Originally posted by: gk
Don't most of the applications out here take the advantage of Dual Cores? And isn't it more of Operating system to take advantage of the Dual cores? I am very confused regarding this Dual core technology.
hmmm... i think an article that explains practical implications of Dual core processor would help clarify my doubts...
Think of it this way.
Say you have a set of tasks that are normally done by one person. This person can only effectively do one thing at a time, but can move back and forth between different tasks if needed. But they are only ever working on one thing at any given point in time.
Now you bring in another person. This person is, magically, identical to the first.
Certain tasks can be split up between these two people. If you need a bunch of pieces of paper cut in half, you could just divide the stack in half and give half to each person. They would be about twice as efficient as having just one person do it (there would be some extra time separating the stacks of paper and reassembling them afterward). Or if you had two totally different jobs that needed to be done, you could give one to each and the jobs would each be done in about the same time as having one person, alone, do just that job. One cuts paper while the other assembles bicycles.
But some tasks can't be split up so easily. If the task is "paint a portrait", having two people won't get it done in half the time (though it may be faster than just one person alone). If it's "assemble a bicycle", then again two heads are better than one but not
twice as good as one.
Software works similarly. Some applications take a lot of benefit from having an extra core around. Some take none. Some are in between. If two applications are run at the same time, having an extra core means they don't have to fight for resources as much.