right here it goes a few questions about dual processors. does a dual processor mobo have to have 2 processors in or can it run with only one cpu? do both the processors have to be the same speed? does the RAM have to be any special type ie regestered ECC? finaly do you get double the performance or is that dependant on what programs your running, eg programes that take advantage of dual processors? thanks
a) it will in most cases (havent heard of one yet, but im sure theres one out there) run with only 1 cpu...just like a normal mobo.... b) they do not have to be the same speed, but this often makes it unstable... c) im pretty sure the ram is motheboard dependent, but good ram is reccomended.... d) you will need to run win2k or winxp to make use of the dual cpus, and yet only a few programs such as photoshop and other rendering programs will make use of the 2nd cpu...it is supposed to work in q3 but that is debetable..... its only really worth it if you have too much money or you work with a lot of graphic programs that support it...if its the first send some to me ...hope that helps....
I was thinking of upgrading to 2000+XP athlon and as its only 266 Mhz increase from 1.4 tbird (current) i was thinking dual 2000+XP's. But as I really use the system for games probaly just go for 1 2000+XP and 1GB RAM thanks for the help
if you have money to burn, give it to me. dual processors arnt supported enough yet so i would just go for a single processor. it not only saves you money by only getting one CPU, MP processors are more exspensive too. .icecube
1) It may have to have a "dummy" terminator in one of the sockets if the second CPU is not present. This will be supplied with the board if it is required. 2) Yes. You can not run different speed CPUs 3) Generally ECC is a must. My landlord's Tyan was completely unstable without it. 4) You will never get double the performance. This is due to arbitration and other overheads in tasking the CPUs. You will only see performance improvements when running multi-threaded applications (eg Photoshop, bryce, 3dsmax). Although some games support multi-threading, it offers no real improvements. An XP2000+ is hardly a hugely worthwhile upgrade from Tbird 1400. I'd also say that a Tbird 1400 isn't exactly lacking power right now, and that it might be wiser to wait longer before upgrading.
