Not only do some games now support dual processors or cores but more are
coming fast. AND even if a game does not support it, if you have all the
latest BIOS & video drivers, (a) You will have no problems in games; and (b)
you'll still get some or even many benefits from having two processors.
There is a lot of background stuff going on that can be taken care of by
processor #2. FYI Windows XP *home edition* supports one dual core processor
but not two physical processors.
So... more than one CPU is useful *for me* in many many more ways, even
gaming! When I first built this system (and it is my third dual processor
box) I left the taskmgr open over on monitor #2 so I could watch CPU usage.
In every game I play I either see:
Situation 1 (single-threaded games):
CPU#1 pegged at 90 to 100% (by the game)
CPU#2 bouncing around from 2% up to x% (other processes, background and apps
I may be running like firewall, burning, ripping, iTunes, Teamspeak, FRAPS,
etc)
Situation 2 (multi-threaded games):
CPU #1 and CPU#2 kind of "in sync" both bouncing mostly from like 40% to 90%
and sometimes dropping "out of sync". And you can use taskmgr to tell some
app to use only one processor or the other or both. It's called setting
affinity.
Over the last couple years I've realized just how CPU dependent many games
can be when I used to think they used very little processor and mostly video
card. Wrong.
THEN there are those many background processes, including virus & spyware
checkers, etc., which can sap your FPS. Even if each app only affects a bit,
they all add up.
And then, when not playing games, there is the everyday opening & closing
apps, moving apps around the screens, compiling, image manipulation
(especially batch!), DVD burning (Nero is dual core/processor aware! Meaning
the part that Nero does before your burner starts burning - the longest
part - takes half as long now with dual processors! That's cutting 35-40
minutes down to 15-20 (on a dual 2.6ghz, 64-bit system with 4gig RAM) if you
tell Nero "high priority" and walk away from the computer. Or keep it at
"normal" priority and keep using your computer as you normally would without
slowdown while Nero does it's thing), editing large sound files, 3D
rendering, realtime 3D rendering if you have a scene open, for example, and
you have fifty 3D objects in that scene, and instead of looking at them
wireframe, you'd like to see them at least partially "fleshed out" and/or
showing basic shadows and moving the camera and/or lights around in realtime
before doing a full render. I'll tell you that I could NEVER have enough
processing power when playing around in 3D design software. And then
RENDERING in 3D oooh that sucks processor power like crazy! I'm sure you've
heard of how those big 3D animated movies have at times required 100's of
computers all working together to render scenes. Well, I don't do big
movies, heh, but even little 1-minute 3D 640x480 or even 320x240 animations
with atmosphere, lots of objects with textures, lights, shadows, etc., can
take a lot of power/time to generate.
Back to gaming.
Ever try to run something called FRAPS while you game? There is a free
version you can check out. It allows you to capture & save movies of your
game. And if you want to capture something better than 320x240 without
slowing your game down big time, you need a high end system.
And all the other things you can run in the background while you play. I
really like to have iTunes going in the background. And add in ripping or
burning a DVD, which can be kinda time consuming and I'd rather not do it
and have to stop my work or play.
I found in my last dual box, when I dropped from two Opteron 250s down to
one because my CPU#2 was having heat issues, I could no longer do a lot of
things simultaneously that I was taking for granted. And just everyday
Windows use became frustrating. That's how addicted you will become to two
cores or two processors! Heck, now that I built this dual Opteron 252, I'm
alreadying dreaming about how swapping those two single core procs for two
dual core procs would be useful!
But hey I'm certainly NOT saying this is for everyone. I'm just mentioning
some of the benefits of running more than one processor that some people who
have never tried it may not have thought of. AND keep in mind it IS very
much the future with all software. Sure, right this second only the
forward-thinking developers are coding for multiple threads and heck, 3+
years ago the forward-thinking ones were doing it even then!
Sure, it's a very low percentage of software out there NOW that is
multithreaded, but the point is, the OS (XP) is multithreaded and running
more than one app at once can be nice... or even necessary, depending on
your practice.
Now regarding X2 vs. Opteron:
If I didn't already have an Opteron and ECC memory, I would have gone the
route my buddy did (fastest X2 I could afford) instead of the more expensive
dual Opteron 252 setup I just got. You would spend more going dual Opteron
because (a) they require ECC (more expensive, harder to find, and slighly
slower) RAM and (b) 940-pin motherboards tend to be more expensive (and
usually don't overclock as much or as easily) because they are mostly
workstation/server boards. BUT, there are three benefits: (a) I can make the
jump to 4 cores (two dual-core opterons) pretty easily compared to someone
with a single-cpu-slot motherboard; (b) Since the ghz ramp is typically
higher for less cores, I can stay a bit ahead there. For example, a 2.6ghz
single core Opteron costs less and available sooner than a dual core 2.6ghz
processor; and finally, (c) NUMA. I've got better RAM bandwidth @ around 11K
because of my motherboard having four slots of RAM PER processor.
Please understand I'm NOT referring to the Opteron 170, which is a dual core
CPU that probably doesn't have the same RAM restrictions I mentioned above.
--
Scotter
Tyan Thunder K8WE
Dual Opteron 252s (2.6ghz)
4 gig Corsair XMS DDR400 RAM
XFX 7800 GTX 256 w/VGAsilencerV3
500 gig Hitachi SATA 300
160 gig Seagate SATA 150
Dual Dell 24" wide aspect LCDs
550W Antec power supply
X-Fi Platinum Soundblaster
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