Basically you have the combined power of both processors, so if you have a 2Ghz dual core processor you basically have a 4Ghz processor. However the game needs to be multi-threaded in order to utilize both cores if it's not you'll only have the power of one core. Keep in mind that there is some overhead when using multiple cores so you'll never get 100% utilization of both processors.

Quote: Original post by lethalhamster
The only game I know of that requires 3.0Ghz of processing power is Supreme Commander. What I think the issue with that game is (as far as whether you really need the 3.0Ghz) is its mostly the AI that requires that. I have been in 3v3 online games(thats 3v3 human players) and also been on 3v3 computer players. The game runs much slower against computer players. I think the limit on my 2.0Ghz Athlon 64 X2 is 3 computer players before it get unplayable.

Don't forget Flight Simulator X! It will make even a 3Ghz dualcore pc cry!
And to answer the original question no they don't add up to speed of an equivalent single core cpu although some programs will make it sound that way like when they test my 2.4Ghz dualcore cpu they say it's performance rating is 4.8ghz which isn't true.
On the other hand I remeber when i got my first opteron 1.4Ghz cpu which wasn't even dualcore it's peformance was on par with a much faster pentium at around 3ghz and I remeber some games defaulting to low quality setting since they were just measuring the cpu speed and not necessarily it's performance.
Later patches for alot of games if they noticed you were running an opteron cpu would bump up your video settings or consider it a highend cpu.

Quote: Original post by agi_shi
Not exactly, the fastest P4 was run at 8001MHz (linky), and according to what I've read it was faster than a Core2 Extreme.

A P4/PD Extreme should be faster than a stock E6300.

So an extremely overclocked CPU is faster then a stock one? Brilliant! Now, why don't you start comparing stock CPU's from each generation? Check out the Tom's Hardware interactive CPU charts. The lowest Core 2 Duo they have is the E6400 but it smokes the P4EE in all the tests I looked at. And by quite a healthy margin.

The P4EE was running at 3.7Ghz. The Core 2 Duo was running at 2.13Ghz. The Core 2 Duo beat the P4EE on every test I looked at except the 3dMark CPU benchmark and the PCMark CPU benchmark.

Call of Duty had a 16FPS increase.
FEAR had a 8FPS increase.
DIVX Encoding performed 30 seconds faster.
MP3 Encoding was over 30 seconds faster.
Quake 4 had a 19FPS increase.

Quote: Original post by tstrimp

Quote: Original post by agi_shi
Not exactly, the fastest P4 was run at 8001MHz (linky), and according to what I've read it was faster than a Core2 Extreme.

A P4/PD Extreme should be faster than a stock E6300.

So an extremely overclocked CPU is faster then a stock one? Brilliant! Now, why don't you start comparing stock CPU's from each generation? Check out the Tom's Hardware interactive CPU charts. The lowest Core 2 Duo they have is the E6400 but it smokes the P4EE in all the tests I looked at. And by quite a healthy margin.

The P4EE was running at 3.7Ghz. The Core 2 Duo was running at 2.13Ghz. The Core 2 Duo beat the P4EE on every test I looked at except the 3dMark CPU benchmark and the PCMark CPU benchmark.

Call of Duty had a 16FPS increase.
FEAR had a 8FPS increase.
DIVX Encoding performed 30 seconds faster.
MP3 Encoding was over 30 seconds faster.
Quake 4 had a 19FPS increase.

Quote:
any core 2 duo cpu will out preform the fasted P4

Stop being obtuse. They may have been able to overclock it to that rate but there is no indication that the machine is stable. I didn't see any benchmarks. You're comparing apples to oranges here. If you applied the same cooling system to an E6300 the the E6300 would be able to outperform the P4EE.

Quote: Original post by tstrimp
Stop being obtuse. They may have been able to overclock it to that rate but there is no indication that the machine is stable. I didn't see any benchmarks. You're comparing apples to oranges here. If you applied the same cooling system to an E6300 the the E6300 would be able to outperform the P4EE.

Obtuse? Excuse my vocab., but htf (think wtf, but with a "how" instead of "what") does obtuse apply to a person? Fat?

... anyways... Adding liquid nitrogen to any processor won't help in performance. See, as long as it runs at a reasonable temp, then performance won't really differ. Only time it WILL differ is when you're running at above normal temps. and the CPU is throttling down to not melt.

Besides, I don't really think we need benchmarks. I'm 120% sure practically any 8000MHz processor will be faster than most stock C2Ds.

Quote: Original post by agi_shi

Quote: Original post by tstrimp
Stop being obtuse. They may have been able to overclock it to that rate but there is no indication that the machine is stable. I didn't see any benchmarks. You're comparing apples to oranges here. If you applied the same cooling system to an E6300 the the E6300 would be able to outperform the P4EE.

Obtuse? Excuse my vocab., but htf (think wtf, but with a "how" instead of "what") does obtuse apply to a person? Fat?

Obtuse -> blunt -> not sharp -> stupid.

Quote:
Obtuse? Excuse my vocab., but htf (think wtf, but with a "how" instead of "what") does obtuse apply to a person? Fat?

Obtuse can often mean dull, or not alert; slow to perceive.

Edit: oops, didn't see that OrangyTang got to it before me.

Quote: Original post by Ravuya
Most games now are single-threaded anyway, so you will see zip improvement from adding an extra CPU.

Really? I've never used a dual core computer extensively (and certainly not benchmarked it), but that's not the impression I had gotten from articles. My computer is doing a lot of other tasks while I'm playing a game (386 threads right now). Surely having that task load partially on another processor could benefit a game's performance, even just marginally?

Quote: Original post by agi_shi
Obtuse? Excuse my vocab., but htf (think wtf, but with a "how" instead of "what") does obtuse apply to a person? Fat?

Oh my god, the irony is killing me.

obtuse |?b?t(y)o?s; äb-| adjective
1 annoyingly insensitive or slow to understand : he wondered if the doctor was being deliberately obtuse. See note at stupid .
• difficult to understand : some of the lyrics are a bit obtuse.