Closing Time

Good Mornin' MOT!

I like it.

Good ol' 90s.


How are you getting 90s temps.
Only high 70s and mid 80s here.
I guess upper North is hoter..

My 5 year old can tell the difference between the computers that she's used in her pre-K class, day care and now at kindergarden and LeapFrog's "My First Computer" she's had (good for getting use to using a mouse and keyboard). Looks like Santa's going to have to get her a desktop this year.

So here's one for you. Given the choice between:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500 Processor (3.16GHz 1333MHz 6MBL2)

and

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Processor (2.50GHz 1333MHz 6MBL2)

assuming all else (including cost) is equal, which is better (will crunch more)?

The quad of course will crunch four WUs at a time but at 25 percent slower than the duo. I've read the arguements that, while a duo is noticably better that a single core, a quad doesn't give you the same proportional gain in bang over a duo. I suspect that may be true in terms of the OS and normal everyday use but not so when it comes to crunching. Yes, the OS affects crunching but it's more BOINC using the cores than the OS. Given a WU that takes X amount of time, in the time it takes the duo to do two, the quad would do three even though it's 25 percent slower, at least if I figure it right.

I also have a choice between Vista Business and Vista Ultimate. As I see it, ultimate gets me drive-level data encryption and some multimedia bells and whistles. She's not going to be playing the high end graphics intensive games, watching movies or such on it, or doing fancy multimedia stuff so I don't see any gain from Ultimate. It's going to be bad enough having to deal with Vista as it is.