Is dual core supposed to help in these types of tasks?

[Nocturnal]

Like say I'm searching for a file on an external hard drive and at the same time browsing the net. Is dual core supposed to make it so that I can browse with no pauses/slow downs due to the search going on in the background?

 

[bjc112]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
Like say I'm searching for a file on an external hard drive and at the same time browsing the net. Is dual core supposed to make it so that I can browse with no pauses/slow downs due to the search going on in the background?

You should easily be able to do a HDD file seach and still browse the internet.. However any searching is typically I/O related.

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by: bjc112

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
Like say I'm searching for a file on an external hard drive and at the same time browsing the net. Is dual core supposed to make it so that I can browse with no pauses/slow downs due to the search going on in the background?

You should easily be able to do a HDD file seach and still browse the internet.. However any searching is typically I/O related.

The thing is I noticed that while searching for a file and attempting to browse, while trying to bring IE to the forefront it took a while for it to appear. I had figured that it wouldn't be doing that since it could do two things at once with ease.

 

[Mogadon]

I don't have dual core but can surf the net and perform a HDD search with very little to no noticeable slowdown.

 

[imported_CromsDog]

Are you searching the drive your OS is on? I have noticed that when my pc is searching my C drive or in the middle of a virus scan on that drive I have hangs. I am running a Pentium D 940 with 2gb of RAM. This seems to be more of an IO hang not a Processor limitation. Now Dual core kicks major butt in the encoding field. I have knocked my DiVx encodes almost in half.

 

[Nocturnal]

Yeah it's the OS drive. It's a 36GB Raptor. I mean it isn't that bad but I'd figure it wouldn't even have that problem anymore. I guess it's an I/O thing.

 

[Amaroque]

The only way to get rid of the IO lag (for the most part) is to go SCSI.

 

[n7]

Yeah IMHO, HDD/IDE-based limitations frustrate me more than anything these days.

Like me trying to burn a DVD while ripping one.

I have both drives on the same channel damnit, so it took seemingly hours.

Damn them for still not making SATA-based burners.

I love the fact that SATA HDDs each get their own channel, but now we need burners to be the same...

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: Amaroque
The only way to get rid of the IO lag (for the most part) is to go SCSI.

Or use the Gigabyte i-RAM

 

[Megatomic]

The only time searching a drive for a file causes any hangs or stutters for me (X2 4800+ @ 2.5GHz) is when that search is on my Netgear SC101 and the drive has spun down due to inactivity. Other than that I don't have any issues like that. Oh and I do use the SW IDE drivers.

 

[zephyrprime]

If you want faster drive searching, try using a file indexer like google desktop search. Or, use Diskeeper and defrag your disk so that all the directories are placed contiguously. I've done this and it makes a huge difference for file performance.

 

[imported_CromsDog]

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX

Originally posted by: Amaroque
The only way to get rid of the IO lag (for the most part) is to go SCSI.

Or use the Gigabyte i-RAM

are you using one of these yet? I heard that they have a 4gb limitation so are basically limited to just a clean windows install. what is your setup if you are? Any noticeable improvements?

 

[DrMrLordX]

I haven't used the i-RAM, no. They are limited to four DDR DIMMs, and it's hard to use any DIMMS with heatspreaders too (or you get overheating problems which is sort of ironic). In theory, you could probably do 8 gigs on one with four 2-gig DIMMs, but that'd be a bit much.