[James7285]

Hi i have an AMD Athlon 2Gig

I wanna get another one and use them as dual Processors.

2 Questions really

1. I have no idea how you go about putting 2 processors on a motherbored.

2. R there any cons or any things that can go wrong when using 2 processors?

Thanks

[capty99]

quite a bit more heat produced.

[James7285]

I know there is the problem with more heat produced, I would have thought U use two fans... My knowlage of using dual processors is very limmited, as i say i have no idea what im doing!

[SlashRaid]

First you'll need a dual board.You can't just slap two processors onto any od board... Use logic here.

Check EggHead or TigerDirect for pricing and such. The main concern for most DIY'ers is that you have twice the possibility of ruinning to processorers during assembly, ecspeccially the damn proc. fan/heatsink.

Use caution and read the mainboard & Processor manuals, it's pretty straight forward.

[Cookie Mobster]

http://www.hardwarez...z?cid=2&aid=393

[James7285]

OK cheers I will look into it!

[Thorian]

and get the most powerful powersupply that you can cause you will want to add a few extra Case fans to keep them cool

[Lord Manimal]

After you go dual, you'll never go back. Sure the performance increase isn't as high as you're likely thinking, but you damn near need it if you plan on setting up a heavily used file server or some situation where your processor is being paged constantly. Win2K is the way go baby! Oh, don't forget about that. You'll have to be running an NT based OS, and it seems to me that you're a Windows user, no?

[Noffke]

Doesn't the software have to be capable of using both processors for any performance difference to show up?

[The Neoracle]

Noffke, on Dec 17 2002, 12:13 PM, said:

Doesn't the software have to be capable of using both processors for any performance difference to show up?

Both the OS and the Software have to be able to use two processors.

Also, you'll need Athlon MP's (Multi Processors) if you want to go the AMD route.

[Noffke]

I take it most operating systems are coded to do this if an extra processor is present?

[bazooka tooth]

no.. windows NT 4.0 was the first windows operating system to really utilize dual processors.. but it doesn't use do it efficiently at all. win2000 improved it a bit, and I'm sure XP does it, but I don't know how well (i'm sure better).

linux does it pretty darn well.

i had a dual 266mhz pc once.. hahah my dad still uses it in athens.

[Cookie Mobster]

I had a dual Pentium 133 Pro at work a few months back, it sure was fun to toy with, but for a workstation it is almost pointless, as someone before me said, you have to have software that can handle multiprocessor tasks to make use of it, and most are for server tools. I was running windows 2000 adv server on it and it rarely used both processors at the same time. But it sure give you bragging rights.

[Vetritus03]

true about it being pointless. XP home doesn't support dual processors, but Pro will handle 2. Its widely known that Windows Multi-processing (at least on the client versions) isn't true multi-tasking. Windows allocates all its processes to one processor and lets any apps use the other. so, while your app doesn't have to be written specifically for a dual cpu... apps like Photoshop will actually take advantage of both at the same time.

[Noffke]

yeah back a couple of years ago in school we did some programming that took advantage of up to 5 processors. And my teacher was telling me that people were selling dual processors to regular joe who didn't know at the time that most software and OS's did not take advantage of the dual processors. I asked the question to see if that has changed in the recent past and if it was worth getting two of them suckers.