Page 1 of Duel Processors.

I was talking to a friend last night about duel processors and was wondering if someone could give me the basics of it. Obviously you need a mother board that supports it, but can you use any type of processor? or does it have to be a certain one? do they work as one processor? does it just run as a normal pc with one processor does?

I`m clueless.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Rev

If you are talking about the new AThlon 64 dual core processor then you need a motherboard with Socket 939. This type of motherboard will house 64 bit Athlons and also dual core 64 bit Athlons which come on one chip. The beauty of dual core is that true multi tasking is available in that when you are running 2 tasks then it is not shared by one processor via use of timeslicing (ie. one application runs for a certain time interval and the other runs). Each application is given a timeslice when multitasking.

With dual core you will be able to genuinely multi task 2 applications without each application grabbing a portion of the timeslice so both applications can run independently. Imagine playing Doom3 without it slowing down while you are burning a DVD with the processor intensive DVD Shrink for example. It`s like 2 separate computers running their own separate programs.

You can also buy motherboards that take 2 processors (Intel Xeon springs to mind) but it looks like single chip dual core processors will take off soon whereas dual processor technology has really been mainly used with high end servers.

This item was edited on Friday, 15th July 2005, 18:39

so its not like I have one amd athlon XP 32 bit, so I could buy a mother board with duel processor suppost and add another athlon? It would have to be xeon?


I`m thinking of upgrading at christmas, but don`t want to upgade to a 64bit just yet, because I couldn` afford the price of a decent 64 bit processor. Hence my curiosity about this. Sorry if the questions seem simple, I just really have no clue.



Rev

Yes, you can also buy motherboards that handle dual Athlon XP processors. Of course full multitasking capabilities will be supported.

Just read that you can`t affod 64 bit processors. It may actually be cheaper for you to buy a 64 bit processor rather than an extra 32 bit one plus motherboard. It costs about £130 for an Athlon 64 3200 Venice core processor and under £100 for the motherboard. A dual processor board for Xeon processors will cost from £300 and upwards. I don`t know how much dual Athlon XP boards are though.

This item was edited on Friday, 15th July 2005, 20:34

TBH I wouldnt bother with dual processors for a home machine. Whilst you might notice some benefits of running processor intensive tasks at the same time, how often would you really use it? Save the money and buy a better Athlon XP. Also if you are only running a single application you wont notice any difference unless it is written for multiple processors, otherwise it will only use one processor.

I think you will also need an Athlon Opteron processor. They come in 2, 4 or 8 way processing compatiable chips. XP Professional will only support the use of 2 processors.

EDIT:
Looks like I was wrong about needing Opteron chips, but I linked to a test of dual Athlons. Pretty much concludes it isnt worth the money


http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20020211/

This item was edited on Friday, 15th July 2005, 20:36

Thanks for the replies. Makes allot more sense now, thanks.

Rev