Dual Processors

Reef · #1 07-28-2006, 02:50 AM

link

Saw an ad online and apparently dual processor computers are going to be released soon, making our current ones obsolete or almost-obsolete. Or maybe they already are?

Anyone have any idea on the power of these things?
Think they'll be in laptop form soon?
Anyone plan on getting one?

Herrigel · #2 07-28-2006, 07:01 AM

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Saw an ad online and apparently dual processor computers are going to be released soon,

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Are you saying that Dual-Core is a new technology?
I'm using one since 6 months or so and I am not overly happy. Didn't do much for my Poker performance.

Shroomy · #3 07-28-2006, 09:27 AM

Yes dual core processors have been around for a while (over a year) and dual processors or dual core will increase your performance, but typically only if you are running multiple applications. It is rare that an application is written to properly take advantage if a dual core or dual processor. The reason is that it is a major pain in the but to write them for the small percentage of users who have them. The exceptions are server type applications such as SQL server etc..

I am willing to bet that 90% of the users here are usuing about 10% of their cpu processing as it is.(you can check in task manager on the performance tab)

and as for poker, it will certainly not give you much of a boost since the bottleneck is almost never the CPU but the network, or occasionally the graphics card.

btw dual core processors are subtly different from dual processors that have been around forever in that they are both on the same die (think chip) so they perform better because they have better communications between the cores.

LuckyTxGuy · #4 07-28-2006, 08:07 PM

Good info Shroomy. Dual core isn't brand new (still fairly new though) and it's the way of the future, with more dual core chips coming down the line. Shroomy is right, most people won't notice the dual chips unless running mulitple programs because very few apps were written for dual chips. Certain high end programs like Photoshop are able to take advantage of dual core chips and it has been since around PS 4.0.

While CPU speed is important, it's not like the old days when we were really maxing our CPU's out. I try to convince people that for the average computer user, RAM is much more important than the latest greatest CPU. The days of buying a new computer and thinking "Wow this thing is 10x as fast as my old one!" seem to be gone....unless you have a really old computer.lol

Freakin · #5 07-28-2006, 09:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Good info Shroomy. Dual core isn't brand new (still fairly new though) and it's the way of the future, with more dual core chips coming down the line. Shroomy is right, most people won't notice the dual chips unless running mulitple programs because very few apps were written for dual chips. Certain high end programs like Photoshop are able to take advantage of dual core chips and it has been since around PS 4.0.

While CPU speed is important, it's not like the old days when we were really maxing our CPU's out. I try to convince people that for the average computer user, RAM is much more important than the latest greatest CPU. The days of buying a new computer and thinking "Wow this thing is 10x as fast as my old one!" seem to be gone....unless you have a really old computer.lol

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I think HDD speed is also quite important. buy a cheapo singlecore proc if you want to save money, but throw in a gig of superfast ram and a 10k drive and you'll be set

LuckyTxGuy · #6 07-28-2006, 10:39 PM

Good point Freakin. I'm still amazed at how many customers I find have a decent XP machine with 256 mb of ram!? The HD speed can definatly be a factor too, however for the avg. user 10k RPM is probably overkill. It still can't hurt though.

666slayer666 · #7 07-29-2006, 01:05 AM

I'm using a Dual Core Opteron 165. Everything runs very very smooth. Very little lag.

aujoz · #8 07-29-2006, 01:10 AM

i would've thought that the standard poker setup, of poker software + pokertracker + pahud + mth + etc. would have meant that dual core processors *did* give a big boost to these actions.

as i understand it, these are all very processor intensive.

jrbick · #9 07-29-2006, 01:24 AM

You guys don't play at party poker, do you?

Party + PT ALONE is very processor intensive (when PT imports it takes upwards of 100% CPU usage). Party regularly takes 35-85+ CPU usage.

LuckyTxGuy · #10 07-29-2006, 02:58 AM

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You guys don't play at party poker, do you?

Party + PT ALONE is very processor intensive (when PT imports it takes upwards of 100% CPU usage). Party regularly takes 35-85+ CPU usage.

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I'm playing Party right now. Here is what I'm running and my stats....

Party lobby and 1 table
Poker Tracker
Poker Ace Hud
Firefox
Mozilla Thunderbird (mail client)
Rhapsody - streaming music

That is a fair amount of stuff going at once. I've got a Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop, Intel Dual Core T2400, 1 GB of RAM.

Current CPU usage is fluxuating between 4% and 10%. The max peak every once in awhile is at 18%.