Quad Core vs Dual Core

[DroidXDoes4G]

Should you be saving up for a quad-core Smartphone? | mobile technology, mobile architecture | ST-Ericsson Technology Blog

I came across this article when I searched to see when quad core phones may be arriving. (many say 2013 if you are wondering)

And this article said that Dual Core processors are actually faster than Quad Cores. Or at least in a smartphone.

"As I mentioned above the dual core can run at a higher peak frequency than the quad core. If only one or two cores of the in total four are being used, the dual core will outperform the quad core. The Gigahertz will speak."

You can read it if you'd like, just to make sure I am not crazy, but is this true?

 

[barski]

Put it this way Do you see people running a main stream server/ highend desktops on dual core processors? Nope, they are quad core and up.

Check this page out: Dual Core vs Quad Core

 

[derpingway]

Quad core offers a performance boost over dual core if and only if there are three or more tasks that are relatively heavy on the CPU, do not have to wait on data from the user/network/flash memory/other shared resource, do not depend on each other in any way, and all need to run at the same time. This is often the case on a server or a workstation used for compiling or non-realtime 3D rendering, rarely on a normal desktop and almost never on a smartphone.

Unless all those conditions are met, a dual core CPU and a quad core CPU will perform identically, provided that they are of the same make, generation and clock speed.

The link barski provided is misleading; obviously a company with the domain build-gaming-computers.com wants you to believe that having a quad core CPU is essential for gaming and other heavy use, but you'll note that they don't present any data to back their claims up. Also, you can see that the article used to be about single core vs. dual core, from the parts they forgot to change when they last updated their marketing.

 

[barski]

The link does have some valuable basic info without getting to technical. As im sure we can all agree, we will be seeing the need for quadcore processors in phones as they become more advanced and feature filled. One example would be the webtop dock that is on a few phones. Also developers will take into account the quadcores abilities and make some awesome games and applications that can take full advantage of all 4 cores.

If you really want to get technical about it check out this page.
Dual-Core Versus Quad-Core: Part 2

 

[myrkron]

Here's an analogy that may help:
Cores are like workers. For this case, imagine two restaurants, identical except for the workers.

Restaurant A has 2 workers who can each make sandwiches at 3 sandwiches per minute. Since the work load isn't very high, the workers are never very busy. Each time somebody orders a sandwich (or two), they deliver the sandwich(es) in 20 seconds.

Restaurant B has 4 workers who can each make sandwiches at 2 sandwiches per minute. Since the work load isn't very high, the workers are never very busy. Each time somebody orders a sandwich (or two), they deliver the sandwich(es) in 30 seconds.

The low workload is why the dual cores (with a faster clock speed) would be faster. If workload was 100%, clearly the quad core would be faster (B's 8 sandwiches per minute beats A's 6 sandwiches per minute).

Also noteworthy is that most applications are not written in such as way as to use multiple cores. They are written like: Do W, then X, then Y, then Z. They could take advantage of multiple cores if they were written like: Assign W to thread 1, assign X to thread 2, assign Y to thread 3, wait for them to be complete, then do Z.

 

[DroidXDoes4G]

Quad core offers a performance boost over dual core if and only if there are three or more tasks that are relatively heavy on the CPU, do not have to wait on data from the user/network/flash memory/other shared resource, do not depend on each other in any way, and all need to run at the same time. This is often the case on a server or a workstation used for compiling or non-realtime 3D rendering, rarely on a normal desktop and almost never on a smartphone.

Unless all those conditions are met, a dual core CPU and a quad core CPU will perform identically, provided that they are of the same make, generation and clock speed.

The link barski provided is misleading; obviously a company with the domain build-gaming-computers.com wants you to believe that having a quad core CPU is essential for gaming and other heavy use, but you'll note that they don't present any data to back their claims up. Also, you can see that the article used to be about single core vs. dual core, from the parts they forgot to change when they last updated their marketing.

Ok well thats good to know. Sometimes one core handles some of the apps/games I use poorly, so dual should be good for me.

 

[symdev88]

Should you be saving up for a quad-core Smartphone? | mobile technology, mobile architecture | ST-Ericsson Technology Blog

I came across this article when I searched to see when quad core phones may be arriving. (many say 2013 if you are wondering)

And this article said that Dual Core processors are actually faster than Quad Cores. Or at least in a smartphone.

"As I mentioned above the dual core can run at a higher peak frequency than the quad core. If only one or two cores of the in total four are being used, the dual core will outperform the quad core. The Gigahertz will speak."

You can read it if you'd like, just to make sure I am not crazy, but is this true?

I've been hearing that quad cores will be out 1st qtr 2012.dancedroid