what has the advantage?

[toph99]

what would be better for RC5? a dual 500mhz PIII setup or a single PIII 1ghz?

 

[mechBgon]

They would come out pretty close. I would go with the 1GHz because you can always dual it off later with a dual board and a second CPU, whereas the 500MHz CPUs are getting to be stale technology. You would also have more flexibility in operating systems, ie you can use Win9x. There is supposedly a slight edge to a dual system because the operating system leaves the second CPU pretty much alone, allowing for a slight edge in efficiency, but with 1000MHz to play with, I think that is just a drop in the bucket.

 

[Maniac9127]

Neither, a 1GHz Thunderbird 😉. Hehe.

<< I would go with the 1GHz because you can always dual it off later with a dual board and a second CPU >>

Of corse, the 1GHz also probably costs more than the two 500's, 'though it depends on where you buy from.

 

[toph99]

i was just curious about which would be more efficient, two cpu's or one. may be interesting to benchmark a few systems and find out 🙂

 

[ElFenix]

it depends on how much OS overhead is required to have dual CPUs. i think NT requires more, linux may not require any. oh, and the 500mhz will spend less cycles waiting around for info when executing other tasks, so that should make it more efficient.

 

[JHutch]

When it comes to RC5, the dual system and the single system will come out virtually the same. Statistically, I doubt there'd be a difference.

JHutch