How to fully utilize a Quad Core? A Duo Core would/could suffice?

-Lost

How to fully utilize a Quad Core? A Duo Core would/could suffice?

Everything I have ever read says that multiple core processors are
wasted in "single threads" (not real threading). That is, unless I
fired up 2 copies of Photoshop for example, the processor may be
wasted.

And of course there are applications that make use of multiple cores,
but what I really want to know is what are the rules of thumb for
building Duo/Quad Core systems?

I use: Maya, Blender, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash for digital
creation.

I use: Premiere, After Effects, Vegas, VirtualDub, TMPGEnc, Wax, et
cetera. Depending on the job.

Most (if not all) of these applications can utilizes multiple cores
*AND* multiple processors. Is it that simple? Only run applications
(and an OS) that supports multiple cores/processors?

(Although for now, I think I will stick to a single CPU.)

This is my first venture into anything beyond a single-core and I am
VERY hesitant to blow cash on something I will never fully utilize.

Care to shed any light, please? Thanks!

--
-Lost
Remove the extra words to reply by e-mail. Don't e-mail me. I am
kidding. No I am not.

darklight

-Lost wrote:

> How to fully utilize a Quad Core? A Duo Core would/could suffice?
>
> Everything I have ever read says that multiple core processors are
> wasted in "single threads" (not real threading). That is, unless I
> fired up 2 copies of Photoshop for example, the processor may be
> wasted.
>
> And of course there are applications that make use of multiple cores,
> but what I really want to know is what are the rules of thumb for
> building Duo/Quad Core systems?
>
> I use: Maya, Blender, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash for digital
> creation.
>
> I use: Premiere, After Effects, Vegas, VirtualDub, TMPGEnc, Wax, et
> cetera. Depending on the job.
>
> Most (if not all) of these applications can utilizes multiple cores
> *AND* multiple processors. Is it that simple? Only run applications
> (and an OS) that supports multiple cores/processors?
>
> (Although for now, I think I will stick to a single CPU.)
>
> This is my first venture into anything beyond a single-core and I am
> VERY hesitant to blow cash on something I will never fully utilize.
>
> Care to shed any light, please? Thanks!
>

if cost is a factor go for a amd x2 64 more bang for the buck some people
would disagree so i suggest you take a look at tomshardware cpu chart and
make a desistion from there

GT

"-Lost" <maventheextrawords@techie.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9ABB9AED5BAlostthreads@216.196.97.136...
> How to fully utilize a Quad Core? A Duo Core would/could suffice?
>
> Everything I have ever read says that multiple core processors are
> wasted in "single threads" (not real threading). That is, unless I
> fired up 2 copies of Photoshop for example, the processor may be
> wasted.
>
> And of course there are applications that make use of multiple cores,
> but what I really want to know is what are the rules of thumb for
> building Duo/Quad Core systems?
>
> I use: Maya, Blender, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash for digital
> creation.
>
> I use: Premiere, After Effects, Vegas, VirtualDub, TMPGEnc, Wax, et
> cetera. Depending on the job.
>
> Most (if not all) of these applications can utilizes multiple cores
> *AND* multiple processors. Is it that simple? Only run applications
> (and an OS) that supports multiple cores/processors?
>
> (Although for now, I think I will stick to a single CPU.)
>
> This is my first venture into anything beyond a single-core and I am
> VERY hesitant to blow cash on something I will never fully utilize.
>
> Care to shed any light, please? Thanks!

First point - from the operating system / software point of view, multiple
core is the same thing as multiple processors - the only difference is the
number of physical parts you have to plug in.

Secondly, moving from single core to dual core and you will find the system
generally more responsive, although not necessarily faster at single
threaded applications (depending on what single core CPU you are upgrading
from!). If you have software that really can make use of more than one CPU,
then multi-core would clearly speed things up by a factor of 2 or 4. If you
have software that can't make use of multiple cores, then things will
probably still speed up a tiny bit as system tasks can use the 'spare' core,
but you will find that things generally respond better. If you are using a
single core PC and run a process at 100%, then when you do anything on the
system - open an application, press the start button etc, the machine will
respond very sluggishly, but with dual or more cores, the system responds as
if nothing is running! Also if a process hangs, then a dual core setup will
continue to respond, whereas a single core system will either get completely
stuck or respond like a snail.

Price-wise, I think you are best to go for a dual core at the moment. Of
course, what you choose depends on your budget, but if building a new system
myself right now, I would be going for the Intel 8000 series processors. The
intel processors are more powerful than the equivalently priced AMD
processors, but the intel motherboards are generally more expensive. The
other components in the system would be the same.

Don't forget to buy plenty of RAM. I wouldn't settle for less than 2GB at
the moment, preferably 3GB. Any more than 3GB is wasted on XP as it won't be
able to use much more than 3GB regardless of how much is in the PC. I don't
know about limits in Windows Vista, but presume it will handle / use much
more than the next few yeasrs will allow us to install on a reasonable
budget.

Michael C

"-Lost" <maventheextrawords@techie.com> wrote in message
> This is my first venture into anything beyond a single-core and I am
> VERY hesitant to blow cash on something I will never fully utilize.

You've got to get over this. When I bought my current PC I knew full well
that a dual core would be faster overall but a quad core is simply TOO DAMN
COOL to pass up. Think of all the great benefits, you get 4 (FOUR!) little
green and black graphs in task manager.

> Most (if not all) of these applications can utilizes multiple cores
> *AND* multiple processors. Is it that simple? Only run applications
> (and an OS) that supports multiple cores/processors?

Yes, it is that simple. You have a piece of hardware and you will need the
software to utilise it. This is the same as something as simple as getting
extra ram, if your software can't use it then the extra ram is useless.
Although most apps don't support multiple processors.

Michael

Marcel Overweel

"-Lost" <maventheextrawords@techie.com> schreef in bericht
news:Xns9ABB9AED5BAlostthreads@216.196.97.136...
> How to fully utilize a Quad Core? A Duo Core would/could suffice?
>
> Everything I have ever read says that multiple core processors are
> wasted in "single threads" (not real threading). That is, unless I
> fired up 2 copies of Photoshop for example, the processor may be
> wasted.
>
> And of course there are applications that make use of multiple cores,
> but what I really want to know is what are the rules of thumb for
> building Duo/Quad Core systems?
>
> I use: Maya, Blender, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash for digital
> creation.
>
> I use: Premiere, After Effects, Vegas, VirtualDub, TMPGEnc, Wax, et
> cetera. Depending on the job.
>
> Most (if not all) of these applications can utilizes multiple cores
> *AND* multiple processors. Is it that simple? Only run applications
> (and an OS) that supports multiple cores/processors?
>
> (Although for now, I think I will stick to a single CPU.)
>
> This is my first venture into anything beyond a single-core and I am
> VERY hesitant to blow cash on something I will never fully utilize.
>
> Care to shed any light, please? Thanks!
>
> --
> -Lost
> Remove the extra words to reply by e-mail. Don't e-mail me. I am
> kidding. No I am not.

Digital imaging software and especially 3d rendering software *can*
make very good use of multiple processors and/or cores.
I know that render-speeds with programs like 3d studio or cinebench
almost increases linear with the number of cores/processors.

Don't know about Maya, but a quick google search gives me the
indication that Maya doesn't utilize more than one core, so that would
be a bummer.

For average users, a dual core is more than enough.
Seeing the list of software you use, you do *not* fall in that category

Rendering a 3d scene on one or two cores, playing a multiplayer LAN
game and having some mp3's playing in the backround all at the same
time on one machine without any hickups?
Yeah, that's what quad can do!

But... (there is always a but!) ...
If your programs using frequent file access on the same harddrive,
your harddrive can and will slow things down terribly!
If two running programs are hunting for a piece of harddrive access,
all benefits of the quad are going down the drain.
So take that into account when you decide what to buy.

Just my 2 cents.

regards,
Marcel

Mike Walsh

A 32 bit OS can access up to 3 GB memory. A 64 bit OS can theoretically access a huge amount of memory but the amount you can access may be arbitrarily limited e.g. I recently noticed on a Microsoft web page that Vista is limited to 8 GB to 128 GB depending on the version of Vista.
Vista by itself can use almost a GB and many applications are limited to 2 GB so if you are running only one application you will likely not be able to use more than 3 GB.

GT wrote:
>
> Don't forget to buy plenty of RAM. I wouldn't settle for less than 2GB at
> the moment, preferably 3GB. Any more than 3GB is wasted on XP as it won't be
> able to use much more than 3GB regardless of how much is in the PC. I don't
> know about limits in Windows Vista, but presume it will handle / use much
> more than the next few yeasrs will allow us to install on a reasonable
> budget.

--
Mike Walsh

John McGaw

-Lost wrote:
> How to fully utilize a Quad Core? A Duo Core would/could suffice?
>
> Everything I have ever read says that multiple core processors are
> wasted in "single threads" (not real threading). That is, unless I
> fired up 2 copies of Photoshop for example, the processor may be
> wasted.
>
> And of course there are applications that make use of multiple cores,
> but what I really want to know is what are the rules of thumb for
> building Duo/Quad Core systems?
>
> I use: Maya, Blender, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash for digital
> creation.
>
> I use: Premiere, After Effects, Vegas, VirtualDub, TMPGEnc, Wax, et
> cetera. Depending on the job.
>
> Most (if not all) of these applications can utilizes multiple cores
> *AND* multiple processors. Is it that simple? Only run applications
> (and an OS) that supports multiple cores/processors?
>
> (Although for now, I think I will stick to a single CPU.)
>
> This is my first venture into anything beyond a single-core and I am
> VERY hesitant to blow cash on something I will never fully utilize.
>
> Care to shed any light, please? Thanks!
>

I started mentally adding up the approximate costs of the software packages
you named and before I finished I decided that anyone who can afford that
much software should be able to afford at least a quad-core processor on
which to run it.

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com

-Lost

Response to John McGaw <nobody@nowh.ere>:

<snip>

> I started mentally adding up the approximate costs of the software
> packages you named and before I finished I decided that anyone who
> can afford that much software should be able to afford at least a
> quad-core processor on which to run it.

Don't be fooled friend. I am a student. Adobe Suite CS3 for about
$200 and Maya for $300.

That and the spouse utilizes the same programs so it was a much easier
purchase.

--
-Lost
Remove the extra words to reply by e-mail. Don't e-mail me. I am
kidding. No I am not.

-Lost

Response to "-Lost" <maventheextrawords@techie.com>:

<snip>

> This is my first venture into anything beyond a single-core and I
> am VERY hesitant to blow cash on something I will never fully
> utilize.
>
> Care to shed any light, please? Thanks!

Thanks to everyone for shedding some light on the subject.

Basically only a serious multitasker would utilize a quad system. I
don't think that will be a problem, but overall budget might.

I'd hate to have a screaming system with onboard sound and half as
much video card as I'd like.

Thanks again, all!

--
-Lost
Remove the extra words to reply by e-mail. Don't e-mail me. I am
kidding. No I am not.