.

Having said all that, you still can’t start a program any faster or write to disk (with RAID being the exception) any faster than the SATAII HD speeds. I’ve found this to be the most disappointing aspect of my new system. Still be some years before RAM disks can be economically viable.
RK
Rob_Keijzer
Aug 25, 2007
I just read an article about RAM-drives that consist of a HDD unit (SATA or PATA) that contained no harddrive but a board with DDR slots that could have 8x2GB Memory modules.

Deployed as a scratch disk that should really speed up things!

I don’t know how the read/write speeds would compare, but say it would be a couple thousand times faster.

Imagine having an array of them, one also for the Windows page file.

Rob
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Aug 25, 2007
RAM doesn’t run on the FSB, ID. The MCH does. The board has the job of matching the proper FSB speed to the cpu selected. BIOS accomplishes this.

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