My Cpu is a 640 Prescott, its not a dog. It is old tech, but it runs everything I have thrown at it. It was a very good buy and I was easily able to skip the first generation dual core chips and I ve only skipped the Core2Duo because till now I havent needed it. The PIV did way more than I expected of it and Ive read my many stories of guys running newer chips and getting equal or sometimes worse performance than I.
I agree that throughput is a big performance differentiator (especially bus size), but i just could not see going for a lower clock speed once a) the 3.xmhz speed had been breached, b) despite the arguments to the contrary the chip makers were still marketing chips on clock speed and it was clear that Core2 would reach +3mhz speeds again. and c) most games were not coded to take advantage of multiple core technology. Also XP does a pretty decent job of managing processes. I hope 7 is as stable as XP was.
Now for the first time Im confronted with a game requiring dual core technology, Im kina bummed but not really, it might yet run, or I wait a bit. I still feel I saved myself one computer since 2008 with my PIV and should be well placed to swoop an i7 or whatever looks like the next long term solution.
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