4 core laptops - which config is better?

Question

I am looking for a fast & powerful laptop and am interested in 4 core laptops for max perf. Note, I am not a gamer nor am I into photoediting or 3D solid modelling. I just like fast & powerful.

There are several laptops that currently have quad cores in them. Lenovo & Toshiba & the Rock come to mind. I guess these are desktop quad cores in them. Intel just recently announced some upcoming laptop version for quad core.

Dell just announced though I'm pretty sure it's not out yet, some Mxxxx series laptop that provides 4 cores not in a quad core configuration but in putting in 2 (two) dual centrino-2 processors. Either scenario it's 4 cores in the laptop.

Here's my question then. In terms of perf. is there an advantage in one scenario over the other?

Answer 1

The 2x Duel Centrino would be more powerful than just 1 Core Quad.

This is because a duel core would have about 2.2/2.4ghz then you times that by 2,  where as the 1 Core Quad would be about 2.7ghz on it's own all be it they have the same amount core's they dont have the same power, Duel Core's don't have half the power of Quad core's, these Multi core processors are just split into  section's to multi task, one duel core processor is not actually like doubling the power.  

Answer 2

Laptops are still behind in the "quad-core" sector. Few chips out, and the good ones are often too expensive.

I haven't seen a quad-core in laptops. Probably didn't look for those specific models. The Dell offers the Mxxx series with an C2D Extreme chip. t's still 2 cores, but good enough for any task you'd have it do. You might've confused it with a desktop, or their servers. Laptops cannot expel the heat of one cpu that well, let alone two. The design would be flawed in this case.

Quad-cores have no real advantage currently. Nothing uses it efficiently, unless you're rendering scenes from "Cars" or editing 32000x32000 RAW files in Photoshop. These programs are cpu-intensive, and optimized for multiple cores.

Trust me, a higher-end C2D on a laptop will satisfy you. You'll have no use with a quad-core, or actually even push the limits of a good dualcore.