Budget Dual Core Battle: Athlon II 240 vs. Pentium Dual-Core E5200

Computers have quickly gone from single processor cores into multiple cores, but most software still doesn’t benefit from the extra cores. Still the dual core processor has become standard for PCs, and, yes, two cores are beneficial in ways not measured by most benchmarks mostly by more smoothly handling background tasks.

Both AMD and Intel sell dual core processors that cost more than their cheapest quad core processors. That doesn’t mean there is a good reason to buy a $300 Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 or even a $100 AMD Phenom II X2 555. There are much cheaper deals for basically the same thing–specifically the Pentium Dual-Core and the Athlon II X2.