There's a war going on and the latest battle continues to offer the
promise of good prices to consumers looking for the best stuff for
their computer.
Since the inception of dual-core processors a little while back the
race has been on to see who can get the better chip with this dual-core
processor technology.
During the final days of the single-core battles, there was a stalemate
between AMD and Intel. Intel's clocked higher but were unable to match
the speeds that the AMD managed at lower clock speeds.
The oldest difference between them has been their suitability for
specific tasks. AMD have had the gaming sector in the bag, especially
in terms of the value for money possible with their lower clocked
chips, which could be overclocked to the same speeds as their top
models. Intel has the crown for general performance. When it comes to
office related tasks, Intel processors are able to outperform AMD chips
in these areas.
As the ability to clock the chips any higher became more and more
difficult technically, the next step was to just add another core,
theoretically allowing twice as much number crunching in a dual-core
processor. This is not exactly how it works however.
Modern operating systems and programs have not been designed with
multiple-core or dual-core processors in mind. They were designed to
make use of one core on one processor. The major expense that went with
multiple processor computers was the circuitry needed to split tasks up
amongst the processors and sharing cache.
Dual-core processors simply act like two places for tasks to go.
Instead of single tasks getting split up and performed in two different
places, as is the case with traditional single core processors, single
threads get split up amongst the cores. This essentially means that
each program gets assigned to a core.
Because of this there is absolutely no increase in speed for gaming
from dual-core processor chips. Only once the games themselves have
been programmed to take advantage of dual-core processors will there be
a difference. This is due to the intensive nature of games and the
number crunching needed for intense graphics, which for now cannot be
split over multiple cores in dual-core processors.
So back to the battlefield.
AMD were the first to introduce their dual-core processor solution to a
desktop computer. This gave them a slight lead over Intel. Despite
this, AMD gave people a bit of a surprise with their new offering.
Always having been renowned for giving far more than expected for the
price, these new dual-core processors were very expensive. Part of what
managed to give AMD a hold in a market previously dominated by Intel
was their good pricing. This shock did not go down well with consumers.
To add insult to injury, Intel's dual-core processor offerings came in
at remarkably good value. Both of their initial dual-core processors
cost less than AMD's lowest priced model. That's right, AMD's cheapest
dual-core processor cost more than Intel's most expensive. This
definitely put the ball in Intel's court and was downright
disappointing for AMD fans.
AMD did manage to introduce a cheaper model to compete better with the
Intel offerings. Despite this, Intel was still the forerunner in this
area.
Performance remains an area that is sketchy.
With the relatively new technology involved it is hard to draw a clear
conclusion on who is faster. With operating systems only recently
oriented towards fully utilizing dual-core processor technology, it is
still new territory. Both offer increased performance, but as to who
will rule the roost, we'll have to see.
For the meantime it would probably be advisable to just watch. Being a
cautious buyer I prefer to buy into a sure thing, once things have
settled down, prices will balance out and all the related technology
will be in place. Then we will be able to get a true opinion on where
to put your hard earned cash.
