PC Upgrade advice

[Hard_ROCKER]

Good choice Mac ! 

Yes Crucial produces very good memory modules , actually there are quite a few brands out there which produce good quality memory ( Kingston, Mushkin, OCZ, Geil, PDP, Kingmax only to name a few ... ) but out of the ones that were available at newegg.com i think the Corsair modules Mac ordered offer the best price/performance/quality.   

He should be seeing quite an increase in performance since he will now be running FSB to RAM ratio at 1:1 (200 mhz) and also in dual channel mode. His Prescott CPU will really appreciate the dual channel mode, i know mine does . 

[drhayden1]

good choice mac
rotten to the core....must be a bad apple

[.: Mac :.]

Even with the upgrade I doubt it will match the performance of my Dual Core Mac 

[drhayden1]

how about my new quad processor desktop
along with my dual core mac(computer)

[Hard_ROCKER]

Core Duo's are nice if you can afford the upgrade ... Unfortunately i have to stick with my OCed P4 for at least a couple months more as the cost of upgrading my rig is just a little too much for my pocket ATM . I think i'll wait for AMD to introduce their new CPU's(which i hope will be soon) before i make the next upgrade .



P.S: Even if you OC that P4 to the limits it will still be slower than Conroe .

[.: Mac :.]

I know the P4 is slower, but the P4 is in my Windows Machine the Core Duo is in my Mac. I always spend more on Macs than PCs 

Drhayden, I heard there is a serious flaw with the quad core machines, the only way to fix it is to go to your nearest UPS or Fedex store and ship it to me 

[DavidR]

Anyone considering any quad core CPU should consider M$ policy on multi-core CPU, I recall reading something about this a while ago, the Home versions support single and dual core processors. However, for quad core you will need the Professional/Business versions of Windows OS Vista or XP.

[.: Mac :.]

Thanks for pointing that out David! Guess I will have to stick with XP when I upgrade my PC to Quad core as the Business and Untimate Editions of Vista are way to pricey.

My Upgrade Plan:
Early 2008: Pentium 4HT -> Core 2 Quad(45nm version)

I just bought My Core duo Mac mini last month so it should be good untill 2010 (I keep my Macs until the 3 year warrenty runs out which will be Jan of 2010)

[DavidR]

I can't recall where I read it but it is worth confirming if you were considering one and XP Home or Vista Home. It should be OK with the Pro versions, drhayden1 just says Vista Pro (doesn't match a vista version) in his signature. He has one of the quad core processors.

[drhayden1]

its the vista ultimate davidr....my mistake... changed it
there's only the home basic,home premium,business,enterprise,and the ultimate

[Hard_ROCKER]

AFAIK all Windows Vista editions support MULTI CORE cpu's(one CPU with multi cores). However you will need the ultimate or bussines versions to support MULTI PROCESSOR(more than one cpu on a motherboard) configurations.

[DavidR]

Home in both XP and Vista incarnations will support dual core, but MS's thinking is quad core and multi processor are for business and want to extract a premium for supporting them.

[Hard_ROCKER]

@DavidR: From everything i've read so far after a quick google search confirms i am right. Multicore cpu's(there are no limitations on the number of cores) are supported in all Vista versions the only restriction is on multi processor configurations (2 physical cpu's or more) which are only supported in the bussines and ultimate editions.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=130

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10877_11-6156413.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=tr

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2068721,00.asp

[DavidR]

As I said I can't recall where I read it, probably one of the newsletters I get, but no mater what you do it would be wise to confirm before going out and buying a quad core solution only to find it doesn't work.

Ed Bott talks of Dual core (I said it supports dual core processors) and not Quad core. Whilst ExtremeTech shows a chart that indicated 'Unlimited' logical cores, unlimited seems strange and even in Home Basic, which doesn't even have support for some very 'basic' functionality. No encryption, scheduled back-up, media centre, etc. etc. so in something this crippled I find it hard to think Unlimited logical cores (whatever that means exactly) is correct. I would hover be very happy if it were but I would like to see this as a Microsoft chart/listing.

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/multicore.mspx

Multicore Processor Licensing
Published: November 3, 2004 | Updated: June 7, 2005

This I found some time ago it is an old article when dual core was just about to become more common and if anything it is as clear as mud as it is so old. The new Core 2 Extreme is in fact two core 2 duo processors on the same die so how that falls on to their multi-core policy who knows.

[.: Mac :.]

I think virtual cores refers to Hyperthreading