I'm running Fedora 13 and Firefox (and also logged in on 8 ttys besides). There are no other apps running on the GUI right now.

My status bar shows the speed of both CPU's - normally sitting at 800Mhz. By scrolling this page quickly, or typing fast, I can jump them both to 2.10Ghz.

Opening applications generally only spikes one. But Linux, it appears, uses both cores effectively. Or at least feels a need to speed them both up.

Saw it at cyberpowerpc.com a few days back on their website when configuring an AMD system, Its $40 less than the 1090T.

whilst compressing a video. Multi core support is available for most video compression codecs. I do this a lot and compression on a 4 core machine is roughly 2.5 times faster than on a single core.

Unless the virus scan is actually scanning a non system HDD, all of the things you listed can be handled fine by a single core CPU with adequate memory. Right now I have word, firefox, ie8 vlc, uTorrent (actively downloading), ps3 media server, avast, and itunes open, all of which are using between 0-1% CPU. When I play a 480p Xvid the usage jumps to 1-2%, a 720p mkv pushes it to 4-5%. Windows reports this as a percentage of my "8" cores, so I would be using about 40% of a single CPU. Right now all I need is to have an adequate amount of RAM to get by. If on the other hand you are compiling some big code or crunching numbers on a CPU then you will really benefit from multiple cores.

Multi tasking seldom involves fully utilizing a core. It's sad but I miss the days when Moore's law actually led to an improvement in real world (personal) computing power.

I don't understand why people keep saying that multi-cores are not necessary. Regardless of what application I bring up, there are always other tasks running on the background such as anti-virus & active firewalls. Do people only really focus on one thing? If I'm just writing a document, every so often I would surf to get a break, may view an avi or mkv movie and I don't necessarily shut it down. Most people now multi-task, so you need multi-core. Imagine using only one core to do all those things? Of course if you're a very boring person, well, maybe one core would be sufficient.

...for msot software to use a dual core CPU effectively. We can't even get uniform 64-bit software let alone multi-core funtional basic software.

Geesh...

Black Edition is sign of Higher Quality, yet heres few more specs:

CMOS: 45nm SOI
Socket: AM3, micro-PGA 938-pin
AMD Business Class: No

NOT Really that astounding while inviting inashek to Software UnLunched writers squid could be BIG Failure.

vondrashek md

http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/ShowProduct.aspx?pid=8335

$267