2100+ vs dual 1600+

yanik · 01-10-2005, 12:27 PM

My system has a 2100+ (1733Mhz) CPU and I have the opportunity to trade it for a dual 1600+(1400Mhz) (tyan tiger mobo) system. the rest of the system is the same (512MB DDR, GF4 128MB...)

Should I do it? I guess it would compile faster, but overall, will it perform better?

bulliver · 01-10-2005, 12:36 PM

AFAIK, trading up for a dual-cpu will not give you a (virtual) 2800mhz machine, but you will be able to multitask better...ie compiling code on one cpu, and watching a movie at the same time, with both running at 1400mhz

If you like to do a lot of cpu intensive things at the same time, then this may be a good option...however, if you only do 1-2 things at a time, and they are not cpu bound tasks, performance increase may not be as great as you expect. (if any)

yanik · 01-10-2005, 01:10 PM

Thanks, I'll think about it. I never had a dual processor system before. It's kind of tempting. I might give gentoo a second try!

bulliver · 01-10-2005, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Thanks, I'll think about it. I never had a dual processor system before. It's kind of tempting. I might give gentoo a second try!

Me too

I always wanted to try dual-cpu.

I am not an expert, so take my advice as you will...but from what I have gleamed the performance only increases when running things in parallel.

Hopefully someone who actually has a dual-cpu box can chime in here...

Superme · 01-10-2005, 02:30 PM

i have the exact same processor as you and i was playing doom3 and comparing my freinds dual 2000+ and its not faster at all try clocking your freinds or whoever your trading with and see whos is faster try a 3D MARK program
but like bulliver said if your doing alot of multitasking do it if you just want the performance dont do it

yanik · 01-10-2005, 03:15 PM

Doom 3 doesn't support dual processing, ID stopped supporting dual processing with Quake3 (you had to enter the command r_smp 1 in the console), it was causing more problems than anything.

But I don't play games anymore (except for GTA:SA on PS2). Do apps need to be written to use the second CPU or is it all nicely handle by the smp kernel?

Thanks

msl · 01-11-2005, 02:50 AM

I have a Tyan tiger mb with a pair of 1200's, and I wouldn't want to go back to a single proc system anymore. It is nice being able to compile something or tame a runaway process while not loosing responsiveness on your desktop. Apps that aren't multi-threaded won't make use of the second proc. My only concern is that your ram, video card and power supply are compatable with the new mb, assuming you keep yours.

Electro · 01-11-2005, 06:11 PM

What I read, if the kernel is compiled with SMP support, it will try to balance the system load on two processors. What I read you can run a program or service on a certain processor. You can make a CD on one processor and the other playing a game. Programs like mplayerxp has good support for for multi-processor systems. You can run setiathome on each computer or run folding@home in smp mode.

If you have a slow hard drive, as always it going to be the bottleneck. You may want to setup RAID 1 to speed up the accessing performance.

yanik · 01-12-2005, 06:45 AM

yeah everything will fit on his mobo, we have the same (well, not exactly) 350W PS, same 512MB DDR333 and Geforce 4.

Electro I think you meant RAID 0 (stripping), RAID 1 is for mirroring.

I have to give him a respond this friday. The more I think about it, the more I'd like to keep mine and have his too!!!