Other things being equal, the more CPUs the better. Even if Csound or whatever only uses 1 core, if you get a 2 core machine Csound will probably get that entire core to play with while the GUI, the drivers, and whatnot run on the other core.

But you may be correct in that the higher-speed chip may balance out that advantage. Unfortunately the only way to tell is to time the same rendering on both machines.

Regards,
Mike

-----Original Message-----
>From: Rory Walsh 
>Sent: Mar 8, 2008 7:16 AM
>To: csound@lists.bath.ac.uk
>Subject: [Csnd] [off-topic] processors
>
>I'm looking at getting a new laptop and was wondering about what 
>processors are deemed to be the best. I basically have a choice between 
>the Intel® Core™ processor Solo U2100 (1.6 GHz) and the Intel® Core™ 2 
>Duo U7600 (1.2 GHz). Both machines comes with a gb+ of RAM. With regards 
>to the Core 2 am I right in assuming that most applications don't 
>utilise dual processing thus leaving one chip idle while that other does 
>most of the work? If that's the case won't I get better performance on a 
>higher speed single chip? My current machine is a 1.8Ghz pentium M and 
>it performs fine but my employers are giving me the opportunity to 
>upgrade. Any ideas?
>
>Rory.
>
>
>
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