Should I buy 64bit dual core AMD Athlon?

[arcull]

Hi guys. I am buying new cpu, and would like to know if dual core processor is better choice than single core. I have suse 10.2 installed. Will my suse support dual core athlon, will I have better performance than with single core athlon. Thanx for help.

[bigtomrodney]

Yep, dual core processors are better. I won't list all the reasons why but suffice to say I can't think of a single way they underperform single core processors.

Suse will support multiple cores - I can't remember the limit but it is quite high. It is possible to install the new hardware without reinstalling the OS, but in the occasional thing that goes wrong it can be quite difficult to work around if you are not 100% confident. A few days back I moved my system from a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 to a Q6600 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad (quad core). It all went well except for a problem with the sata controller - unfortunately that's probably the only thing that is absolutely essential for a booting system so that took a bit of work.

As for performance, yes it will outperform your single core system. Where this might mislead you however is that if your performance concern is strictly for one program (e.g. a game) unless it is multithreaded the only benefit will be that it is not sharing a CPU with your OS. Your individual core clockspeed may not be any faster than your current CPU.

With all that said, if you are going AMD make sure you get a Brisbane or Barcelona chip. They are 65nm and so are colder and use less power. Personally I am currently recommending Intel chips to anyone buying as they are slightly ahead of the game at the moment.

[arcull]

Thanx bigtomrodney. Is it possible to update my 32 bit suse 10.2 with 64 bit suse 10.2. Can I just run the installation and select update, or must this be a clean new install. If update is possible, will my documents remain where they are? Thanx again.

[bigtomrodney]

It is probably quite possible to do a straight upgrade but I wouldn't recommend it. If a particular package isn't available you will be left with a 32 bit package. I would try go straight to the clean 64 bit install.

[arcull]

Thanx again bigtomrodney