Intel Dual Core vs Intel Core 2 Duo

2010-08-29


When you buy a computer with the label "Intel Inside" which means the computer's CPU is Intel CPU, Then maybe you were confused by "Pentium Dual Core" and "Core 2 Duo" .

Actually, when we say "Dual Core", it should cover all processors that has 2 cores. That means: Pentium Dual Core is a Dual Core CPU, and also Core 2 Duo is a Dual Core CPU. Pentium Dual Core and Core 2 Duo are two types of Dual Core CPU.

People always simply ask Which one is better between Pentium Dual Core and Core 2 Duo ? If you can get correct answer you should give these two CPU's feature and data, for example, we might have to say Pentium Dual Core 935 at 3.4Ghz and the Core 2 Duo at 1.86Ghz, Then the answer should be clear is that Core 2 Duo is better.

Why lower frequency Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz is better than Pentium Dual Core 3.4Ghz ? because the former is faster.

Frequency is not the only one factor which effect the CPU speed, The main factor might should be IPC (instruction per clock cycle), Core 2 Duo has much higher IPC which means it can process much more data each clock cycle. Just like there are two persons move stones, Both of them have 1 hour limited, person A might move slower (lower frequency) than person B (faster frequency), but each time Person A can move 10 stones while person B only move 5 stones, So finally after 1 hour, Person A will move higher amount of stones, which means in the computer field, person A can handle more data, so person A (Core 2 Duo) is faster.

So we can not simply say Core 2 Duo is better or Pentium Dual Core is better, but normally, most of computer which you see in comupter store with Core 2 Duo is more expensive than computer with Pentium Dual Core, The first reason is that people always think Core 2 Duo is newer or better than Pentium Dual Core, the second reason is that the CPUs in those computer should be really different. The more expensive computers really has faster and better CPU such as Core 2 Duo, as long as the computer store is not a cheating store.

Actually, I wanted to write this article 2 years ago, but I done it until today. When I wrote this, the CPU technology and market has changed very much, there are more new generation CPU has been in market, such as Intel i3, i5, i7..etc. I will write another short article for them some day later.