Hi: I have had a lot of trouble with my current PC, which is an AMD FX 6400 + (3 GHz) the PC has just been a lemon from the start. There is a 2.3 GHZ Dell quad core on sale but I am wondering if it is a lot slower than a 3 GHz dual core. Thanks

Doesn't exactly answer your question, but last year I upgraded from a 3.4GHz P4 HT to a Quad core 2.4GHz and the speed increase in Vue is unbelievable.

As far as I know the quad core will render a lot faster in Vue than a dual core, though a faster clock speed dual core can be faster than a slower speed Quad core for some programs that don't take advantage of all 4 cores.

There is a speed testing thread in the forums at cornucopia that will let you see some comparisons.

My advice though - go for the quad core!

Yes it will use all cores.

Dual Core = 6Ghz
Quad Core = 9.2Ghz

Jon

Thank you!

To add a small caveat to this discussion, Vue will only use all cores if you are using Vue 6 Infinite or xStream. The other versions are locked to using just 2 cores.

Very interesting subject. 

Quote - To add a small caveat to this discussion, Vue will only use all cores if you are using Vue 6 Infinite or xStream. The other versions are locked to using just 2 cores.

Yeah I should have added that.

Jon

Make sure you have plenty of memory, too! Allow 2gig for each core so 8GB should be what you get. Memory is very cheap (compared to what it used to be) but be sure it's compatible with your motherboard.

Yup, if you have the money, best get a custom rig made by a good shop, I don't know if Dell offers an qquivalent, but this is the rig I use, 64 bit OS is needed and makes huge difference!
x10 faster than my old p4 3GHz.
:)

http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/tutorials/htm/33.html

I use 2 pcs to do my rendering one is dual core 3GHz  with 3GB ram and win xp ,the other is Quad core 2.2 GHz with 4GB ram runing win vista from my experience a lot of the time when I was testing and giving them the same scene to render the dual core  would finish first though not by much and not always it seems to depend on the image though what factors i dont know. I dont know what difference (if any the graphics card makes) but my xp machine is my gaming machine and has a high end graphics card (gfx 260) In general i use both pcs together on the same scene using VUE render cow and that seems to be quicker over all so may be you could still use your old pc as well

After purchasing my new rig, I have made Vue and Bryce benchmarks on three computers :

• a Toshiba laptop
• an AMD 64X2 4600 (a bit like yours, though less powerful)
• a Quad core Q9450 (tested with and without overclocking)

Vue Infinite is far faster on the Quad core than on the other two as it makes full use of the 4 cores.
I make tests with a custom scene and VueMark and get rather similar results.

I am just installing Vue 7 right now and will probably benchmark it vs Vue 6... on two machines only as I now know I cannot install it on the three :-)