I was hoping someone could explain a bit more about running a system
with dual processors. Does this effectively double your computer's
power? (say you're running two 500mhz chips, would that make the
computer essentially a 1ghz computer?)
If you could give me some general info, that'd be great.
No, each CPU will handle a different thread. Some
applications are written multi-threaded to take advantage of
more than one CPU simultaneously and if well-written
(distribution of work load is good), the 2nd (3rd, etc) CPUs
can significantly increase performance but typically to add
a 2nd identical CPU the gain would be under 60%, usually
much less.
Unless your more demanding applications explicitly have this
multithreaded support for multiple CPUs, each application
will have no benefit from the 2nd CPU. IF you then had
multiple applications each with a concurrent demand for
processing power (more often it a realtime environment where
things are prioritized (or can't be much), the 2nd/etc
additional CPU would make the 2nd/3rd/etc applications run
better. Such has not been the typical work environment for
a "PC", so if you have specific needs, tasks to do then the
applications, app versions, and concurrent jobs would have
to be considered.
In short, unless you know you need and can benefit from
multiple CPUs, odds are you don't. For the same system
budget, the typical applications run faster from one (higher
priced, high model thus faster per CPU, single CPU). Rather
than only assuming as much, as always the specific common or
most demanding tasks should be considered.
