redse171

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i want to buy a desktop computer from dell but in dilemma which one to choose either dell inspiron with intel core 2 quad (2.33 mhz) or dell studio intel core 2 duo (2.66 mhz). i'm gonna use it for my research whereby i'm doing a project for my computer science project in bioinformatics area. which of this pc most suitable for me?
 

welshmousepk

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a quad would certainly benefit you. assuming the programs you use can take advantage of multiple cores, you should get some really performance gains from having 4 of them.

i dont know much (anything :S) about the bioinformatics area, but im guesing you will be making alot of calculations preferably in the shortest time possible. thats exactly what muliple cores are for.
 

redse171

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welshmousepk, yeahhh..u are right..i'll be doing more on calculations and timing is very crucial for my works....thanks for your help on this...i just made up my mind and it seems that dell inspiron with intel core 2 quad will be the right one.. :)
 

cheesesubs

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quad core usually having higher latency and weaker IPC(instruction per cycle ) than a native dual core. if you are only doing huge data transfer and some text work i'd recommand dual core would be fine. but if it's involve multi tasking, graphic coculation and animation/ multimedia data, music format then quad quad will be your favor.
 

cheesesubs

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my point is if the client is not a hardcore user quad core will seemed to be a waste. which it depands on what client really need. a simple data management will not require more than 2 core to do so.

and overall floating point/= IPC in single clock and performance per watt
quad core may seem to be powerful in overall but under single thread performance quad core is no match to dual core.

floating point/instruction per clock will be the future
 

LoneWolf_53

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For someone going into medical research a quad is most certainly not a waste.

Most of the work done is extremely CPU intensive much as stress testing with Prime 95 is though things may vary a bit depending on the project and how the work is compiled.

Either way I'd hardly consider it a waste to have extra cores on hand even if all I'm doing is opening a number of programs at the same time since they would get assigned to different cores.