When will a dual core i5 computers become obsolete

[Kobatoislove]

In 2010, I bought a laptop with Intel Core i5-430M Dual Core with AMD 1 GB Graphics Card.
The laptop was destroyed due to hinge failure.

Recently, I bought a laptop with Intel Core i5-5200U with NVIDIA 2 GB Graphics card.
It is a Lenovo with a metallic hinge for longer lasting

Based on my observation, there is almost no difference between an Intel Core i5-430M and an Intel Core i5-5200U. I was hoping to buy a quad core intel processor or the AMD four core processor but my parents do not want them because they were obsolete.

Anyway, long time ago (2000-2010). Computers become obsolete within 2 to 3 years.
There was a time where we had a computer that ran on 500 Mhz (2001)
But on these days where dual core has existed, there is only difference in the performance of the first generation and fifth generation processors.
Intel Predicted that the future will have 4, 8 and 16 cores but there is a slowdown.

I would actually want to know when will dual core processors become obsolete

Here are my question:

1.) How many years (on what you think) from now will Dual Core Processors become Obsolete?
2.) Is a Intel Core i5 with hyperthreaded dual core equivalent to a non-hyperthreaded dual core processor?
3.) Does an i5 dual core hyperthreaded processor have four processors? Should I treat it as such?

3.) Which processor will become obsolete first, a dual core hyperthreaded processor or a four core singlethreaded processor?

 

[Sandstorm3000]

1: That fully depends on the processor, and the use of it. For example. I have an old laptop (2009 Asus K50IJ with a Pentium T4400) It is a dual core CPU without hyperthreading. For gaming it is pretty much useless, but for office, browsing the web and even watching movies it is still a great laptop.

2: No absolutely not, it depends on the architecture of the processor though. But lets say we have two identical i5's one with hyperthreading and one without. They both have two physical cores but the one with hyperthreading has 4 virtual cores, meaning it can share work over those 4 virtual cores. And that means it has better performance.

3: Windows threats the hyperthreaded i5 as if it has 4 cores. And it shares the workload between these four.

4: Again depending on the architecture. But lets say we have two i5's with the same architecture one with 2 hyperthreaded cores and a quadcore one, than the quadcore one will outperform the hyperthreaded dual core.

To explain hyperthreading a little bit. One core can do one thing at a time. But if hyperthreading is enabled the core is essentially split up so it can do two things at a time, and this increases performance.


I hoped this post helped you out atleast a little bit.

 

[photonboy]

My two cents:

1) Obsolete:
No such thing. As said it depends what you're doing. My dad's 7-year-old laptop runs really great (Windows 8 upgraded for $40 from Vista).

Dual-core CPU's will continue to exist for a long time simply because they are more than adequate for general usage. In fact, we're seeing a shift (slowly) towards integrated CPU/GPU (like AMD's APU) so programs will use the GPU for processing thus reducing the need for more CPU cores.

OpenCL is part of the software landscape to integrate CPU and GPU processing.

2) Hyperthreading:
I'll explain how HT works-> You still only have TWO physical cores. Without HT the CPU sits idle while it gets more data to be processed. With HT enabled you can have a SEPARATE thread of code running during that normally unused time.

Hyperthreading can boost performance by over 30% but it won't make much difference unless you run a program that is well threaded. For example, the video conversion program HANDBRAKE.

 

[jaguarskx]

For general use you will probably not notice too much of a difference between the old i5-430m and the new i5-5200u. But the i5-5200u is certainly more powerful. You probably will not notice the difference in performance unless you do something the is CPU intensive such as encoding video.

1. Generally speaking, mobile dual core CPU will not like become obsolete because newer generation CPUs are more powerful than older generation CPUs within the same family (Intel Core CPUs vs. Intel Core CPUs / Intel Atom CPUs vs Intel Atom CPUs / AMD APUs vs AMD APUs). With each generation the IPC (instructions per cycle) increases which means for every 1Hz the CPU can execute more instructions. So while clockspeed may not change that much the number of instructions the CPU can execute every 1Hz does increase. Also, dual core CPUs uses much less power than quad core CPUs so that means longer battery life. Dual core Intel "U" CPUs consumes up to 15w of power. Quad core Intel CPUs consumes up to 45w of power.

2. Hyper Threading allows a CPU to basically execute up to 4 different streams of instructions. A dual core CPU can only execute at most 2 streams. However, a dual core CPU with HT is less powerful than a quad core CPU. Basically HT allows a CPU core to switch between processing two streams of instructions. When only stream is paused because it is dependent on another process, the core can switch to the other stream of instructions. A quad core CPU can work on 4 streams at the same time. A quad core CPUwith HT can handle up to 8 streams of instructions.

3. See #2

4. Both dual core + HT CPU and quad core + no HT CPU will have their uses. Which one is better for you depends on what you plan on doing with it. If performance is the utmost important to you then you should get a quad core CPU over a dual core CPU.


With the introduction of Skylake mobile CPUs, Intel has finally released quad core i5 CPUs (no HT) similar to the desktop models. They will have the "HQ" designation like the i5-6500HQ.