Performance problem with new Core 2 Duo system

[optionexplicit]

I just finished building my new computer. E6600, MSI 975x platinum, 2gb dd2-800 corsair, 7900gt and 3 harddrives.

Now since I have so much storage I decided to convert my cd collection to mp3. When the program I am using is converting the data the rest of the system slows down. I can still do stuff but its really sluggish. Like I'll just try to surf the internet while ripping a cd and its really choppy.

I thought that since I have a dual core processor I would be able to multitask. I turned my virus scanner off and it didn't help. Maybe its the program I am using? Its dbpoweramp, maybe there is a better freeware program? Or maybe I have something misconfigured?

The BIOS is the latest version. All the other drivers are updated as well. I am running Windows XP Professional and that has all the latest patches. I'm not overclocking at all. Something else I noticed with that Core Temp program is that the core #1 is about 5 degrees hotter than core #2 which leads me to believe that it isn't being utilized.

Is this normal or is there something wrong with my system? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[nikolokolus]

When you are doing these multi-tasking scenarios it's important to remember that software needs to built to take advantage of multiple procs. As a work around you can enter the task manager and set process affinity to one processor or another for your encoding. I'f you are doing a lot of memory intensive multi-tasking you can always benefit from more RAM . . . but with 2GB already, more would probably not help all that much (unless you are using a 64 bit OS which allows more RAM per process than win32)