No Rush to Buy Dual Core

With the release of dual-core processors this week, the tech world has been a-buzz. But it may be a while until the full utility of this advancement can be recognized.

The benefits, or at least potential benefits, are a reality-it’s all about multitask performance. Play a game and burn a disc simultaneously with ease. Two processors, in essence, give you four hands and two computers, all moving at blurring speed.

Well, blurring speed if you have the software to support it. As of right now, there appears to be a substantial lack of said software. While Windows 2000 and XP can run and utilize multi-core units, we’ll have to wait until Longhorn is released (in 15 months) to fully realize what these things can do.

Until then, your single core processor may do just fine, as long as speed is your concern. Dual-cores without software to support it, will continue to have a slower clock speed than the single cores.

For the average at home, e-mail checking, e-bay purchasing, word processing, CD burning PC user, there’s no rush to buy the upgrade. They can save their “Obsolete Computer Fund” for another day.