Thread: Core 2 Duo vs. Core 2 Quad, what do you think.

I'm running a Quad Core in my home server which I use as a virtualization server as well. In that case it's extremely useful because I'm running multiple VMs, file share, as well as a domain controller.

I can't imagine you'd need that level of horsepower for a car pc, even a Core 2 Duo is plenty. I'm running Centrafuse with Garmin in Win7 on a Zotac board with Atom 330 and only 2GB of RAM.

If you want fast, you should invest in Intel branded SSDs. I suspect that is going to make a bigger difference than the number of cores.

Edit: today's on newegg's shell shocker.

What do you need all that power for in a carpc? If it's just for running a frontend with navigation, then it's hugely overpowered. Unless you are going to be gaming and watching HD movies or something. If you are going to be hibernating the system, that 4gb ram will be a real bottleneck. I agree with RipplingHurst in that for carpc use, you would probably gain more by having a modest or low power motherboard with a fast SSD.

Originally Posted by nobb

What do you need all that power for in a carpc? If it's just for running a frontend with navigation, then it's hugely overpowered. Unless you are going to be gaming and watching HD movies or something. If you are going to be hibernating the system, that 4gb ram will be a real bottleneck. I agree with RipplingHurst in that for carpc use, you would probably gain more by having a modest or low power motherboard with a fast SSD.

You people are forgetting my install!!!!!!!!!!!!! My bad for not bringing up what I am doing with my install. My PC will have 8 screens, and the rear seats will have the ability to do things independent from the front, which includes game system emulation from Sega, Nintendo, Sony and 3D Arcade emulation, and even play PC games. I don't want someone playing Playstation 1 via emulation and next thing you know my navigation upfront is being bogged down. Also plan to do things like heavy TV streaming (SlingBox via thedatajack). So the Quad would be more beneficial. Also another thing to add is that my setup will have 6 additional PC units that will all access the main pc for media, internet modem, and DVD Rom, I do not know if that will play into the use of the processor of the main system. I am already pushing a OPUS 320, and alot of the USB devices are powered via hubs from external power, all so I can dedicate as much of the PSU to the moBo. I do plan on upgrading to a SSD drive, but not until they drop in price a bit.

I didn't forget your install, but if you're using multiple pcs, you won't need 4x cores, right? If you're still slow, you're best bet is going to be more memory/faster drives. Try 2 SSD raid 0...that's going to be fast.

Quad cores, AFAIK, work best when running software designed for them: 3D apps, Photoshop, Video encoders, etc. I doubt that using 4 arcade emulators + Centrafuse + NAV + TV streaming, etc. that with this you're going to be using all 4 cores equally. I might be wrong though, have you tried with 2 cores, if they get their load evenly distributed (after the first one reaches 80%+) as you load those apps with tasks?

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

You people are forgetting my install!!!!!!!!!!!!! My bad for not bringing up what I am doing with my install. My PC will have 8 screens, and the rear seats will have the ability to do things independent from the front, which includes game system emulation from Sega, Nintendo, Sony and 3D Arcade emulation, and even play PC games. I don't want someone playing Playstation 1 via emulation and next thing you know my navigation upfront is being bogged down. Also plan to do things like heavy TV streaming (SlingBox via thedatajack). So the Quad would be more beneficial. Also another thing to add is that my setup will have 6 additional PC units that will all access the main pc for media, internet modem, and DVD Rom, I do not know if that will play into the use of the processor of the main system. I am already pushing a OPUS 320, and alot of the USB devices are powered via hubs from external power, all so I can dedicate as much of the PSU to the moBo. I do plan on upgrading to a SSD drive, but not until they drop in price a bit.

Go and buy quad I have Intel P8400 and is not enought powerfull for me Average CPU load is 30-60% when I listening music(3-way active audio processing)...

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

You people are forgetting my install!!!!!!!!!!!!! My bad for not bringing up what I am doing with my install. My PC will have 8 screens, and the rear seats will have the ability to do things independent from the front, which includes game system emulation from Sega, Nintendo, Sony and 3D Arcade emulation, and even play PC games. I don't want someone playing Playstation 1 via emulation and next thing you know my navigation upfront is being bogged down. Also plan to do things like heavy TV streaming (SlingBox via thedatajack). So the Quad would be more beneficial. Also another thing to add is that my setup will have 6 additional PC units that will all access the main pc for media, internet modem, and DVD Rom, I do not know if that will play into the use of the processor of the main system. I am already pushing a OPUS 320, and alot of the USB devices are powered via hubs from external power, all so I can dedicate as much of the PSU to the moBo. I do plan on upgrading to a SSD drive, but not until they drop in price a bit.

Are you talking about file sharing or screen sharing? If your talking about file sharing, 3 of those 4 cores will never see use. If your talking about screen sharing, your going to be very disappointed!! Way too much overhead, plus centrafuse is limited to 2 screens (and I know better then to suggest an alternative ).

If you don't want to go with an ssd yet, you should consider a raid 1 array of 7200rpm drives. That way if the bumps of the road take their toll you know your data is still safe and it should increase read speeds by quite a bit which is what you really care about if your serving media.

Originally Posted by _Dejan_

Go and buy quad I have Intel P8400 and is not enought powerfull for me Average CPU load is 30-60% when I listening music(3-way active audio processing)...

LOL, thats because you have a monster audio setup! I think I will go with the Quad, it means that in the future, I do not have to wirry about upgrading.

Originally Posted by justchat_1

Are you talking about file sharing or screen sharing? If your talking about file sharing, 3 of those 4 cores will never see use. If your talking about screen sharing, your going to be very disappointed!! Way too much overhead, plus centrafuse is limited to 2 screens (and I know better then to suggest an alternative ).

If you don't want to go with an ssd yet, you should consider a raid 1 array of 7200rpm drives. That way if the bumps of the road take their toll you know your data is still safe and it should increase read speeds by quite a bit which is what you really care about if your serving media.

The setup does both. Each screen is technically shared between a personal PC and the main PC via a KVM switch. So on startup they all see the Main PC. Then if they do not want to do a shared task, they hit a button, it switches over on the KVM and they hit power to activate that unit. The main PC has to be on for the other units to do anything media wise. The front screen (driver screen) can only see nav, obd2, basically no media stuff. Then the passenger screens see all the media based stuff.

How exactly does RAID work. I know that the new board I am getting, does support the option, but I have never understood how it works. Currently I have 2 hard drives on the main system, one 40GB drive, and one 150gb drive. The 150gb drive is split into 2 partitions, a 40GB one and a 110GB one. The 40 I use for HDD images.