Technology intel core duo processor

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Otto Octavius

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I just purchased an intel core duo processor. When games give minimum processing speed requirements, does that apply for duo processors? (ie can I play a game that requires a 3 ghz intel processor on my 1.8 ghz duo processor)?

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Well, it all depends (don't you just hate that answer?)

Some recent modern games have ratings for dual core processors (these can usually be applied to quad core as well) and may or may not have a listing for a single core processor (typically a Pentium 4). Most older games (pre-dual core era) will only have a rating listed in Ghz (or even Mhz!) with the assumption that you are running a single core processor (Celeron, Pentium 4/3/2, 1st gen Centrino) since dual core (and quad core) hadn't been invented yet.

Most games (until just very recently) were designed as single thread applications which means they can only use a single processor core (most weren't even capable of using the benefits of a hyperthreading single core processor) as a limitation of their programming. For dual or quad core processors this means that 1-3 cores on your processor are going to be dead silent while one is running at full blast.

However, this doesn't mean that a 2.0 Ghz quad core processor can't run a game that was designed for a 3.2 Ghz Pentium 4 (a single core processor). In general, even though the clock speed for a dual or quad core system may be rated lower, if you run a single threaded application (such as a game) on one of these processors it will blow the higher clock older single core processor out of the water. The reason for this is that clock speed is just a single determinant of how a processor or a system will perform. Processor design, L1/L2 Cache size/speed/design, processor extensions (typically called SSE or MMX), bus speed and design, as well as the speed and design of the RAM, Hard Disk, and Graphics Cards all play a role, among other things that are too technical to get into. The improvements in the design and implementation of the processor and the other components in the newer dual and quad core systems will more likely than not make up for the clock difference between the two processors and then some. As such, you can mostly likely run just about any application on your newer dual or quad core system without any concern with regard to the clock speed as long as the processor in your system isn't one of the lower rated members of its family.

With that being said, if you run an application or a game that was meant to absolutely push single core design to it's very limits then it is possible that you will see a performance difference if the dual or quad core system you are running it is on is the lower end of the middle of the road or further down. If your system and the application/game you want to run falls into that particular category I would be prepared for a perceptible loss in performance, whether it will be enough to impact your experience to the point where it would be disappointing would be just about impossible to say since it would depend on the particular system and the demands of the particular application/game and this is all discussed in generalities.

So, to sum is all up, if you have a middle of the road or better dual or quad core system then it's rather unlikely that you will encounter an older app. or game designed for a single core system that you won't be able to run comfortably, although there is a small potential for this to happen. If you have a lower end dual or quad core system it would behoove you to carefully evaluate all the aspects of your system and the application/game in question that you want to run in order to determine whether they are a reasonable match otherwise you could end up with an unsatisfactory experience and performance.
 
No, it's more like you have two 900Mhz processors that work more efficiently than a 1.8Ghz single core processor if you multi-task a lot or run multiple programs (which you usually do, like anti-virus, web browsers, etc.). Depends on how the program was designed if it can take advantage of the dual processor cores. If it only runs with a single thread, it won't run like you think.

There are many factors that affect performance of a game, usually related to your video card...but many other factors play a part and can limit the speed of your computer overall.

If you need to go from a 1.8Ghz to a 3.0 Ghz processor to play a game, get an entirely new system...they are cheap nowadays...checkout http://www.tigerdirect.com and get a refurbished machine with the specs you want.
 
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I just purchased an intel core duo processor. When games give minimum processing speed requirements, does that apply for duo processors? (ie can I play a game that requires a 3 ghz intel processor on my 1.8 ghz duo processor)?

Core Duo, or Core 2 Duo? Performance for games is going to be faster on the latter.

Those speed estimates have generally been given for a Pentium 4 (or their close relatives); as a rule of thumb, AMD and Intel chips of the Pentium-M/Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo) are equivalent to a Pentium 4 of around 50% faster clock speed - one core of a 1.8ghz Core Duo is going to be /around/ the same speed as a 2.7ghz Pentium 4.

So it might be a little slow for a game designed for a 3ghz processor but not bad. Odds are it'll be playable, but not great.

Now, if it's a Core 2 Duo, you should be fine. Core 2 Duo at least 10% faster than AMD/Pentium M/Core Duo. So a 1.8ghz Core 2 Duo would be around as fast as a 3ghz P4. In my experience, my Core 2 Duo 2.0ghz laptop is around the same processor speed as my 3.4ghz Pentium D (dual core Pentium 4) desktop, maybe even a little faster for things like converting video files.

Now, the dual core/single core is a separate issue - as Eponym noted, until recently, most games were written to run in a single thread. So it's the speed of a single core that matters (although you'll get some *small* advantage from the second core doing some of the extra work for Windows regardless.)

I'm not sure what LifetimeDoc meant by "it's more like you have two 900Mhz processors that work more efficiently than a 1.8Ghz single core processor" - a 1.8ghz Core Duo/Core 2 Duo is two cores each running at 1.8ghz. No matter what, there's no speed lost by going to dual core at a given clock speed.

Two other things to note:
1) for games, the video card is going to often matter more than the processor, which is why I still mostly play games on my desktop.

2) The speed of your front-side-bus and memory matters a good bit. Two processors of the same architacture generation running at the same clock speed but with front-side-bus speeds that are different (or if one is slowed down by memory slower than the FSB) can have very different performance characteristics. This was most evident back with the P4 where the third versions of the 2.4ghz chip was nearly twice as fast as the first(*), but it's still the main reason today why desktop chips are faster than laptops.

(* The P4 was a very memory-bandwidth-intensive design, and the speed of the FSB went up twice from the original 400mhz to 533mhz to 800mhz - with the same clock speed of 2.4ghz. At the same time, they also introduced dual-channel memory with the 800mhz-capable motherboards so the total bandwidth quadrupled.)
 
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