2 Dual Cores Vs 1 Quad Core?

Short answer: Quad-Core. Long answer: 2 Dual-Core processors are more expensive than 1 Quad-Core. So is a mainboard with dual sockets. Power consumption of 2 Dual-Cores is also higher. I use a Quad-Core myself (AMD Phenom). The performance of Quad-Cores are better, because all 4 cores can share data directly without having to access any external circuitry. By using 2 Dual-Cores on a dual-socket mainboard, the exchange of data from 1 processor to another goes through the front-side bus, which is much, much slower. Imagine 20 mammoth-sized trucks going through an urban street in two ways... As for the dividing of application processes, it depends on your operating system and the application itself. If your operating system is not capable of multi-processing or multi-threading, only 1 core will be used, while the 3 others will stay idle. If it is capable of multi-processing, it will assign each process to an idle core, thus capable of running 4 processes at once. But even if your operating system can recognize and use all cores, if the applications you use are not optimized for multi-threading/multi-processing, most of the processing power aren't used. I've had a first-had experience with it. While applications like Adobe Photoshop and most video editing applications can use my Quad-Core to it's full potential, others use only 25%-50% of it. 25% if said application only support a single thread (so only one core is used, 1/4=25%), and 50% if said application supports 2 threads (optimized for dual-core processors, thus 2 cores are used, 2/4=50%). Hope this clears it up. Cheers.

The quad core processor board should work better in similar setups. Dual socket boards eats up more energy and are hotter then single sockets, the excess heat and the additional required to balance between the two chips slows down the board.

The majority of quad core processors still operate as a pair of dual core processors, although they will perform more fluently than 2 separate dual cores because the duals would not harmonise as effectively. The only real difference that you would notice would be with processor intensive applications such as video editing, and then it would not be as large a gap as you may expect. Quad core processing is not likely to be a major factor until the software programs are developed to take full advantage of the technology.

I think the quad core would be better both in performance and power consumption. I would never taks the headache of fixing two processors in one board cause it is hard to maintain and if one processor is gone so will the other if the board fails. So you know whats better.

A single quad core is better because the four cores are together on the dial. With two dual cores, the performance is slightly lower because the two dual cores need to talk to one another....

A single quad core is better because the four cores are together on the dial. With two dual cores, the performance is slightly lower because the two dual cores need to talk to one another....

A single quad core is better because the four cores are together on the dial. With two dual cores, the performance is slightly lower because the two dual cores need to talk to one another....

Serverboards (motherboards with 2 or more sockets) tend to be much more expensive than motherboards with a single socket. So if price is a factor, then the Quad Core CPU might be the better choice.