Which is better? Medium DUal or SUPERFAST Single?

[AtomicAlien]

I have Photoshop and my friend will be giving me CAD. I hear CAD is pretty intensive so I was thinking about a new righ. Do you think Dual-CPUs (2x1.5GHz Equivalent) on an outdated platform or a single (2.8 Equivalent or higher) on the latest platform. Which would be better? Im not buying an Opteron so unless Nvidia comes out with an nForce2 for Dual-K7s Im thinking id go with superfast single.

Any comments? THanks!

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Well, I don't know much about CAD so it pretty much depends wether CAD supports dual processors or not. If it does and you decide to go that route, getting a 1.5ghz cpu won't be worth it compared to a single 2.8ghz cpu, you'll have to get atleast a 2.2ghz cpus for it to notice enough gain for your money.

 

[AtomicAlien]

My current system is a 1.5Ghz Athlon XP 1700 paired with a KT333 and 512MB Kingston ValueRAM...

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Also, it sounds like you're new to CAD because your friend is 'giving' it to you. If I were you, I'd use your current system until you've learned CAD well enough to actually begin using it for production. Then move to a more expensive CPU. Because, look, if you stop using CAD after a few months, the other CPU won't help much, because I don't believe Photoshop supports dual cpus, and then none of today's games support dual cpus either. Dual CPU's are mostly for high end workstations and servers.

 

[AtomicAlien]

Thanks for the help AgaBooga! Anyone else have comments?

 

[MedicBob]

Search the forums here on Dual CPU's. Alot of good information.

Also check out 2CPU dedicated site to Dually CPUs

 

[Dug]

Get a single, upgrading a dual gets too expensive, not to mention you would really have to have some huge projects before it would make sense to save the 10sec to a minute of time that you would get in certain portions of certain programs.

Spend the money on ram.

 

[AtomicAlien]

Originally posted by: Dug
Get a single, upgrading a dual gets too expensive, not to mention you would really have to have some huge projects before it would make sense to save the 10sec to a minute of time that you would get in certain portions of certain programs.

Spend the money on ram.

Thanks! I think that's what ill do anyway because of games such as Planetside coming out.

 

[dullard]

CAD can benefit from dual processors, and a few filters of Photoshop can as well. However they aren't big gains. I use programs that are specifically meant for multiprocessing - in fact you are almost forced to use it if you want your job done in a few days/weeks. Even with all the emphasis the programmers do on multiprocessing, I only get 40% to 80% speed boost on most uses (although I have recorded up to 105% boost - since the OS only uses one processor the second can work even faster than the first). However you aren't using programs that heavilly use a second processor and haven't been coded for best efficiency with multiple processors. Thus I wouldn't ever expect you to see more than a 20%-40% boost if you even see that much. Lets just assume you'd get a 30% boost. Thus you'd need a dual 2.15 GHz machine (2.15*1.3 = 2.8) to match the speed of a 2.8 GHz machine (AgaBooga's estimate of 2.2 GHz is exactly what I suggest). But a dual 2.2 GHz machine will cost you a bit more than a single 2.8 GHz machine. So go with the single.

 

[Budmantom]

Single with a lot of ram. Don't forget that intel will be coming out with hyperthreading cpu starting at 2.4ghz.