Dual Processor Scenarios

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So, what combinations of programs will benefit from a Dual Processor setup?

E.G.

Photoshop and Word? Yes, No?

Spreadsheet Compilations and Photo printing?

What?

Are there particular programs that will benefit from a dual processor?
How does one tell?

Any understandable discussions on the net that anyone has seen?

Thanks!
 
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HarryKrause wrote:
> So, what combinations of programs will benefit from a Dual Processor setup?
>
> E.G.
>
> Photoshop and Word? Yes, No?
>
> Spreadsheet Compilations and Photo printing?
>
> What?
>
> Are there particular programs that will benefit from a dual processor?
> How does one tell?
>
> Any understandable discussions on the net that anyone has seen?
>
> Thanks!
>



I changed the header...I meant dual core processor, not dual processor.
D'oh.
 
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In article <T7idnSjokJP0O37fRVn-pg@comcast.com>, harry.krause@gmail.com
says...
> So, what combinations of programs will benefit from a Dual Processor setup?
>
> E.G.
>
> Photoshop and Word? Yes, No?
>
> Spreadsheet Compilations and Photo printing?
>
> What?
>
> Are there particular programs that will benefit from a dual processor?
> How does one tell?
>
> Any understandable discussions on the net that anyone has seen?

First, you need to understand that all systems with current motherboards
and OS's benefit from a Dual CPU setup, it's just how much that is
always in question. In most cases, based on a typical Home user or small
office user that only does MS Office type things, there will be limited
(read that as almost insignificant) benefit to having more than one CPU
- Even Hyper Threading CPU's add little benefit to most of those
specific types of users.

Now, for things that are multi-threaded, things that make extensive use
of threads and are written properly, you can see significant benefit
from having HT or Dual CPU's.

Photoshop, the latest full versions, not the one that ships with your
DVD player, seems to make good use of Dual CPU's, but I don't see MS
Word doing much or even Excel in most instances. I'm not saying they
don't benefit more than say Wordpad, but I've not see where anyone uses
either of them enough that they would benefit from the Extra $500 to get
a cheap Dual system over a single with Hyper-Threading.

--

spam999free@rrohio.com
remove 999 in order to email me
 
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Processor intensive tasks. Word is not. Photoshop is. Sometimes.
Rendering video seriously is. Burning DVD/CD is, fairly.

I'd like a dual core as I am a very heavy Photoshop user and also
significant video work.

For the average user, I doubt they'll see much.

Tom
"HarryKrause" <harry.krause@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:T7idnSjokJP0O37fRVn-pg@comcast.com...
> So, what combinations of programs will benefit from a Dual Processor
> setup?
>
> E.G.
>
> Photoshop and Word? Yes, No?
>
> Spreadsheet Compilations and Photo printing?
>
> What?
>
> Are there particular programs that will benefit from a dual processor? How
> does one tell?
>
> Any understandable discussions on the net that anyone has seen?
>
> Thanks!
>
 
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Tom Scales wrote:
> Processor intensive tasks. Word is not. Photoshop is. Sometimes.
> Rendering video seriously is. Burning DVD/CD is, fairly.
>
> I'd like a dual core as I am a very heavy Photoshop user and also
> significant video work.
>
> For the average user, I doubt they'll see much.
>
> Tom
> "HarryKrause" <harry.krause@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:T7idnSjokJP0O37fRVn-pg@comcast.com...
>> So, what combinations of programs will benefit from a Dual Processor
>> setup?
>>
>> E.G.
>>
>> Photoshop and Word? Yes, No?
>>
>> Spreadsheet Compilations and Photo printing?
>>
>> What?
>>
>> Are there particular programs that will benefit from a dual processor? How
>> does one tell?
>>
>> Any understandable discussions on the net that anyone has seen?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>
>

So, what if you are working on a long word doc that includes photos and
at the same time you want to burn a CD. Is the dual core going to help?
A little? A lot? Not at all?
 
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> So, what if you are working on a long word doc that includes photos and at
> the same time you want to burn a CD. Is the dual core going to help? A
> little? A lot? Not at all?

No, I don't think so. A long Word doc with photos and such will take up
memory, but don't confuse that with how much your CPU is being utilized.
One way to check is to open up a Windows Task Manager window. There's a
window that shows CPU usage. I think a lot of people believe that having
"lots of windows open" will utilize a dual core setup. It won't. I
currently have 6 windows open, and my CPU usage is 0%. Word hardly ever
uses the CPU, and if so, only for a few seconds. What we're talking about
here is burning a CD, WHILE playing a CPU intesive game. Or rendering stuff
in Photoshop that takes a minute or so. If you don't do these things, the
benefits of a dual core will NOT be noticed. This applies to most users, in
most scenarios.

I assume this is a follow up of a previous thread where we both
participated. That's why I recommended that the OP in that thread buy a
higher clock single core CPU with the same money.
--
Charles C. Shyu
http://home.earthlink.net/~shyuc/shyu.html
 
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Charles C. Shyu wrote:
>> So, what if you are working on a long word doc that includes photos and at
>> the same time you want to burn a CD. Is the dual core going to help? A
>> little? A lot? Not at all?
>
> No, I don't think so. A long Word doc with photos and such will take up
> memory, but don't confuse that with how much your CPU is being utilized.
> One way to check is to open up a Windows Task Manager window. There's a
> window that shows CPU usage. I think a lot of people believe that having
> "lots of windows open" will utilize a dual core setup. It won't. I
> currently have 6 windows open, and my CPU usage is 0%. Word hardly ever
> uses the CPU, and if so, only for a few seconds. What we're talking about
> here is burning a CD, WHILE playing a CPU intesive game. Or rendering stuff
> in Photoshop that takes a minute or so. If you don't do these things, the
> benefits of a dual core will NOT be noticed. This applies to most users, in
> most scenarios.
>
> I assume this is a follow up of a previous thread where we both
> participated. That's why I recommended that the OP in that thread buy a
> higher clock single core CPU with the same money.


Thanks, I really appreciate your response, especially since I can
understand it!
 
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HarryKrause wrote:
> So, what if you are working on a long word doc that includes photos and
> at the same time you want to burn a CD. Is the dual core going to help?
> A little? A lot? Not at all?

Your bottleneck here is RAM much more than CPU. If instead of opening a
word document, say you were transcoding a video or compiling a program,
then you'd see the benefit.