does dual processing increase the speed at which the computer can compute, ie making playing games much better, or does it just increase the amount of total work that can be done, like intense rendering and such?

12/19/2005 1:49:01 PM

it helps applications that support parallel processing.

12/19/2005 1:50:38 PM

thanks

12/19/2005 2:03:34 PM

let's put it this way - i seriously doubt you'd do anything to warrant buying a dual-core or dual-processor system

a guy on here was recently selling a smithfield for something like $200...awesome deal, but heaven knows my 3ghz celeron d (775) does everything i need it to (including gaming) with processing power to spare

12/19/2005 2:44:18 PM

Dual processing is really good for high-end multi-threaded applications and some heavy-duty multi-tasking. Check out the following links for more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiprocessor

12/19/2005 3:00:55 PM

Dual processing might be nice if you like to play games and run a virus scan at the same time.

12/19/2005 3:15:57 PM

yea, but then your hard drive would be the limiting factor

12/19/2005 4:20:54 PM

on my 3ghz system, the HD is the only limiting factor.

but i'm too poor to get a raptor or whatever fancy HD's are out.

12/19/2005 4:26:45 PM

yea i've done some research and spoke with a friend, i've basically settled on that athlon fx 55, and dual 7800 gtx 256 mb cards, thanks for all the replies though, especially the wilkepedia post

12/19/2005 4:45:50 PM

There are actually a few games coming up that will take advantage of multi-threaded and multi core processing. Oblivion for example is supposed to be optimized for multi-core systems (makes sense since it's availible on the x-box.) The interview I read said that they basically get one core to handle scripting, ai, etc. and the other core to hand stuff off to the sound card and video card. But yeah, I imagine it'll only help with games optimized for it.

^^seagate and hitatchi 500 GB SATA II drives outdo the raptors in performance tests according to anandtech.


[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 5:27 PM. Reason : ]

12/19/2005 5:26:29 PM

Quote :

"Dual processing might be nice if you like to play games and run a virus scan at the same time."

How do you go about assigning a certain app to run on a specific processor?

12/19/2005 5:30:56 PM

I was actually kinda of joking with my comment, like it was mentioned previously your HD would limit your gaming experience.....however I would imagine if you could tweak your page filing and had enough RAM, you could have almost all of your game files in your RAM which would limit how much your HD would effect your gameplay.

I don't believe you can specify the processor, they should just work out which one is doing which processing.

12/19/2005 5:55:27 PM

^ If the system bus is close to saturated then assigning a different task to the second processor or core would have an adverse effect on performance. Dual processors and dual cores only really benefit when the task can be "shared."

12/19/2005 6:12:38 PM

Task Manager, Right Click on the Process, Set Affinity.

Two processors is a waste of money in my opinion for most everyday use home PCs. Get a processor that supports Hyperthreading if anything ... it will "limit" "most" processes to using only 50% of the "CPU" ... i.e. stuff doesn't freeze up nearly as much.

12/19/2005 6:53:42 PM