Dual Core Processors question.

[OM2]

Dual Core Processors = I can start of a video processing application and work away on my machine with little or no performance loss (compared to a non dual processor).

Erm... is that right...?
I'm just going by the hype they give on the adverts and extrapolating.

Any further explanantions would be appreciated.

Thanks.


OM

[handyguy]

Dual core just means like two computers in one. They have been around for many years. They aren't basically twice as fast as a one core machine, until you do two tasks.

Also the software you're using has to support dual core.

[OM2]

ya... that was my understanding.

what i was saying:

- dual processors.
- one processor does my video processing.
- while i use the pther processor for just using the computer in general with no performance loss?

does that make it clearer?

thanks.

[jagabo]

If you are using a multithreaded application that is fully utilizing both cores performance of other apps will not improve. On the other hand, if you are using a single threaded application, then one core will be available to run other apps.

For most applications you don't really need dual core to free up cycles for foreground apps. You can use Task Manager (Alt+Ctrl+Del) to run the background process at low priority (some apps have their own settings for this). That way foreground apps will have priority over the background app.

[harley2ride]

I encode and do multiple other tasks on both of my pc's.
1- 3.4ghz with 1gb of ram
1- 3.2ghz with 2gb of ram

I've never had a problem or slowdown doing this. Additional cpu power will only cut down the time it takes to complete the encoding. Search google for cpu comparisons, and you will find lots of information showing how long it takes various cpu's to encode video, or process a photoshop task. Unless you are doing a lot of photoshop or video encoding tasks, anything around the 3.2ghz area will be more than sufficient.

From what I remember in one comparison, a sample video took 8 minutes on a 3.2ghz processor, and took 3 1/2 minutes on a dual core processor. Yes it's a 4 1/2 minute gain, but I'm always doing other things while it's encoding anyway, so I really never realize any time loss.