core 2 duo - educate me

[Charli]

Is the core 2 duo faster than the p4? Meaning, if a pentium 4 machine's
processing speed is at 2.8ghz and the processing speed of the core 2 duo is
at 1.8ghz, the core 2 duo is faster?

Someone educate me. I did a web search and I'm still bordering between
slightly confused and unsure.

[Jared Meyer]

Core 2 Duo is the second iteration of Intel's dual core processor technology. It consists of two cores on the same chip...basically two processors in one. This is different from dual processor, in which case the processors are in separate sockets.

Compared to any single core proc though, such as a P4, yes the C2Duo is going to be quite a bit faster, for some tasks more than others.

[MalcolmOng]

Core2duo is better. That's all you need to know. But like jaustere said, it shines in different areas. However, only the high end P4 systems can outmatch the core2duo anyway, and I'd say that a core2duo system eats 2.8ghz P4s for breakfast

[Brandon Rice]

I've got a 3.2 GHZ P4 (Last generation P4) and it's been pretty solid, but I still think a high-end Core2Duo is faster.

[Jason Ramsey]

Faster, more efficient, runs cooler, and uses less power. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

Jason

[Gordon Prince]

David Newman has been referring on the Merom processor. As well, see this Emanuel's post:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=775029&postcount=13

I also don't understand:

Is Merom the same thing than the Core 2 Duo?

[prezorg]

I believe that the Core Duo's are the successor to Pentium-M chips, which where much faster than Pentium 4's at similar MHz.

[MarcusX]

Is the core 2 duo faster than the p4? Meaning, if a pentium 4 machine's
processing speed is at 2.8ghz and the processing speed of the core 2 duo is
at 1.8ghz, the core 2 duo is faster?


Yes!

The Pentium 4 chip was based on a new architecture (Netburst), but turned out to be very inefficient compared to the AMDs and older Intels.

In Isreal a different Intel team advanced the old Pentium III architecture to become the Pentium-M and later Core (1), which turned out to be very fast and consumes way less power.

Intel finally scrapped the Netburst architecture and developed the "Conroe" chip, based on PIII/P-M/Core Duo for desktops, notebooks (Core 2 Duo) and Server (Xeon 51xx).

Technically the Core 2 Duo is an older design than the Pentium4, but is way more efficient and faster.

I did some benchmarking between a Xeon 3.8 GHz (Netburst) vs. a Xeon 2.0 Ghz (Conroe) and the 2.0 GHz one is about 20% faster.

[Anhar Miah]

Multiples processors does not always means faster, please keep in mind that even with two or more CPUS, you do not automatically get twice the speed, it does not work like that its less than that something like 80% faster or 1.8X (please note I can not remember the exact figures so please do not kill me on these figures).

Having multiple cores is good for TRUE multitasking, i.e. running more than one application at the same time, rather than the OS using Time slice techniques. Also CPU intensive applications such as rendering gets a great boast since More CPUs are available to crunch through the maths.

However in terms of everyday applications such as email, surfin', word pro', etc you will not see any real difference.

If I had the Money then I would get the Boxx Workstation with 16 Cores.

Anhar