PC Help: Why upgrade to dual-core?

Q Everyone seems to be pushing the new dual-core and quad-core processors. What is wrong with keeping my Pentium 4 processor, which provides 3GHz? Most of the new processors seem to provide 2.4GHz, and then only on the more expensive models.

Richard Jones

A It might help to think about the numbers to which you refer in a different way. Rather than providing a certain amount of power, as a car’s engine does, they actually denote the rates at which the processors’ internal clocks operate.

In theory, a higher number means more power, but because processor designs change from chip to chip, the clock speeds of newer processors, such as the dual-core and quad-core designs, can’t be compared directly to those of older processors. The technology in the new processors operates more efficiently, meaning a 2GHz quad-core can get some things done faster than a 3GHz single-core processor (such as your Pentium 4).

That’s also because the dual-core and quad-core processors have more than one physical processor on a single microchip (Intel calls these processors cores, so dual-core chips have two, and quad-cores have four). New software, including Windows Vista, can take advantage of these and assign each core a distinct task. This can result in big speed increases for some tasks.

More and more software is being written to take advantage of this, especially photo- and video-editing software, and games. If you’re considering upgrading or buying a new PC, multi-core processors are certainly worth a look.