Building A Computer... :/

[Westrock]

Not this year, anyway.

But, serisouly, can it be far behind?

I can remember just a few short years ago when dual processors was considered strictly server space only... now I have one in my laptop!

My company manufactures the Sun Sparc processors, and they are using 8 cores :shock:

Though Solaris and the Blades annoy me sometimes.

[RaveN]

I got a single core 3.7 in one of my computers...

My webhost has a quad core server, and he says he loves it.

[Billy Bob]

Hi

I'm new here and wondering if I could get a little advice, I myself have a core 2 duo, its an HP with a E6400, I tried the AMD 64 X2 4200+ and was not a fan, traded in for the E6400 and WOW what a difference, anyway my question is this, my friend just bought a MSI P965-NEO with a E6300 to go with it, the problem is the second core does not show up anywhere, and it runs a lot slower than mine, I also have a laptop with the OG dual core, T2400, and it is even faster than his, would the fact that he is not running a copy of XP that supports 64 be the problem or if not any clues or guesses as to what is the problem?

[BoltBait]

Billy Bob, check the BIOS to make sure that the second core is enabled.

Also, the OS *could* be a problem--for example if he was running Win98. If he's running XP though, that shouldn't be a problem UNLESS the second core was not enabled when the OS was installed.

To check on your processors, right-click on an empty space of your task bar and choose Task Manager. Click on the performance tab. You should see two boxes on the top row if you have 2 processors (or 1 dual core processor).

Hope this helps.

[Billy Bob]

It does thank you

The task manager and Everest and Sandra fail to pick up the 2nd core so I'm sure its a bios thing, I wasnt there when the install was done but he's a half wit like that so I'm sure its the problem,

Would he half to re-install XP after he changes the setting for it to take effect?

[BoltBait]

He may need to reinstall, I'm not sure.

[BoltBait]

BoltBait's Christmas List

A new computer

:

8)

[Sepcot]

heh... yeah, dual-core is not enough for me either ;-)

[Rick Brewster]

And Paint.NET will benefit immensely from a quad core chip. No joke -- I've tested on up to an 8-core system (quad dual core) and the performance scaling was awesome.

[RaveN]

1000 dollars for 2.66 Ghz?

I payed about 600 for my single 3.7...which works fine, what advantage would a dual or quad have over that?

[Rick Brewster]

Don't forget that a Core 2 at 2.66ghz is equivalent to, roughly, a Pentium 4/D at 2.66*1.9 ~= 5.05 GHz (this is a simplification with one goal in mind: do not compare your "3.7" to the "2.66" and think that the 2.66 is "slower" -- trust me, it's way faster).

Plus there are four cores -- multithreaded software, such as Paint.NET, can split their work amongst more cores to get the same amount of work done faster.

[RaveN]

Well then I guess I hope they get them in laptops soon.

[Westrock]

1000 dollars for 2.66 Ghz?

I payed about 600 for my single 3.7...which works fine, what advantage would a dual or quad have over that?

$1000 is historically the acceptable price for "the best" processor. And if your real proud like AMD was of their FX processors you can even get away with $1200 or so.

If your just messing with desktop pictures and stuff (like 800x600 and smaller) you probably won't see a huge difference going to a faster processor. But I'm editing just 6MP pictures (2816x2112) and going to a dual core made a huge difference in render speeds. I can only imagine how relieved D-SLR guys (7-10MP) would be.

Plus its nice being able to install stuff in the background and still be able to surf comfortably or not have music/movies get jerky.

Also I don't if I mentioned this earlier, but my work manufactures the Sun Sparc T1 processors (we call them Niagras at work) and they are already using 8 cores. I don't know what Sun charges for these monsters, but I think we charge SUN around $1000 each, so I can only imagine what they charge the final customer. But we a couple dozen of there blades and I think they are about $10K a pop.

[BoltBait]

I was wondering what PDN says about my laptop:

Application version: Paint.NET v3.0 (Beta 1 Release build 3.0.2525.34975)
Time of crash: 12/2/2006 1:10:54 PM
Application uptime: 00:00:25.4062500
OS Version: 5.1.2600.131072 Service Pack 2 Workstation x86
.NET Framework version: 2.0.50727.42 x86
Processor: 2x Genuine Intel(R) CPU            1400  @ 1.83GHz
Physical memory: 1013 MB

"Genuine Intel"... I must be running a "Sample" CPU instead of a "Production" CPU.

BTW, I highly recommend the Core Duo and Core2 Duo they run real nice on my widescreen laptop. 8)

[Rick Brewster]

Well then I guess I hope they get them in laptops soon.

Yes, they're available in laptops from Dell, et. al. And they fly.

The new Paint.NET Dev Box:

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 2.66 GHz overclocked to 3.2 GHz (quad core)

Intel D975XBX2 motherboard

4GB DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 Corsair memory (4 x 1GB modules)

Windows Vista Ultimate x64

I'm not kidding when I say I write Paint.NET to be optimized for multicore chips This thing is fast and runs PdnBench in 8.3 seconds, not to mention how fast it builds Paint.NET. Definitely a worthy upgrade from the X2 4800+.