Can you disable one core in today's dual core CPU's?

[KingGheedora]

I would guess there is a setting in the BIOS that lets you turn each core on or off? Is this correct? I'm particullarly interested to know whether or not one can do this with the Conroe. I'm getting one soon and want to try out compare performance of single core vs. dual on web applications and other work related apps.

 

[imported_Seer]

I don't think you can do that. You can, however, set affinity in windows so that certain programs will only run on 1 core. This is done through the task manager processes tab.

 

[dexvx]

You can in the BIOS.

 

[Adfaw]

I don't know jack about dual core processors, but I'd love to know something. Why would you ever want to disable one core if the purpose of having two is for faster performance? Why woudl you want to disable one?

 

[cmdrdredd]

No BIOS I've seen lets you turn off one core. The CPU is designed as such that you basically have 2 CPUs.

 

[Ayah]

You could try cutting the CPU in half.





(That's a joke, don't try this at home.)

 

[KingGheedora]

Originally posted by: Adfaw
I don't know jack about dual core processors, but I'd love to know something. Why would you ever want to disable one core if the purpose of having two is for faster performance? Why woudl you want to disable one?

If you read all four sentences in my post, you would see why I want to do this...

 

[OcHungry]

Originally posted by: KingGheedora
I would guess there is a setting in the BIOS that lets you turn each core on or off? Is this correct? I'm particullarly interested to know whether or not one can do this with the Conroe. I'm getting one soon and want to try out compare performance of single core vs. dual on web applications and other work related apps.

I dont know about Intel motherboards but w/ AMD motherboards you can disable dual core (at least my Asrock dual sataII has it and I have tried it. ) when in window, MBM5, cpuz, and system info will show single core if this option is disabled.

 

[Madwand1]

You can tell Windows how many CPU's to run (and how much RAM to use) using some options in c:\boot.ini.

E.g. /numproc=1 tells it to use one CPU/core.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Information/bootini.html

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: Madwand1
You can tell Windows how many CPU's to run (and how much RAM to use) using some options in c:\boot.ini.

E.g. /numproc=1 tells it to use one CPU/core.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Information/bootini.html

Much simpler.