Dual 266 v/s 450 Mhz

[lucifercipher]

Hello there,

I had a general question. I wnated to ask if a dual processor based 266Mhz system will be good or a 450Mhz single processor system will be good. Board is same LX440 with 256MB RAM. Processor are for Pentium II . Thanks

-lucifer cipher

[BipolarBill]

Since few applications can make use of SMP (simultaneous multiprocessing), you're better off with the single 450Mhz.

[Sterling_Aug]

Symetrical Multi-Processing (SMP's real meaning: see mis-information above) has never been built in to many home software programs. It is VERY often used in business graphics/sound processing/network server applications because it can run more threads and more processes at the same time than a singl processor system can.

I prefer dual processor systems even at home when I can afford it. WinNT, Win2K, WinXP, and Linux can all take advantage of the extra processor for a smoother, more load balanced performance.

[BipolarBill]

I stand corrected on the definition, but stand by my recommendation. Although the poster has Win2K and the OS can benefit from SMP, I doubt that even 1/3 of his applications can make use of it. In that case, 2/3 of his apps will run at 266Mhz and that is pretty slow for Win2K. I believe that he would derive more benefit from running the majority of his applications at 450Mhz.

[Antix]

The benefit would be that you can have 2 processors that you can assign different tasks to.

Some people will shift gaming and other functions to the first processor, and leave the second to do CD-RW burning. This is only an example, however, a 450 Mhz processor offers faster work cycles to get something done. If you are running an NT based OS and have 256+ MB of RAM with a burner that has buffer underun protection, you don't need 2 processors.

It's just one of those coin-toss situations.