Dual Core-vs-Dual Processor

  • Thread starter Thread starter Murphil
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Murphil

I hope the following questions are taken in the spirit that there are no such
things as stupid questions (from someone like me who hasn't bought a new PC
in over 10 years!) I'm in the market for a new laptop, and plan to use it for
home photo and light office work, and for Internet and e-mail. After weeding
thru several seemingly disjointed (!) vendor websites, I am more confused
than ever about the pros & cons of dual core versus dual processor, and 32
bit versus 64 bit. I'm trying to get some answers to the following questions,
in layman's language. Good links to good websites will also do.

(1) What's the fundamental distinction between dual core and dual processor?

(2) What should the term multi-threading mean to the general PC user?

(3) Is 64 bit VISTA downward compatible with 32 bit VISTA and other
Microsoft Windows OSs? If so, which ones?

(4) Will any of the following configurations NOT work?

DUAL PROCESSOR PC WITH 32 BIT VISTA
DUAL PROCESSOR PC WITH 64 BIT VISTA
DUAL CORE PC WITH 32 BIT VISTA
DUAL CORE PC WITH 64 BIT VISTA
SINGLE PROCESSOR PC WITH 32 BIT VISTA
SINGLE PROCESSOR PC WITH 64 BIT S/W

(5) If any of these will NOT work, why not?

(6) What is the comparative overall performance of these configurations -
what would their ranking be from fastest/most powerful to least, all else
being equal?

(7) Is there really much 64 bit s/w available yet (other than VISTA) to
warrant a 64 bit PC?

(8) With a dual core PC, running 32 bit s/w or 32 bit VISTA, will only one
of the 2 cores/processors be used (i.e. will the other be permanently idle,
hence a waste of $s)?

(9) Same as (8), but for a dual processor PC?

(10) If the answer to (8) or (9) is yes, will there be any significant
performance improvement using 64 bit s/w?

(11) And finally, with a dual core or a dual processor PC, is the 64 bit
VISTA OS mandatory in order to be able to run other 64 bit s/w?

Tx ... Murphil
 
From my experience Dual Processors are more likely to found in Servers and
not typical of laptop computers.

Dual Core processors have the advantage if using photo editing software if
the particular brand of photo software can take advantage of multiple cores.
Also heavy duty photo editing requires more memory to get best performance
no matter what type of processor you use.

Single processor would be the slowest when doing photos, but might offer the
best battery run time.

64Bit OS have far fewer applications that run in 64Bit mode.

For light office work, and for Internet and e-mail any laptop will do the
job.
So contact some of the makers of photo software (Photoshop for example)
and see what they have to say about their product supporting multiple cores
and 32/64 Bit OS.
 
Thanks Ken ...

Your response is very helpful. Thanks for being so patient to plow through
every one of my questions.

With regard to my question (3), I guess I didn't word it very well. What I
was trying to ask is, will the 64 bit Vista OS work and do everything the 32
bit OS can do, if I were ever to replace the 32 bit OS with the 64 bit OS at
some future date? I assume, because of memory addressing, the 32 bit OS
cannot do everything the 64 bit OS can do (run 64 bit s/w, for example). I
hope this question is a little clearer now.

I'm sorry my questions showed up in the XP forum. I intended to post them
under the Vista General Discussion forum. Don't know how it "jumped" to XP -
for sure it's something I did wrong!
 
JS said:
Are there laptops that have to separate processors (I'm not a laptop
person)?
Click to expand...

Generally, no. Laptops are intended for purposes that very, very seldom
require two physical processors.

Dual-processor systems also require a fair amount of extra power, and
generate more heat, making them unsuitable for battery and lap use.

HTH
-pk
 
This is what I expected as it would not
be very practical for a laptop.

Thanks for your reply.
 
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