Duel Core Vs Single core for WOW

[woodyman]

Ive managed to obtain myself quite a few shuttles from my old work
ive got a choice of a 4Ghz single core pentium
or a 3Ghz Duel core
All other features ram etc etc will be the same as i will be robbing all the parts to make 1 good one.

the 4Ghz seems much faster than the Dual core when booting Windows XP but i feel this is probably just XP not making the use of the two cores

any advice gratefully appreciated

[Buffalowings]

XP should use both cores from SP1 and up (I believe, It does with my professional).

Other than that you should be able to check by : Right click "my computer" > Manage > Device manager > Processors. If correct it should display both cores running at 3 Ghz.

[Ryoku]

Go for the Dualcore no questions asked. Your performance will be increased.

[redneck6979]

When I updated from a single core to a Dual core it was like Night and Day. The performance gain of the dual core out weighs the speed of the single core.

[woodyman]

Thanks for the feedback guys,
did a few updates as its a new system and the dual core is definately superior
did a benchmark test on the two as well and the Dual core came out on top.
now i just need a decent AGP graphics card and i should be on my way to a respectable PC rather than the glorified typewriter im using now :P

[mrmojoz]

You have a dual core Pentium setup (Pentium D I guess?) that still has an AGP slot? Very odd. Also you can't compare chips based on CPU speed like you were trying to do, so always include the CPU type when asking questions. A Core2Duo at 2ghz is much faster than a Pentium 4 at 3ghz for instance.

[gd_void]

go Dualcore Upgrade to windows 7, Not only does it handle the dual core more efficiently but it also Uses higher levels of ram (3+gigs) more effectively

[woodyman]

Ok Sorry for the Lack of Info
It is a SS59G Shuttle which has the LGA775 Slot but uses DDR1 Ram and has an AGP slot
I was quite suprised it would even run the Pentium D to be honest
Got 2 young kids so spending money on a new computer was not an option an i managed to scrounge these from work for free

Max Ram is 2G so no point trying to push that much further
so i have a Pentium 4 3.4Ghz chip
and a pentium D 2.8 Ghz dual core
Run these both on sandra lite CPU benchmark and Prime 95
and will stably do
4Ghz single core
3Ghz Dual core
interestingly the Dual core only comes out on top by a small margin in all tests

[Fetzie]

Ok Sorry for the Lack of Info
It is a SS59G Shuttle which has the LGA775 Slot but uses DDR1 Ram and has an AGP slot
I was quite suprised it would even run the Pentium D to be honest
Got 2 young kids so spending money on a new computer was not an option an i managed to scrounge these from work for free

Max Ram is 2G so no point trying to push that much further
so i have a Pentium 4 3.4Ghz chip
and a pentium D 2.8 Ghz dual core
Run these both on sandra lite CPU benchmark and Prime 95
and will stably do
4Ghz single core
3Ghz Dual core
interestingly the Dual core only comes out on top by a small margin in all tests

the dual core is possibly being bottle-necked by the rest of the system, as with other stuff your computer is only as fast as the slowest part allows. So you wouldn't get the full performance out of it due to the DDR1 RAM or the old motherboard for example.

[Goros]

The big thing with WoW is no matter how uber/awesome your GPU is, it still loads 85% of the graphics processing onto your CPU, and it's hardcapped by the software at 2gb max RAM access. You can hack it and add a 3GB switch to it if you know how, and Warden doesn't find it.

Your best bet for upgrades is going to a new Mobo/RAM/CPU combo, with something along the 3/4/6 core range. 8 if you feel...shiny. Just change your "setprocessaffinitymask" to whatever it needs to be to best operate the load on those processors.