AMD Phenom or Intel Quad Core?

[delhi]

Not sure if it is the right area. But one of the main reason for my workstation upgrade has to do with the increasingly frustrating lag with LR and CS2.
I've not been in-the-know with PC stuff for many years now. So am looking to replace my current machine which has aged. My question is, do I need quad cores or the core 2 duos are good enough?
Also with the current CPU climate, is AMD Phenom quads good enough? The intel quad cores seem pretty strong. Budget about $500 barebones. No need monitor or even hdd.

[danpass]

I've got the Pentium Core 2 Duo E4400 (2.0Ghz) with 2GB, 800mhz RAM.

Runs DPP, LR, PS7, IE7 all at the same time, like a charm.


Course I don't use them all at the same time. I just did it to see if bogged down much (not at all :D )



Full list in my gear list link


.

[Tsmith]

Intel all the way now of days. Dual or Quad cores will run your apps flawlessly with 2 gigs of RAM.

[delhi]

will PP see advantage with quad core over core2duo?

[prime80]

Photoshop will use all 4 cores, and the Intel Quad core is definitely better than the Phenom. Q6600 is a very good value chip right now.

[Glenn NK]

What is your present setup (processor, memory, HDD's etc)?

[dpastern]

Photoshop will use all 4 cores, and the Intel Quad core is definitely better than the Phenom. Q6600 is a very good value chip right now.

Totally agreed. Phenom is far slower than Intel's quadcores, and furthermore has a nasty bug in the lvl 2 cache that can cause system crashes - and this bug won't be fixed until q2 2008. AMD should have done a total recall on the released Phenom chips, and if it doesn't, government regulatory bodies should fault it and force it to be recalled. Knowingly selling a faulty product is a big no-no imho and should incur massive penalties from government bodies. Period.

Dave

[Notamage]

Phenom flopped (many were looking forward to it!!). The Q6600 is the best way to go ATM. If you have money to burn, you may opt for the "extreme editions" of the quad, but the improvements are marginal. It's only great for overclocking (it's not multiplier locked). You can get the Q6600 to 3.0 ghz (2.4 ghz is the rated speed). All you need is a killer fan (Zalman 9700 series).

Ooh... the computer talk. I love it. :oops:

[Tsmith]

Phenom flopped (many were looking forward to it!!). The Q6600 is the best way to go ATM. If you have money to burn, you may opt for the "extreme editions" of the quad, but the improvements are marginal. It's only great for overclocking (it's not multiplier locked). You can get the Q6600 to 3.0 ghz (2.4 ghz is the rated speed). All you need is a killer fan (Zalman 9700 series).

Ooh... the computer talk. I love it. :oops:

Got the Zalman 9500AT on my E6700 2.66GHz running at 3.33 GHz. The idle temps average around 30°C with a full hour load in Orthos never getting above 45°C. My temps with the stock Intel cooler where around 40°C at idle.

[delhi]

What is your present setup (processor, memory, HDD's etc)?

My current set-up is a laughable (in today's terms) Athlon XP 2000+ with 1GB ram, 9800 Radeon and some hdd. It needs to be replaced.
Will I see improvements with say a Core2 Duo vs Core2 Quad? Is it cheaper to get a C2D now with a mobo that will accept a C2Q now instead of jumping into a C2Q right now?

[prime80]

The Q6600 is about the same price as the slightly higher speed C2D. A higher speed dual-core will probably be a bit faster for gaming type applications, or single-threaded apps. For photoshop, a slightly slower quad core will definitely be faster than the Core2 Duo.

[SilverHCIC]

I work on 4 different PCs, all of which are dual core. Two are running XP and two are running VISTA. I added memory to my primary PC, and am now running with 4G RAM on that machine. A friend of mine was over to ask for some help on some PP he was having trouble with, and he said my dual core pc performs faster than his quad core pc. ... I asked about his memory, and he said he thinks he has 2G RAM.

... I think that a good quad core processor will certainly yield the best performance, but if you're just looking for a boost in performance, adding memory can have a BIG effect, as long as you don't skimp. ... I added the maximum amount of memory that my board would accommodate. It was a lot cheaper than upgrading the entire box, and I didn't have to go through the ordeal of reloading all the software.;)

[gjl711]

I know I'm resurrecting an old thread, but I'm about to put together a new PC and am toying with the idea of going quad as well. Trouble is that I don't think that the quads are going to give me any performance boost especially for photoshoop unless I'm willing to pay big $$$. I was perusing TomsHardware, looking over the processor charts and for at least the PS3 benchmark, it looks as if the dual cores stomp the quad cores. AMDs X2-6400, a $150 processor betters Intels Q6600 which costs almost twice as much and the first quad that betters the X2-6400 is the QX-6700, a $1000 processor.

So, to those that have gone quad, is it really worth the $$$?

Photoshop will use all 4 cores, ...... Q6600 is a very good value chip right now.

.... The Q6600 is the best way to go ATM. If you have money to burn, you may opt for the "extreme editions" of the quad, but the improvements are marginal. ...

The Q6600 is about the same price as the slightly higher speed C2D. ..... For photoshop, a slightly slower quad core will definitely be faster than the Core2 Duo.

...and he said my dual core pc performs faster than his quad core pc. ...... Looks like the benchmarks are proving him right.

[CyberDyneSystems]

I don't have a "quad core" but I have two Dual cores, and PSCS sues all four of those cores.

Tom's hardware for some reason, though usually right on the ball, seems to be running a set of tests in PSCS that manages to avoid the most common filters, and avoids everything that will use all four core, so the benchmarks are coming out skewed towards the Dual cores.

However, there are other bottlenecks that may cause the addition of more cores to not offer any gain, it depends on the system involved..

Take a look at the discussion here;
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=5017818#post5017818

and towards the end of this thread for more detail on Quad..
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=170063

also,

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=441063

[brantfordbandit]

i'm thinking of getting a new laptop, which is better intel pentium or centrino?

[BrantG]

My current set-up is a laughable (in today's terms) Athlon XP 2000+ with 1GB ram, 9800 Radeon and some hdd. It needs to be replaced.
Will I see improvements with say a Core2 Duo vs Core2 Quad? Is it cheaper to get a C2D now with a mobo that will accept a C2Q now instead of jumping into a C2Q right now?


Let me say this since I am/was in your situation.

I had a Pentium 4 3Ghz processor, ATI 9800 and 2GB RAM. Photoshop ran "ok" to me. I'm getting close to building a new PC but picked up a new laptop instead.

The new laptop is a Toshiba 2.1Ghz Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB memory, Vista 64, ATI Graphics Card with 256MB memory. This new machine is way faster than my desktop.

So I would suggest a upgrade to a new Duo or one of the new 45nm quad core processors.

[Saauce]

(putting flame proof suit on)

I don't mean to star a PC vs. Mac war. But have you considered a C2D Mac?

[timbernet]

I know I'm resurrecting an old thread, but I'm about to put together a new PC and am toying with the idea of going quad as well. Trouble is that I don't think that the quads are going to give me any performance boost especially for photoshoop unless I'm willing to pay big $$$. I was perusing TomsHardware, looking over the processor charts and for at least the PS3 benchmark, it looks as if the dual cores stomp the quad cores. AMDs X2-6400, a $150 processor betters Intels Q6600 which costs almost twice as much and the first quad that betters the X2-6400 is the QX-6700, a $1000 processor.

So, to those that have gone quad, is it really worth the $$$?
Looks like the benchmarks are proving him right.


I used to be an AMD fanboy, but their recent chips have not impressed me... Looks at the Intel E8400 - (http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=1106&model2=1096&chart=437)

Pretty cheap chip, runs fast, runs cool, sips power, great little chip...

[Bobster]

i was going to upgrade my MP2800 to Opterons in Nov 2006, but Core2 was the win! and still is going strong, i have an E6750 clocked to 3.2GHz with 8GB RAM running XP64 and it flies, i don't see myself upgrading for a long time atm (well until such time as i find editing 30x20" 16bit slow)

[gjl711]

I used to be an AMD fanboy, but their recent chips have not impressed me... Looks at the Intel E8400 - (http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=1106&model2=1096&chart=437)

Pretty cheap chip, runs fast, runs cool, sips power, great little chip...
Hmmm... The E8400 bests both the X2-6400 and all the Phenoms. Time to rethink the stratigy a bit.

[evdh]

Just go for the Intel. Then you can download (somewhere on the net) the cracked Mac OSX version and start switching ;-)