A few questions...

Hey guys,

I describe myself as a computer techie, but I'm just a little behind in today's world of multicore computing. So please bear with me as I ask a few questions

I've read countless articles pitting Intel and AMD processors together and the consensus seems to be that overwhelmingly, Intel > AMD. But I've often wondered by how much? Are today's everyday applications (like Office, Media players, games, etc.) going to benefit from a system running an Intel over an AMD? And perhaps a related question: with money considerations in mind, does AMD provide more bang for the buck?

Another thing I've been wondering about is how operating systems work under multicores.. in other words, does a system running XP Pro utilize the power of a quad core (or dual core). What about Vista, OS X, etc? Simply put, is there more to gain than bragging rights when it comes to multicores?

Finally, I'd like to hear your stories of any application such as a game, productivity suite, or multimedia application that has benefitted noticeably from an upgrade to a dual or quad core.

Thanks!

i'd buy an intel over an amd in today's world because intel does offer more bang for the buck than AMD, unless you are lookign in the uber cheap segment.

in games, intels will perform better than an amd chip because intel perform much better per clock than an AMD. Also, intel chips use far less power than AMD for the same performance. another point for intel is that they overclock much better than AMDs. currently, i have a core 2 quad q6600 overclocked to 3.1 ghz with stock volts. i'd like to see a AMD phenom do the same and perform the same. it simply wont happen. the only arena where AMD performs better than intel is in the memory bandwidth segment because intel is still using the ancient FSB while AMD has hypertransport. intel willbe changing that very soon with nehalem and quickpath though...

as for multicore having more than just bragging rights, yes they do. or else nobody would be buyong dual and quad cores. as a matter of fact, it is almost impossible to find single core machines. only the celeron line still exists which is single core - even there there are celeron dual cores.

Effectively i have had a AMD single core, amd dual core, intel dual core (laptop edition) amd dual core (laptop edition) and a intel quad core. i must say that the difference between my slower quad core intel and my dual core amd clocked higher is still astounding. my intel beats the crap out of it.

Where multicore systems benefit the most is when running multiple applications. also, not only multicore, but having a quad core with not enough ram simply doesnt help. which is also why i have 8 gigs of ram. but effectively, it means i can run virtualization, 3d renderring, folding at home, games and all that stuff all in ram and all at the same time without lagging too much. i've tried that on a single core system and there is no way anything would run at a decent rate. however, Hard drive limitations come into play once you start doign too many things at the same time, which is also why you want a really fast hard drive.

i've tried both windows xp and vista for dual core single core. XP and vista both benefit largely from single core to dual core and vista benefits from dual core to quad core. i have personally never tried quad core on xp, so i cant say.