Windows 7: Dual core differences

Have done a lot of Googling and I seem to no further forward with want I would like to know.

There really is a lot of complicated semantics in describing the difference between an Intel dual core and an Intel core - duo that frankly just adds to my confusion.

If I have a machine with an Intel dual core say an E 2160 can I replace it with a higher speed Intel - core duo and vice versa. Or do I have to replace a dual core with a dual core and the same with the "core duo"?

"Core Duo" is a marketing term; dual core is the physical description of a computer system that contains two processor cores.

Your E2160 is a processor based on the LGA775 platform using an 800Mhz FSB. Depending on your chipset, you may be limited to a 'maximum' of an E4700 (LGA775, 800FSB, dual core processor) or you may be able to go as far as an E8600 (dual core) or even up to the Q9650 series (quad core) that are all based on the same socket type.

Essentially, in this case, your chipset determines how much of an upgrade your system can take.

you can replace any LGA775 CPU with a faster one--but--you are still limited by the 'front side bus speed' of both the CPU and the Motherboard--in other words--a faster chip may not necessarily make your machine faster as there are limitations imposed by the bus speed of both CPU and MOBO.

for example an E6750 runs at 2.66 MHz and has a FSB speed of 1333--while an E7500 runs at 2.93MHz but only has a 1066 FSB speed (which is why it costs about 1/2 what the 6750 costs) and it is actually slower.

My QX6850 runs at 3MHZ with a FSB speed of 1333--has 4 cores and is easily 25% faster than either of the other two--but it originally cost $1000 (USD) when it was introduced in 2007--and if you can find a new one now they sell for about $1500 US.

if you desire to do more research--here is a link to a site that I have found to be very useful and informative about CPUs.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/CPU.html

Thanks you folks the front bus is 800Mhz so looks like I will have to look around for her for a suitable CPU those lower numbered E series are cheap enough and couldn't be any slower than the 1.66Ghz that was in there.

Plus thanks for the headsup as that double meaning stuff was a bit confusing, and the link I think I have seen that one before.

As with most processor factors, focus more on the socket than the name, MHz, etc. For example, if you have a Socket 1155 board, that is your starting point to what you can run.

Aside from that, if you know your motherboard model, you should be able to go to their website quickly and find out what families are supported.

I would aim for a Core 2 Duo E8000 or E7000 series because they include SSE4 and if there's a chance you'll want to run a 64bit OS in a virtual PC then make sure it has Intel's Virtualization Technology.

I'm not sure how much difference SSE4 will make but I do remember seeing a benchmark between my CPU the E5200 and the E8500 for video encoding and the E8500 at stock (3.3GHz) was still faster than the E5200 overclocked at 4GHz. Granted the E5200 is a Intel Pentium Processor but it was stated that the slower benchmark was due to the lack of SSE4.

Thanks Duzzy it was the lowest speed core that was in the machine to begin with and I just happened to have a 1.8Ghz one lying around and couple with doubling the RAM (1GB) the difference was noticeable straight away which even the extra RAM didn't have with the 1.6Ghz core in.

Now I have seen some reasonably priced ones on Ebay and as she doesn't have a great expendable income I thought I would get something in the 2.5Ghz range and maybe 2GB RAM which is only going to set her back $80 all up. I don't mind doing this for nothing as the techs in town are outrageously priced for labour. What was throwing me was the difference between what were called dual core and core duo - seems to be a very confusing (for me at least) thing to do.

Thanks to Deacon too I have pulled up the site for the machine (Dell Inspiron) which has a Foxconn G33M02 board but the site and eHOW gives me a plethora of different 775 socket cores that it can use hence my ever increasing confusion in which or what I could use

But anyway thanks to everyones help I think I know now how to fix this up

No problem. Good luck and I hope everything goes well for you.