Dual CPU's?

[Andrew]

Hello:

Can anyone give me their two cents worth on the advantage of dual cpu's?

My pc is going to serve as a gateway for dsl for two other pc's, as well as being my primary gaming machine. Will dual cpu's provide me with any advantage?

Thx in advance...

[Stan]

Hi

Advantage of 2 cpu ?
Win98: none, just a waste of money. Win98 does not support multiple CPU. It won't see the 2nd CPU
WinNT: yes. NT has a multi-processor kernel.

When the OS supports multiple CPU, it does make a difference.

That will be my next upgrade....

Stan

[drdeath]

linux can also make use of dual processors....

[bdog]

dual processors will help everything you do in nt. www.hardocp.com/articles/smp/gadfly_smp/smp_pg1.html (http://www.hardocp.com/articles/smp/gadfly_smp/smp_pg1.html)

[xtant]

BUT- the program that you're using has to be written to support 2 cpu's as well. The only game that I know of that has support for smp is quake 3.
According to benchmarks I've seen, you can expect to see about a 10% increase over a single processor in other cases.
www.firingsquad.com has a review of a dual celeron (overclocked), if you want to check it out.

[Shahim]

2 processor increases your gaming speed by nearly 30%!But not every programm uses 2 processors!
Example for increasing speed:
2 celerons 500 are faster than an Athlon 600!

[Pantion]

Two 2 CPUs sounds great, but you need an OS and applications that use them... if you are running win9x then you will only see your second CPU heat-up and collect dust.

WinNT and Linux support multiple processors. And only a handfull of applications really take adavantage of the power of dual or quad processors. And only very few games will use them too. I you were planning to use them on win9x, instead of that buy a single faster processor, since you will only be wasting your money.

[bdog]

I have to disagree with you, yes some programs utilize dual processors better than others, but having two processors will speed up everything you do in nt or linux. I set up a dual celeron machine at 400 and it is faster than my celeron 500 at everything. If you pull up the performance monitor you will see that both cpus are constantly being used. Check the above link I posted for more info.

[MDHerman]

Go Dual CPUs! The advantage of dual CPUs is task sharing. In other words, instead of one CPU handling all the program or system running chores, the requirements of your system is split between two CPUs. Obviously this will make your machine run faster. Like two horses instead of one pulling a carriage. Win2000, already released 2x in Beta, supports dual CPUs. As does Win NT. You can purshase a dual CPU board (Abit, for example), install one cpu, and Win9X will support it. When you choose to upgrade, upgrade to Win2000 (or NT) and add another cpu. This is my plan for the future. Good luck!

[Pantion]

In my post what I meant was that using NT or Linux will make dual cpus power avaible for them and other applications that support more than one CPU. And that Win9x doesn't have that kind of advantage.

Another thing I think... don't believe until I'm pretty sure...that Opengl supports dual CPUS. If this is true maybe games that are based on opengl code will get performance boosts.

[RobRich]

The best SMP capable OS right now is BeOS. It does use both cpu's for all system functions, not just application multi-threading. As for whether or not to run dual cpu's, why not? Most of us will upgrade to Win2000 when it hits the retail shelves. A bp6 dual celeron m/b only costs a few more dollars than a single socket m/b and celery's are dirt cheap nowadays. If your building a celeron system, why not go ahead and spend the extra $100 for SMP. Even true p3 SMP setups are dropping in price rapidly.

If you currently own a single cpu setup, stick with it. If your building a new system, spend the extra few dollars and go SMP, even if you only see a 25% increase in speed, it's worth it.