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DUAL PROCESSOR

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cheekyboo

IS-IT--Management
Dec 2, 2002
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My checkpoint software has been installed in a pc running Windows NT with dual processors. Is it a must to have dual processors? What's the benefit of having two compared to just one?

[ponytails2]
 
On a Solaris machine they say one processor per quad ethernet card because the arrival of data on the ethernet port causes CPU interrupts and contect switches. Sun only specify four ports per processor.

Other than that you can take your chances. Multiple CPUs usually tke part in symmetric multiprocessing under a decent operating system and that allows concurrent processing of separate applications, or faster processing for multi-threaded applications, so if you have multi-threaded apps then multiple CPUs give more grunt for that app. Multi-cpus under SMP give more overall grunt for systems that have independent running apps as you normally get an app to sort of attach itself to a particular cpu, and the idea is that the load is spread accross multiple CPUs evenly. This advantage is gained even in the absence of multi threaded apps.

So in general, you don't HAVE to have dual CPUs, but it can help depending on your hardware and software configuration and capabilities. Mind you if your system is IO bound or disk bound, or memory bound, then the returns are small or nill.
 
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