Single vs Dual Core Performance

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I am sorry to be so late with this answer but have only just come across the
section. I dual boot with a single core Pentium 4. My impression is that
Vista is no faster (could be slower) but it seems more stable. I am thinking
of going to a nesw motheroard and processor but cannot decide which.
 
Asker24 said:
I am sorry to be so late with this answer but have only just come across
the
section. I dual boot with a single core Pentium 4. My impression is that
Vista is no faster (could be slower) but it seems more stable. I am
thinking
of going to a nesw motheroard and processor but cannot decide which.
Click to expand...

I just built my "Dream Machine" using the EVGA 122CK AN68 680i SLI
motherboard with a low cost Intel E6300 Dual CPU overclocked to 2.9GHz and
2GB OCZ 800MHz memory, a WD 74GB 10,000 RPM Raptor and a WD 500GB 7,2000
both SATA with 16MB buffers, and a EVGA 7600GT 256MB video card and the
Antec TX1050B case with 500W PS for a total cost of $1,150. My Vista
performance ratings are 5.7, 5.9, 5.9, 5.0 and 5.9, it's very fast with lots
of upgrade possibilities such as switching to a Quad CPU. Read the specs for
that MB, it has connectors for 6 SATA, 2 ATA and 1 floppy drive, 10 USB, 2
Firewire and 1 COM ports and fairly decent audio. For an additional $250 I
added a Viewsonic VX2035wm 20.5" widescreen and the 7600GT video is an
excellent low cost choice for a Vista business machine but if you want a
fantastic "gamer" machine consider one or even two (using SLI) of the newer
8800 cards cards.
 
Thank you so much for that information, especially the performance numbers.
I have 2GB RAM with the Pentium 4/ASUS P4C800 motherboard and an NVIDIA
GeForce 5500 card. With that setup my performance numbers with Vista Home
Premium are 3.5, 4.4, 3.7, 2.6 5.3. I have a total of 780 GB of drive space
including a very cool internal "mobile rack" that lets me move oher hard
drives in and out. For the video I just bought a 24"display that I run
side-by-side with a 19"screen. I am not interested in gaming but do just
about everything else. Like you, I build my own systems. You have persuaded
me that I should get on with the upgrade, especially as I will be 80 in a
couple of weeks. The clock is running :-) Where do you buy your components?
 
Asker24 said:
Like you, I build my own systems. You have persuaded
me that I should get on with the upgrade, especially as I will be 80 in a
couple of weeks. The clock is running :-)
Click to expand...

Yeah you better get on with it, I'm only 77 ;-)
Where do you buy your components?
Click to expand...

Mostly from ZipZoomFly, NewEgg is also a good supplier but they must charge
7% tax in my state.

Good luck...
 
After running an AMD 4000 in XP for nine months, then shifting over to a dual
boot with Vista 64 bit Home prem I can say the move with the single core was
a little painful. Vista preformed slower in some aspects than XP(gaming,
moving files oh and the huge footpront it has, had to get an extra gb of ram
to be the same as XP), however superfect does speed up IE and outlook etc
when booting them in Vista and conpare that to XP, there is a huge difference
in startup times.

Moving to dual core made little or no diffenerence to my XP build, games ran
a little faster but program start-up is still slow compared. Dual Core in
Vista makes it perform like a dream! Games are tons smoother, I can easily
unpack and watch Video at the same time (should this be required!). My guess
is as Vista supports multiple cores natively, it does outperform XP, even
with XPs updated driver. I rarely boot into xp now and as support for devices
are starting to catch up a bit with Vista (Such as my sony mp3 player
drivers), I dont suppose I will much. Not only that, but when I boot into XP,
it wipes my Vista restore points!
 
I have a dual core Dell Laptop that I bought last September (EN1705 - core
duo 1.83ghz, 2gb RAM, 100GB 7200RPM Drive, Geforce 7900 GS.) I ran XP on it
for over 4 months, until Vista went RTM, at which point I put a fresh install
of Vista on it. If you compare a fresh install of XP (no clutter) to a fresh
install of Vista (no clutter), then XP feels more responsive to me. It's not
a big deal. The people who say they are installing Vista and noticing huge
performance improvements are probably running XP installs that are suffering
from months (or years) of 'Winrot'. Of course a fresh install of Vista is
going to feel faster than an XP install that has been around the block a few
times and has dozens and dozens of applications installed and a system
notification area that looks like a christmas tree. Microsoft went to great
lengths to increase performance in Vista, but no matter how much hardware you
throw at it, it's not going to smoke XP. Super Fetch may pre-cache stuff into
RAM (if you have enough), and make it 'feel' faster. I/O priorities may help
Multimedia apps run without stutters when the system is under a heavy load.
But the fact is, you can't add new features without impacting performance.
Every new generation of Operating systems requires more resources to run, and
performs more slowly than the previous generation, given the same hardware. I
love Vista; I have it installed on my laptop and both home PCs. Sure it tends
to run slower in some ways, but that's the price of progress. I accepted
similar performance hits when I started using Windows 3.1. I remember a huge
performance hit when I upgraded to Win95. (486 DX66 with 8mb of RAM.) Same
thing when going to 98, and then to XP. This is no different.
 
Dual Core is much faster at running programs then a single core. I say this
based on the following:
1. I went from XP S2 using a P4 2.2 GHz, 2 Gigabyte of memory on a MSI
Ultra AR (478 socket) motherboard to, a 2.4 Ghz Core 2 dual (775 socket)
Intel mother board also using 2 Gbytes of memory. Front bus speed on XP
system was 667. Front bus speed on Intel with Vista is 800.

Did I notice and see improvement. "YES." I then added 2 additional GHz of
memory and a 7950 GT 512 PCIe (BFG nVidia) Graphics card and now my system
screems.

So, I'm sure a P4 with all kinds of help (memory, graphics, fast FSB) could
not and would not equal a Core2 Dual

I hope this answers your question. Aanother note, the OS Vista takes much
longer to load because of its file size.
 
OK so how do you dual boot?? Is that an option when you install Vista, to
keep XP running? I just bought it and have a dual core unit but I want to
make sure I dont screw any thing up when I install the Vista. Any sugestions?
 
ellisfaith said:
OK so how do you dual boot?? Is that an option when you install Vista, to
keep XP running? I just bought it and have a dual core unit but I want to
make sure I dont screw any thing up when I install the Vista. Any
sugestions?
Click to expand...

If you want to end up with Vista as you OS then the best thing to do on a
new machine is bite the bullet and stick the Vista DVD in your drive tell it
to format the drive and then do a new Vista install. With a dual CPU and 2GB
memory Vista is a real pleasure and I just build a new machine to run it.

You should be aware there are some giggly problems with Vista in a dual boot
setup, the worst is every time you boot into XP it will destroy all of
Vista's restore points and other files that can be useful if the wheels come
off Vista and that's why I suggest you not do it. There are commercial dual
boot systems that allow hiding Vista when booting into XP.

I have a lot of experience with dual booting Vista with XP installed as the
primary OS and it's real easy and almost fool proof (what's that old saying,
make it fool proof and mother nature will create a better fool). Create a
new 20+ GB partition and using Vista's Custom Install menu select the new
partition, use the short format routine and then install Vista. The dual
boot system will be installed and you can use VistaBootPro 3.1 to manage it.
If you are going to setup a dual boot then first read the forum at this url.
http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=185
 
I just did a clean install of Vista overtop of my XP Pro yesterday. I didnt
upgrade any hardware and I definitely noticed an incease in performance. I'd
realisticall say 20% faster. I'll be upgrading to the quad core as soon as
the price comes down from lunar levels, so i'll keep you posted.
 
Thank you for your help what I have been reading also is that people have to
uninstall their Office 2003 and reinstall it afterwards. I have a computer
about 8 month's old and will be upgrading to Vista from XP serv. pk 2. Will
that change any thing? I also have Norton Ghost to back up my info but
shouldn't I put it on a external drive also?

Thanks for helping me out,
T. Ellis
 
Do what I did , I bought a new Seagate 160 gb harddrive for my Dimension
4550 and installed Vista home Premium on it , and kept XP on my original 60
gb . I did not want to upgrade but rather a clean install ( with all the
driver and program incompatibilty problems ) so now if I want XP I just go
into my bios and turn off my primary ( Vista ) harddrive . Why upgrade when
you can have the best of both worlds .

And for the Topic at hand : I am running a Pentium 4 2.4 ghz CPU , 1 gig
of ram , and a BFG GeForce 7800 GS . Although my Vista score went from a 2.6
to a 3.5 I saw no signifacant speed improvement with Vista other than the
fact that the XP is 4 years old and the Vista is brand new on the hard drive
with no added programs . And guess what gave me that 3.5 score ? My pentium 4
!!! Everything else was 5.6 to 5.9 so needless to say my next project will
be a new motherboard and a Dual core ... hope this helps .
 
Personally, I have just built a new machine. It's an AMD x2 5600 (dual
core) with 2 gigs of ram and an evga 8800GTS card.

My old machine was an AMD 3200+ XP CPU with 1 gig and an ATI 9800PRO and XP
SP2.

I don't think Vista "responds" faster than the old machine, but I have
noticed that you can run 6, 8 or 10 apps simultaneously and the new machine
DOES NOT MISS A BEAT. Everything runs solidly; as if it has a core to
itself. So I believe not everyone NEEDS to upgrade to vista, but it seems
like Vista manages resources much better than XP did/does.

Multiple applications running on the old XP machine would have forced each
application to slow significantly.
 
I have a dual core processor (notebook) with a 4.7 base score (graphics being
at 5.9 and 5.4 and everything else at 4.7). I've gotta say, i think I've
gotten to the point where I can't tell a difference because so much of my
processor and/or 2GB or RAM is free a lot. Sometimes it's actually a bit of a
downgrade in performance but that's just because of the intense graphics
stuff with Aero. If you get it good enough, you get to the point where you
can't tell any difference for the better. That's all I have to say.
 
I am using an Athlon 64 3400+ single core, about a 3 year old system. And I
have better response and speed with Vista Ultimate x64 than I ever did with
any version I tried on this system of XP.

I was using Windows XP Home on my 64 bit system. At the time I thought it
was fast, but it had hard times playing some games at what I thought was it's
full potential. I also used it for distributed computing like BOINC and
SETI@Home and it would work over time trying to run that program.

When I heard of XP x64 Pro, I downloaded the trail edition and tried it, the
system speeded up so much more that I could run those programs and it would
take what 32 bit XP Home running BOINC said would take 4 hours, it would only
take 3.5 hours or so. So a something of a speed boost.

Now I have Vista Ultimate x64 and it runs at least as fast as XP x64 Pro and
has better compatiblity with my hardware than XP x64. However, I noticed
recently the Windows Experience Index on my system was as follows 4.2, 4.6,
5.9, 5.8, 5.4 on a new computer at my local Best Buy store it was rated at
4.6, 4.8, 3.0, 2.?, 5.0 and it was a dual core Intel Core 2 Duo running Vista
Basic.
 
Hi, I am using the same system components, except for a video card purchase
to take advantage of Aero. Even before I bought the new card, I was happy
with the performance I am getting. I read a lot of stuff around the web about
how slow Vista bots fr some peple, but I must say that it boots very fast for
me. I have not had any problems at all.

Here is a listing of my system wile running XP.
Asus Mobo A7N8X
AMD Athlon XP 2000+ at 1.67GHz
1.5 GB of DDR 400 ram
Leadtek GeForce 4 Ti with 128MB of ram
Onboard Sound
Seagate 160GB IDE Hard Drive 7200RPM
DVD Burner
CD Burner/DVD Drive Combo

So everything is still the same under Vista, except 2 weeks ago I bought a
MSI GeForce 6200AX with 256MB of ram.

All in all I am pleased with the system, but I am looking to do a major
overhaul/upgrade. Not because the system runs slow, but I just want to make
the leap to a dual core processor.

I hope this helps.

BTW: I like gaming among other things and this setup is pretty good so far
but it could be better.

Terry
Lovin' Vista more and more each day. ;)
 
That all depends on the type of processor your have. For instance, Pentium
(4, M, etc) processors that are single core may see a slight slow down. This
is due to the design of these chips, they may boast a higher clock speed than
AMD chips of the same caliber, but they actually do much less work per "clock
cycle".

Dual core processors are a different animal, sort of. Pentium Ds use the old
NetBurst architecture (that which makes them have fast clocks, but do much
less work), so performance in Vista may be so-so. Intel's Core Duo and Core 2
Duo, on the other hand, will find a home in Windows Vista. Vista is more
geared towards dual core processors than XP. XP uses one core until it needs
to use the other core on the processor, in Vista, this isn't so. Vista will
use the first core, then put another process on the other, this way it
doesn't slow down other processes already running on the first core.
 
I would say that a single core will take a slight performance hit like 33%
slower than XP at most. I tried installing a program and it took a while
like 30 seconds tilll i got a UAC prompt and unlike in XP, i installed the
program in just that amount of time. Dual core will recieve a performance
gain although when i tested it, it was like a 33% gain to me.
 
On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 08:20:05 -0700, wlb
Dual Core is much faster at running programs then a single core. I say this
based on the following:
1. I went from XP S2 using a P4 2.2 GHz, 2 Gigabyte of memory on a MSI
Ultra AR (478 socket) motherboard to, a 2.4 Ghz Core 2 dual (775 socket)
Intel mother board also using 2 Gbytes of memory. Front bus speed on XP
system was 667. Front bus speed on Intel with Vista is 800.
Click to expand...
Did I notice and see improvement. "YES."
Click to expand...

That isn't just a test of 1 vs. 2 cores; a better test would be
Pentium 4 vs. Pentium D, as they are at least similar cores.

The Core Duo core is far more efficient per GHz than the Pentium 4
core, as it was developed from the laptop processor series with this
as a design goal. Hence we see Core 2 Duo ranging from 1.8GHz to
around 2.4GHz, while contemporary P4 start from 2.8GHz and go to
3.4GHz or so... therefore, when you are comparing a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo
with a 2.2GHz Pentium 4 (an "old" P4 that's prolly similar to today's
Celeron 512k/533MHz cores), you aren't just looking at "dual core".
 
In message <[email protected]> "cquirke (MVP
Windows shell/user) said:
On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 08:20:05 -0700, wlb



That isn't just a test of 1 vs. 2 cores; a better test would be
Pentium 4 vs. Pentium D, as they are at least similar cores.
Click to expand...

Yes and no -- While similar, the Pentium-D has some pretty serious bus
bandwidth problems which inhibit you from using both cores to their full
capacity under many situations.

An even better test would be an AMD 939-pin single core vs dual core,
although in fairness, testing a dual-core architecture with only one
core may be just as unfair as testing a single-core architecture with a
second core glued in.
The Core Duo core is far more efficient per GHz than the Pentium 4
core, as it was developed from the laptop processor series with this
as a design goal. Hence we see Core 2 Duo ranging from 1.8GHz to
around 2.4GHz, while contemporary P4 start from 2.8GHz and go to
3.4GHz or so... therefore, when you are comparing a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo
with a 2.2GHz Pentium 4 (an "old" P4 that's prolly similar to today's
Celeron 512k/533MHz cores), you aren't just looking at "dual core".
Click to expand...

Another thought, for testing, either disable one core, or fire up a copy
of Prime95 set to maximize CPU (and use as little RAM as possible), lock
it to one core, and run it at "real-time" priority, effectively hogging
the entire core.
 
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