Operating Systems: Number of CPU's

[areiel]

Greetings all,

I will shortly be building a new PC using an intel 840 EE CPU. My understanding is that this is seen logically as 4 CPU's: 2 from the dual core and 2 per core from hyper-threding.

I vaguely recall that certain versions of Windows XP will only run on a maximum number of processors. Can someone please advise as to what the limitations are?

Thanks,

Areiel

 

[Sunner]

XP Home will be able to use 1 CPU, and it will distinguish between a dual core CPU and two single cores, so running a dual core CPU is fine.
XP Pro will be able to use 2 CPU's, same deal, it'll know if you have one dual core or two single cores.

On a sidenote, save yourself some cash and go for one of the non-EE P4's, the EE's are insanely overpriced.

 

[spyordie007]

Just to clarify

XP Home can use only one physical processor (regardless of number of cores or if HT)
XP Pro can use up to two physical processors (again regardless of how many cores the CPUs have or if they are HT)

Microsoft licenses most of their products based on physical processors and not logical processors. This is differant from some other companies (i.e. Oracle) which license based upon the number of cores...

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: spyordie007
Just to clarify

XP Home can use only one physical processor (regardless of number of cores or if HT)
XP Pro can use up to two physical processors (again regardless of how many cores the CPUs have or if they are HT)

Microsoft licenses most of their products based on physical processors and not logical processors. This is differant from some other companies (i.e. Oracle) which license based upon the number of cores...

Ya think?.

Oh and yeah, I could have been clearer

 

[spyordie007]

Oh great, as if Oracle's licensing wasnt complicated enough :roll: