Maybe Dumb Question

varun12

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I am tired of upgrading every year or two, I have few silly questions:

1. Are there motherboards out there which can hold 2 Processors together of different types ( AMD 955 Black Edition Phenom 2 X4 and an Intel i7 hypothetically speaking? )

2. If there are motherboards out there of such kind which can hold 2 different type of processor at the same time what are they called ?

3. If they can hold 2 cpu's together that means both cpu will run together too producing massive speeds right ?

4. Is it worth going ahead and building such a computer with two cpu's ???

 
Solution
1.) Nope, there are no boards which can hold different processors together. It wouldn't work anyway, the Phenom II X4 and Core i7 work completely differently. There are dual CPU boards, although normally you can only use AMD Opterons for AMD motherboards and Intel Xeons for Intel motherboards, the only desktop CPU you can use in a dual socket motherboard would be the Intel Core 2 Extreme Q9775. Dual socket motherboards are designed to be used as workstations or servers, where incredible amounts of CPU power is needed or computer stability.

2.) N/A, Q1's answer.

3.) The CPU will be running together, however, it won't necessarily be running at super fast speeds - for example, you can have dual Xeon E5540s running at 2.4GHz. They are...
If you are concerned about the most future proof upgrading options you should just look at one of the latest high end motherboards and theres a good chance that it will at least have the manufacturers support of having a new BIOS rev to make it compatible with newer chips in the near future. That's not a 100% guarantee but its one of the best methods of trying to set yourself up to be able to do a BIOS flash update and drop in a new chip and run a couple of more years at the lowest upgrade cost...
 
1.) Nope, there are no boards which can hold different processors together. It wouldn't work anyway, the Phenom II X4 and Core i7 work completely differently. There are dual CPU boards, although normally you can only use AMD Opterons for AMD motherboards and Intel Xeons for Intel motherboards, the only desktop CPU you can use in a dual socket motherboard would be the Intel Core 2 Extreme Q9775. Dual socket motherboards are designed to be used as workstations or servers, where incredible amounts of CPU power is needed or computer stability.

2.) N/A, Q1's answer.

3.) The CPU will be running together, however, it won't necessarily be running at super fast speeds - for example, you can have dual Xeon E5540s running at 2.4GHz. They are both quad core CPUs which support HyperThreading, and thus also have four virtual cores. Thus, two Xeon E5540s have eight physical cores and virtual cores, 16 in total. However, they are running at 2.4GHz, and programs which aren't designed for more than say four cores won't really take advantage of the dual Xeons, and a Core i5 750 would be faster for applications which use less than four cores for example, because of the higher clock speed.

4.) No, unless you actually are building a professional workstation or plan to build a server. Dual socket CPUs tend to be quite a bit more expensive than their single socket counterparts. For example, the Core i7 930 2.8GHz costs approx. $294 USD. However, the Intel Xeon X5560 2.8GHz, the Xeon equivalent IIRC, costs $1172, around four times more expensive. Single CPUs are more than enough for everyday's desktop purposes.
 
Solution

varun12

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Any example ? I mean what brand names are you talking here ?
 
For example, the ASUS M4A line of motherboards could previously only support the Phenom II X4 series, but now, after a BIOS update, it can support the Phenom II X6 series as well. With Intel, it's the same - most P55 motherboards only supported the Core i7 800 series and the Core i5 750, but after the Core i3 500 series and Core i5 600 series, the motherboard manufacturers have provided an updated BIOS so that the motherboard recognises the CPU and will be able to use it. Like MSI's P55-GD65 motherboard, there are very many examples out there.