Which processor?

[bib]

Hi there
I plan to buy a new PC. I'm not especially a gamer, but I need CPU speed to calculate...guess what? 

What would you advise: at the same speed, is a quad core twice as fast as a dual core? I mostly use Ultrafractal.

Thanks in advance!

bib

[cKleinhuis]

ulrafractal5 is working quite well with multiprocessor, so 4x2.2 could be better than 2x3.0 

[David Makin]

Quadcore will almost certainly be twice as fast as the equivalent Dualcore.

If you can possibly stretch to it then I'd recommend Dual Quadcore Nehalims
They're considerably faster than the equivalent older quadcore Xeons MHz for MHz and the older Quadcore Xeons are blazingly fast !
See:

http://www.shadoworld.co.uk/UF5/Benchmark/Benchmark%20results.htm

[bib]

Many thanks for the link : that is very interesting. I think I will take a Quad Q6600 that shows the better speed/price ratio regarding my needs and budget.

[lycium]

q6600s aren't available anymore, much faster (and less expensive) models have replaced it. right now the best "bang per buck" processor is either a phenom 2 or i7, depending on how much you want to spend. i'd say the i7 920 is an absolute bargain for the incredible amount of processing power you get 

ps. dave: 6gb of memory with a 32bit operating system?! even with less than 4gb, running a 32bit os in 2009... what's going on mate

[bib]

Maybe the Q6600 is not available as a part, but there are still cheap PCs with Q6600 on the market.
My budget is 600€ for a quad core with 4GB RAM, 640GB HD and a 22" screen, and Vista: should I absolutely gear towards 64-bit?
Knowing that I will use the machine for almost nothing else than, say, 4 hours of Ultrafractal per week 
I think PCs with the i7 are in average 150€ more expensive.

[David Makin]

ps. dave: 6gb of memory with a 32bit operating system?! even with less than 4gb, running a 32bit os in 2009... what's going on mate

Errmmm - I may be a programmer but I work with a very small software company and we only write what we want to write - we don't write software to order for publishing houses.
Consequently we get paid nothing for development and are 100% reliant on the sales of our software - unfortunately that's not been making a whole lot of money recently
So the problem is lack of capital !! (I haven't earned enough to even owe any tax for 3 years).
I am saving for a Mac Pro (with dual quadcore I7s) - but I'm still around £2000 short (and I don't believe in buying on credit).

Oh - we only have Vista 32-bit on the MacPro at work because we have a considerable amount of software for Windows that simply doesn't work properly with the Microsoft 64-bit OS (they *ought* to work in 32-bit compatibility mode but don't). The machine is normally used as a Mac system i.e. full 64-bit OS.

I invite any iPhone/iTouch users reading this to buy our VNC client software "VNC Pocket Office" from the Apple App. Store - then you can use your favourite Windows or Mac fractal software anywhere from your iPhone/iTouch (Well OK *any* Windows or Mac software - but who cares about the other stuff ?)

[David Makin]

Maybe the Q6600 is not available as a part, but there are still cheap PCs with Q6600 on the market.
My budget is 600€ for a quad core with 4GB RAM, 640GB HD and a 22" screen, and Vista: should I absolutely gear towards 64-bit?
Knowing that I will use the machine for almost nothing else than, say, 4 hours of Ultrafractal per week 
I think PCs with the i7 are in average 150€ more expensive.

From the point of view of UF 64-bit does not currently provide any real benefit - at the moment it doesn't even allow more memory use within UF, and if you check those timings you'll see that there's basically no difference between 32-bit or 64-bit systems (all other things being equal).
Having said that you could bear in mind that at some point there *will* be some fractal program or other that takes full advantage of 64-bit.

[David Makin]

Maybe the Q6600 is not available as a part, but there are still cheap PCs with Q6600 on the market.
My budget is 600€ for a quad core with 4GB RAM, 640GB HD and a 22" screen, and Vista: should I absolutely gear towards 64-bit?
Knowing that I will use the machine for almost nothing else than, say, 4 hours of Ultrafractal per week 
I think PCs with the i7 are in average 150€ more expensive.

From the point of view of UF 64-bit does not currently provide any real benefit - at the moment it doesn't even allow more memory use within UF, and if you check those timings you'll see that there's basically no difference between 32-bit or 64-bit systems (all other things being equal).
Having said that you could bear in mind that at some point there *will* be some fractal program or other that takes full advantage of 64-bit.

Just to clarify by 64-bit here I'm talking about the OS not the motherboard/hardware - I'd definitely go for the 64-bit hardware.

[Nahee_Enterprises]

Quadcore will almost certainly be twice as fast as the equivalent Dualcore.
......the older Quadcore Xeons are blazingly fast !
See:
     http://www.shadoworld.co.uk/UF5/Benchmark/Benchmark%20results.htm

My machine (the Intel Xeon X5482 3.2GHz with dual Quad-Cores [8 processors] and 16-GB, DDR2 800MHz) was top of that list for awhile, until Chris got that i7.  Now I have to settle for the number 2 position.           

But for an "older Quadcore Xeon", it still out runs most machines that the average user has.     
 

[bib]

I finally ordered a PC with the i7 920

[bib]

Intel i7 920 @ 2.66Ghz
4GB RAM
Vista Home 64 bit

test 1 : 12.58
test 2 : 38.69

I am very very pleased by this machine I bought 780€ with a 23" 2048*1152 

[cKleinhuis]

congrats, i have a simmilar machine with a 1gb grafics card