Quad Core vs. Dual Core CPUs

If you are considering which CPU to choose, quad core or dual core, you may want to check out this, this and this.

In the second link above, Jeff notes:

there are only a handful of applications that can truly benefit from more than 2 CPU cores, and they tend to cluster tightly around certain specialized areas

Said another way, if you are running a small number of apps, or the apps don't effectively make use of multiple cores, then a dual core *MAY* in fact be faster, *IF* the clock speed at which the dual core runs is higher than the clock speed at which the quad core runs.

A quad core *MAY* benefit you if you have a large number of processes to run (for instance virtualization), or you are running an app or apps which are specifically coded to be aware of, and utilize multiple cores.

See alsoand .