Pentium Dual-Core vs. Core 2 Duo

Easily the i3 series

You can take a look of this

The core2duo is better that the dual core, and the core i3 is a little better that the core2duo.

i3 is better.

But Upgrade from PDC or C2D to i3 isn't worth it.

Is this a brand new build, mobo up, or an upgrade of an existing 775 platform?

Core2duo.

i3 is newer and better than both.

well,i am wondering how much worse a pentium dualcore is vs a core2duo, because to me it seems a pdc is just two p4s slapped onto one chip, and its not a very powerful cpu. i currently use two computers with core2duos and am wondering if its worth getting an i3...

If you're already running C2Ds, don't worry about upgrading to an i3. That's like spending the money to buy a car that gets 37mpg when you already have one that does 35mpg.

As far as the pentium dual cores, they are trimmed down C2Ds. You'll see they are listed as Wolfdales (45nm) same as the 7xxx and 8xxx C2Ds. They just are limited to slower FSB speeds and less L2 cache. They are great overclockers still and for the money are great CPUs.

Heres the E7200 vs the E5200. The E7200 is the better chip, but spending almost twice as much might not be worth it. Considering both will overclock near 4ghz, you get more than just 2xP4s worth of performance out of the PDC.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=62&p2=66&...

my thought was that pdcs were just two p4 slapped on one chip while the core2duo and core2quad chips were invented as dual/quad core cpus from the start. oh well, i guess i was wrong...however, is there a realworld (non-gaming) performance difference between the two, even though the c2d beats the pdc in every benchmark? is my single-channel ram what makes my core2duo system so slow? it does seem awfully slow, would you have an idea why?
core2duo e6600 2.4 oc to 2.6ghz
1gb ddr2-4200 ram (512x2) liimited by mobo which has only a singlechannel controller
wd 250gb sata hard drive
geforce 6800 512mb pci-e
that computer was SOOOOO slow in everything, even opening firefox, right from the time in installed xp home, its ridiculous...why?

Start the computer but don't load anything. Go into task manager, performance tab, and see how much of your physical memory is being used by the OS. Should be around 600mb leaving enough for the browser or another app to launch. But if its running high and having to dump lots of info on and off a page file on a slow HDD, that definitely will crawl the system.

Then load firefox and check the physical memory again.

what mobo do you have?

mobo: biostar p4m890-m7

physical memory:
available: 560mb (approx)
system cache: 323mb

page file usage: approx. 410mb


thanks

oh and while opeing firefpx, cpu usage doesnt exceed 25%, and the page file when open goes to about 526mb

^Use Google Chrome, use less memory that firefox.

lol i tried that but it only worked once...nothing happens if i try to open it...

What OS are your using?

xp home sp3

MAybe http://atpeaz.placidthoughts.com/index.php?/archives/31... can help you to fix your problem with Chrome on SP3

I think you have enough ram with the avl over 1/2gb. Slow ram and HDD speeds might compound the issue. But I'm far from knowledgeable on OS optimization.

That mobo is ugly spec wise. I'd say replace it, but if you're going to do that, might as well jump to the i3 then you'd need ram/cpu/mobo. I hate telling people to spend money that they don't need to. Might be worth doing some homework to see if different OS settings can make a big difference.

Well i even tries turning off all of xps visual settings, so it looked all gray and ugly-no dofference. Is it the single channel ddr2-4200 ram holding it back? I work at a place where they sell p4-512mb machines and theyre faster!!! Infuriating! My other c2d machine is my laptop but i would rather use my big computer