x_x See clearly I don't know enough about that kind of thing. Still wouldn't a 2.4ghz core beat out a 4ghz single core? I mean there are probably some inefficiencies that would degrade the power of a dual core. Even worse with a quad core. So is it like 150% better or something? Oh well it doesn't matter all that much.
Let's say you have a 2.5 GHz Dual Core, and a 4 GHz Single Core.
Most applications can only be processed on a single core. So if you have Microsoft Word using 1 GHz, you can't split .5 GHz on one core, and .5 GHz on another core.
So let's say you have Microsoft Word using 3 GHz. Since it can only be on one core, it wouldn't run on the 2.5 GHz Dual Core at all.
However, let's say you have several *seperate* Microsoft Word instances up, each using .5 GHz. The 2.5 GHz Dual Core would be able to run 10 of them, puting 5 on each core, where as the 4 GHz Single Core would only be able to run 8.
So 4 GHz Single Core would be better than a 2.5 GHz Dual Core in the aspect that if anything needed more than 2.5 GHz, the Dual Core couldn't give it that. However, since the Dual Core can put *seperate* applications on one core, and some on the other core, it is obviously better for multi-tasking.
Though, this is a little different now days. I can only think of two types of applications that could max out a core: Games and Video Encoders. Games now days are being programmed to run in multiple threads, meaning one thread could be processing AI for enemies on one core, and another thread could be processing everything else on your second core.
Video encoders have supported such multi-threading for a while now.
I tend to think multiple cores are always better, since anything that could max out a core would likely support multi-threading and be able to be divided amoung all your cores.
