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X2 any use for single programs

Huugs

Huugs

Huugs

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Joined
29 Dec 2005
Posts
93
Just a quick question about the X2s. Im thinking (again) of geting an X2 but wondered how programs will run if they only support single processors.
Do they run at all?
Do they run at the single core speed or will the OS sort it out to spread the load and get max speeds?

Also I normally play games like Half Life 2 and Doom 3 so would the X2 be useful for running them or would a single core be better?

Cheers people.
 
it will run, the cpu's will spread the load for the operating system, but for games atm and other standard applications there wont be a significant difference between that and a normal single core cpu.
best wait till someone with one can explain better.
 
If you play a game while doing something serious in the background (like encode a MPG-4) the game would be faster on the dual core, if you have no heavy background tasks running then the single core would be faster at gaming.

This is all assuming that your game of choice doesn't support Multi cpu :)

Imho X2 is very much a *hobbyists* cpu right now, it is not KILLER technology at the moment unless you happen to be one of those people who are using software that can make good use of the extra core.

Each to there own of course, but clearly the X2 option is not *bang-for-buck*
 
Huugs said:
Just a quick question about the X2s. Im thinking (again) of geting an X2 but wondered how programs will run if they only support single processors.
Do they run at all?
Do they run at the single core speed or will the OS sort it out to spread the load and get max speeds?

Also I normally play games like Half Life 2 and Doom 3 so would the X2 be useful for running them or would a single core be better?

Cheers people.
Click to expand...
Yes they do run however they will only be able to use the power of one core at a time. Whereas a multi-threaded application could use both cores simultaneously - which theoretically could provide a 2x performance boost. The operating system balances the load of each thread running on the system across both cores, so you do get a performance boost in other ways.

Games like HL2 and Doom3 (assuming you don't have some SMP-optimised drivers installed) will run exactly the same as they do on an equivilently clocked single-core CPU. However there is always stuff going on in the background (kernel jobs, anti-virus, firewall, downloading? and other background services) so potentially running these games on a dual-core CPU could actually give a few more FPS (or at least raise the minimum FPS) slightly.
 
CoD2 gets a massive boost (60%?) from dual core CPUs, Nvidia drivers get a 10% or so boost as well. Few other games are now patched to take advantage of dual cores and new games are getting released with support as well.

Jokester
 
well when you think about it right now a x1800 or 7800 is cpu limited unless you have a fx57 or similar speeds. so having dual core would increase it more than having sli/crossfire.
also i think it increases the min fps aswell?
 
Big.Wayne said:
60% boost eh? that sounds quite good. Is this at good resolutions etc.

Seems like you are saying that dual core boost the frame-rate more than dual-gpu?
Click to expand...

I was amazed, someone posted a link to the patch a month or two ago saying 100% boost and I was a bit suspicious but it went from about 30fps to 50fps with me in busy sections.

That's on a 2.7GHz X2 and SLI at 1920x1200

Jokester
 
Will you see speed benefits of using and X2 even on XP 32bit or do you really require XP64 to get any extra benefit?

I guess what Im really saying is, is it worth getting XP64
 
Ok cheers I think that skinda made up my mind then. I dont really fancy going to the 64bit XP just yet but as long as the dual core will work just the same in the 32bit version Im happy.
Thanks again.
 
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