Usage of computer is increasing and computer technology is changing day by day. The latest configuration which is purchased becomes old in few months. Many of them while buying new computer are confused about dual core vs quad core technology. Processor is the brain of computer and its speed is determined by the frequency of the clock. And this clocking frequency depends on the transistor present on a chip. Companies kept on increasing transistor on chip, but at certain point there was no place for more transistors. This lead to development of multiple processor chips, which brought dual core and quad core in the market. It has been wrong notion that the speed of quad core is double than the dual core but it is not. But there are many criteria by which they are differentiated.

Dual core vs quad core, first thing in which these both differ, is performance. Quad core are faster than dual core but the speed is not twice. In quad core more tasks can be performed at a particular time than dual core. Quad core and dual core will perform in same if the software does not support multitasking. It is difficult to make out difference between the performances of these two processors when running normal applications. High graphics games easily run on quad core processor rather than dual core processor. Quad core is more expensive technology than dual core. There are many technical issues that are helpful to figure out differences but they are difficult to be understood.

With changing technology it is always better to buy latest technology available in the market. While comparing dual core vs quad core, quad core is winner in every way. But it is also important to be sure of your budget before buying these expensive machines. If your budget is not so high, it's better to go for dual core technology which is also good purchase. And if you get quad core technology, it will not require any changes in coming few years. The purpose for which you are buying desktop or laptop is also good thing to keep in mind. Prices of processors from AMD cost less and perform much better than the processors manufactured by Intel.  

Processor is to computer is what brain is means to body. As the functioning of human body depends on our brain, similarly the speed of computer operation depends on the processor installed in it. From the time of development of quad core processor, there is continuous debate on dual core vs quad core. The speed of operation depends upon the frequency which in turn depends on the number of transistors used in the processor. According to Moore law the number of transistor will double in every 18 month and this was what happening. The Intel was primarily focussing on just increasing the number of transistors but this was not all. There is a limit to everything and after a particular number of transistors; it was impossible to further increase the transistor because of the heating problem which may adversely affect the silicon chip. So the solution to this problem was instead of increasing number of transistor, the manufacturer started using more than on single chip. The option of putting together different microprocessor chip was good which gave rise to dual core processor containing two chips and quad core processor containing four chips. The dual core vs quad core comparison explains the different advantages and disadvantages of both.

Quad core CPUs are fairly new to the scene and haven't quite yet taken over from dual core processors at the time of writing. In this article we take a look at the dual core vs. quad core debate and we explain quad core CPU and whether you should buy one. It is a general assumption that the speed of quad core processor should be double than that of dual core processor. But it is not true, though the speed of quad core is bit higher than dual core but it is not actually double of dual core. The quad core processor increases the multitasking ability of CPU. The efficiency of multitasking in quad core is increased because different tasks are handed over to different processors. Multithreading is the second factor which decides whether the quad core is better over dual core or not. The software which uses multithreading technology will make efficient use of quad core by giving short jobs to different processor chips.

So the comparison of dual core vs. quad core can be summarised that the usefulness of processor depends directly upon the type of work done and the software being used.