AMD Dual Core CPU's

[Thilo Six]

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Billy Verreynne (JW) schrieb am 30.01.2006 06:55:
> Ed Fletcher wrote:
> 
> 
>>I'm looking at a new motherboard/cpu combination and I'm
>>looking for info on how well the dual core cpu's from AMD
>>work with Ubuntu Breezy.
> 
> 
> What do you expect from a dual core CPU Ed? Faster performance? That
> is not really what multiple CPUs provide.
> 
> My often used truck analogy to explain this.
> 
> A CPU is like a truck. It can move a certain amount of cargo at a
> certain speed. An additional truck allows you to move more cargo - but
> the speed at which that total cargo is being moved remains the same.
> 
> Additional CPUs increases processing capacity. Not processing speed.
> Thus with 2 CPUs you can run more active processes. But no process
> will run faster as the raw CPU speed is the same.
> 
> Where there are performance improvements if your existing CPU cannot
> handle the capacity thrown its way. A truck carrying more than it max
> cargo goes a lot slower than what is it capable of. A second truck
> will alleviate this, take on some the load itself, allowing the 1st
> truck to run at its proper speed again.
> 
> If you want to have faster processing, a faster CPU is needed. Not
> additional CPU capacity.
> 
> As a very general rule of thumb:
> 
> Desktop software are usually designed and written as single threaded
> processes. Increasing CPU capacity does not really help. A faster CPU
> is needed to make them go faster.
> 
> Most server-side software are written as multi-threaded processes.
> E.g. instead of 1 process doing all the work, the work is broken up
> into pieces that can be done in parallel. Additional CPU capacity
> allows more parallel processing and thus an increase in performance.
> 
> IMO for normal desktop use a dual-core CPU has no obvious benefits. If
> you are a gamer.. well, more and more games are making use of a
> multi-threaded design. Also on Windows, any DirectX game will by
> default be creating and using several DirectX threads (doing graphics,
> sounds, etc). In this case a dual-core CPU can increase game
> performance (the CPU is usually the bottleneck and not the VPU).
> 
> If you use Ubuntu more in a server/service like fashion (running a web
> server, sendmail, RSS feeds, ripping music, burning DVDs, etc, all at
> the same time), then additional CPU capacity likely is needed.
> 
> --
> Billy

Thanks for the explanation. I?m in quite the same situation (about to
buy new computer). Good informations you shared.

bye Thilo

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