Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Howard R. Hansen who wrote (14383)	12/13/2003 12:54:58 AM
From: wily	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

Howard, I would even say that posted answer was a little to a lot optimistic about the improvement you can get from duals on an application like photoshop. A review by Ace's Hardware (just the first one I came across looking for benchmark data on google) concludes there is little benefit from a dual machine, and especially, $ for $, you're better off with a faster mono machine: "The Photoshop benchmarks showed us surprising results as well: a dual CPU system is of little use compared to a faster single processor system in this application. A fast clocked single processor with the best memory subsystem performs much better, between 4 and 44%!" aceshardware.com But as both Jon and I noted, there are server applications like database servers, where the multi-cpu setup is essential—the same Ace's review has benchmarks for these types of apps, but they are hardly typical apps for a desktop machine. In my experience, duals for the desktop just add some level of usability. For some types of intensive cpu activity there is some cpu capacity left over to do other things. It's hard to quantify or to put a value on it and I really don't know which way I would go were I to upgrade now. I'd scout around to see what kind of dual system I could get for the same money as an up-to-date mono system and then weigh some of the other trade-offs that are important to me like maintenance, noise, heat, etc. And then, who knows, I might be sorry if I choose the mono system, because it's hard to say how much I'm taking for granted with my present dual system, having been using it for a while now... Another thing to consider is multi-boxes. If you really want cpu-independent multi-tasking it can be a good way to go. I haven't tried this yet, but some have posted on this board that they use applications like RemoteAdministrator to control the satellite machines eliminating the need for extra monitors, keyboards and mice. KVM switches can be used too. wily

To: Howard R. Hansen who wrote (14383)	12/13/2003 2:24:54 PM
From: Jon Tara	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 14778

This too is erroneous information: "Lets say you have two programs, neither of which are multi-threaded. If you have a dual processor system, will windows send the workload of both of them to the same processor or is it smart enough to send them to separate processors? Ahhh, No. Windows will not send different programs to different CPUs." Completely erroneous, and easy to demonstrate with Task Manager (Performance tab) and two compute-bound applications on a dual-CPU machine. If you have two CPUs, the two highest-priority ready threads are going to run simultaneously - whether they are in the same application or different applications. This is vastly simplified. For example, there is a mechanism to make sure that all ready threads get SOME CPU time, regardless of their priority - this prevents a high-priority thread from completely hogging the CPU. And, processes (applications) can specify that all of their threads must be run on a single CPU (this is rare - done only for some older programs that were not written with proper locking code), and processes and threads may specify WHICH CPU(s) they may run on. Again, nearly all applications today are multi-threaded and designed to run on multiple CPUs. The "Photoshop is the only application that benefits from multiple CPUs" argument is YEARS out of date. That said, there is an inefficency associated with using multiple CPUs. Two 1 gHz CPUs are not going to be as fast as 1 2gHz CPU. On the other hand, multiple CPUs makes Windows operation much more "fluid". And, once you max-out on clock speed, there IS only one way to get faster - add more CPUs. When I move from my dual-CPU desktop machine to my notebook, the difference is startling. I would never want to live with a single-CPU machine as my primary computer. Intel has come to the rescue, though - the lastest notebook Pentium IV's have Hyperthreading technology, and single chips with true dual-CPU cores are also on the way. Within 5 years, there will not be any single-CPU systems produced.