Dual Core and XP Home??

[farscape]

I know - it's a dumb question, but I had to ask before a build.

 

[stevty2889]

Yes, XP home supports dual cores 100%.

 

[Bassyhead]

XP Home supports dual core. I believe you might need XP Pro if you had two discrete separate processors.

 

[owensdj]

I thought XP saw dual core as two processors?

 

[pkme2]

The major limitations of SMP have to do with software and operating system support. Many operating systems (such as Windows XP Home) are not SMP capable and will not make use of the second physical processor. Also, most modern programs are single-threaded, meaning that there is only ever one current set of linked instructions and data for them. This means that only one processor can effectively work on them at a time. Multi-threaded programs do exist, and can take better advantage of the potential power of dual- or multi-CPU configurations, but are not as common as we might like.

 

[Parasitic]

Originally posted by: stevty2889
Yes, XP home supports dual cores 100%.

Really? Is there a patch?

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: Parasitic

Originally posted by: stevty2889
Yes, XP home supports dual cores 100%.

Really? Is there a patch?

You don't need a patch. Microsoft licenses by socket, not by core. A dual core is one socket. It works with XP home, and uses both cores, just like it does with hyprethreading. Windows XP home is fully SMP capable, just like XP pro. The differance is XP pro allows for 2 sockets, so with two dual cores, XP pro supports 4 cores.

 

[Bassyhead]

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/multicore.mspx

Q. A customer wants to upgrade their single-core processor system by replacing the single-core processor with a multicore processor. If they do so, will there be an increase in cost for their current software license?

A. No. The customer will incur the cost for one software license per processor, not per core. So if a customer replaces the single-core processor on their system with a multicore processor, they will need to have only one license per processor.

 

[farscape]

Thank you for all your answers.

 

[narutofan36]

yepp