benefits worth going for dual processor?

[tomtomberry]

as a gamer, graphics editor and avid windows multi-tasker, is it worthwhile to go for a new motherboard and another processor to "double" my clock speed? Will it speed up everything to be twice as fast or only certain applications?

 

[Windogg]

RC5 will go twice as fast.

 

[shathal]

1: Games.

Most games don't support SMP. Quake III does - amusingly. However, most don't - as such, that's not going to bring you real benefit (or not much of it). You can maybe with W2K set the game to run completely on one CPU, while keeping it clear off other jobs.

2.: Apps & such.
Multiprocessing doesn't "double" your output. An increase of 50% is reasonably to be expect. However - again - the apps in question HAVE to be able to support SMP.

3.: OS
I hope you'll be running NT/Windows 2000 - Windows 9X/ME can't deal with SMP. At all.


Basically, you can MOST things go a bit faster (see 1), but making sure that one CPU does one job and one job alone (no overheads from sharing).

However, inorder to gain really something, the apps/games HAVE to support SMP. Only then will you notice a real improvement.

An thinking that 2x 1GHz == 2 GHz is NOT right. There's overhead involved - this is particularly true for bigger systems.

Hope this helps .

 

[BurntKooshie]

It's not that the programs have to be SMP, it's that they have to be multithreaded.

 

[vizionblind]

the programs need to have SMP. Most don't and won't for yet to come. Don't waste yer money.

ALSO XP now supports DUAL