What's a Dual-Core Processor, and Why Do I Care?

Half-listening to a tv ad the other day, I heard the announcer tell me breathlessly about the advertised computer's "dual-core processor" as if it were the Holy Grail of computing technology. And I realized that I really had no idea what he was talking about. Oh, I had some vague notion of two chips on the same motherboard or something, but I wasn't sure if that was right, and more importantly, I wasn't sure what that meant to me.

Well, it turns out I was more or less right in my guess at what a dual-core processor is: a dual-core, or multi-core processor, according to Wikipedia, is "one that combines two or more independent processors into a single package, often a single integrated circuit."

The rapid increase in clock speed - the old "800 MHz" designation that indicated the speed of your processor - has flattened somewhat, so the latest thing in the push for "more power" in the computing world is having the equivalent of two processors do your bidding.

In the old days, processor speed finally made it possible for the Intel world to truly emulate "multi-tasking," that is, perform two or more operations at the same time. The speeds of the processors reached a point where, while they were still performing sequential operations, it seemed as though they were performing ten different operations at once.

Dual-core processors will benefit you in situations where you want to run multiple applications at the same time, because each application will be running its own thread. A single application will not necessarily run faster or better, however, unless it is specifically written to run multiple threads. Running virtual machines (like an emulator) can benefit from dual core architecture since the two platforms can run independent of one another.

So, do you want or need a dual-core processor? Not necessarily if what you want the the biggest, baddest gaming machine you can buy - dual-core will not make the program run any faster or better. But if you are a serious multi-tasker (running 5 or 10 applications at once, and switching among them frequently), or you plan to run two platforms, then dual-core may just be the best way for you to go.

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