Am buying a new Dell pc and the sales rep has recommended either of the below processors. The quad core works out a little more expensive and has a lower GHz of 2.33 v 2.8GHz for the duo core. Can anyone who knows about these things please tell me which one is likely to perform better? I'll be using it with a few different charting aps including Multi Charts, Esignal, IB etc. Are these specs high enough? Very grateful for any thoughts. Intel Core2 Quad Processor Q8200 (2.33GHz, 1 1333FSB, 4MB) Intel(R) Core2 Duo Processor E7400 (2.80 1 GHz, 1066MHz, 3MB)
agreed, go with the quad core. either would get the job done though, quad core with just remain relevant a bit longer.
Quad - has 4 threads to handle data. Duo - has 2 threads to handle data. In the past, the old processors had only 1 thread and experienced bottlenecking with increased data loads. The new i7 processors will have 8 threads. I recommend the Quad processor. Reference: Intel Video - How Multi-Core Technology works http://www.intel.com/technology/product/demos/multi/demo.htm?iid=tech_quad-core+demo_how-mct-works
what did you go with? I bought a Dell Optiplex 755 with an E8400 processor (Core 2 Duo @ 3.0ghz) and recently upgraded to a Q9650 (Core 2 Quad @ 3.0ghz) and it's a night and day difference. Depending on the systems (dell is picky about what can be upgraded and what can't) if all was equal I'd get the lower/cheaper one and upgrade to the Q9650 processor - it's unreal how much faster it is when I'm working. EDIT: I also purchased my PC with a XP Professional downgrade from Vista and I prefer the performance of XP Pro 32-bit over Vista on the same machine.
not bought it yet, am based in China and these things are pretty pricey v what you get from dell in US. Below specs come to RMB5500 which is around US$800. A similar spec Precision T3400 would work out at almost 3 times more here in China :-( Dell Inspiron 530s, Intel® Coreâ¢2 Quad Processor Q8200 (2.33GHz, 1333FSB, 4MB), -4GB (2X2GB) NECC Dual Channel DDR2 800MHz SD RAM Memory, -320GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive with Native Co mmand Queuing -256MB ATI Radeon HD 3450 (DVI+HDMI+VGA) DELL(TM) S2009W 20" HD WIDESCREEN MONITOR
the big hoopla now is intel's nehalem. http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/04/nehalem-xeons-touchdown-could-sweep-current-market.ars
whatever you do, go with the workstations, there power horses. leave inspirion and the rest behind. I got myself a t3400 extreme quadecore with 4 gigs ram with the recommendation of gnome. On ebay there a lot cheaper. Go with the t3400 or t5400, you won't regret it