Strayed Wanderer wrote:Did you just imply that a dual-processor 3.2 ghz isn't in fact the equivalent of two 3.2s but instead a 3.2 cut in half?
Would seem that way with mine. Mines old. I don't have the exact specs because I'm in the backlands of Montana til the 5th.
Here's my understanding, correct me with data if I'm wrong.
See, googled "dual processing" and came up with an
over-simplified explanation, which justified my understanding.
Processors, as they should, process information and commands/demands from the system. They process commands sequentially. These commands have data waiting to be used in the commands. I believe it is termed a "pipeline", and the more tasks a pipeline can cue, the more stuff a CPU can do in a short amount of time, so greater cues are good. If you have more "hands", as the site said, and more pipelines, then you can get the work done faster. Same speed, less power requirements, same CPU total.
First thing: My desktop has AMD, my laptop has Intel. Therefore, AMD, which has a shorter pipeline, is at a disadvantage.
Second, and more important thing: When I was running frets and ripping the song, it showed a cap of 50% of my cpu usage when I looked at my running processes. Frets doesn't have SMP support, aka symmetric multi-processing written into its code, so it can't utilize both processors at once, which, if it could, is called 'multithreading'. Half the processing speed, half the processors being used. If you are correct, and both processors have 3.2 ghz, then there'd be no competition between my laptop and desktop, but there was a major difference, something a slight difference in pipeline lengths wouldn't make.
Each dual-core chip contains the same computing might as today's most advanced chips, but with greatly reduced power requirements.
(
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71467-0.html)
But dual-core means only one chip! The entire power of the machine is 3.2 ghz. If both processors had 3.2 ghz of processing, then it would beat the laptop no problem. I don't have 6.4 Ghz. 50% means half the CPU power, and half that power, aka one processor, is 1.6 .
This motherboard in question is at least 3 years (absolute
MINIMUM) old, and I doubt even now there are single processors that hold 3.2 ghz alone.
Also, uh, there's this, which makes complete sense:
wikipedia on SMP wrote:Support for SMP must be built into the operating system. Otherwise, the additional processors remain idle and the system functions as a uniprocessor system.
So, if my desktop did one of at least 50 songs in 22 hours while the laptop did that entire list in less than half that time, I concluded before even bothering with all this that it only devoted 1.6ghz, aka one processor, and I am further assured this because Frets doesn't seem to have SMP built in, even though SMP can be supported by XP.