PC help: What's the point of two cores?

For the past couple of months I’ve been researching notebook computers. I’m now very confused about the benefits of dual-core processors – the Intel Core Duo and the AMD 64 X2 processors.

I understand there are not, as yet, applications that can use the advanced dual-core features. So what purpose do they serve for those of us using the internet and office applications? Will two open applications be able to use one core each?
S O’Byrne

The two types of dual-core processors you mention both operate in roughly the same way. Each core is a single processor in its own right but there are two on the one chip. That means, in theory, a dual-core processor can do two things at once.

This does not always lead to the boost in performance you might expect; a certain amount of time has to be devoted to organising how work is split between the cores and making sure they don’t try to do the same thing at once. Although Windows XP can use both cores, most software is not written to take advantage of this. This has meant that sometimes performance is worse with dual core, although this is quite rare.

The next version of Windows, called Vista (due early in 2007), will support two, or more, cores. Some current software can support dual-core, but this is mostly limited to high-end programs such as Adobe Photoshop, which require a lot of processing power.

For most users, dual-core won’t make much of a difference until multiple cores are standard, and software makers can write dual-core software for the masses. Both AMD and Intel plan to make dual-core processors, and maybe even increase the number of cores.

If you think that your dual-core computer is not working as fast as it should, there is some help available from Microsoft.