re: which patches optimise XP for multi core processors?
Monday, May 11, 2009 at 8:21 am
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by C K
(6910 messages posted)
The preceived speed gains in SP3 have nothing to do with mutli-processors or multiple
core processors. Only XP Pro will handle multiple processors (2), Server additions
will handle more than 2 seperate processors, XP Home will handle multicore (processors
on the same chip) but not seperate processors.
Whatever speed gains there are for some people is for the software they have installed,
or tweaking some of the code in XP. There were also those who say that their internet
throughput increased due to some updates in XP. I have yet to see that on any good
optimized system with good hardware.
Multi-processors have been around for decades. Intel has been making processors
that ran in a multi environment for years. AMD not quite so long. It also depends
on how well the motherboard is designed and manufacturerd. Not just the processor.
Server systems (2 and more processors) were the best at utilizing multiple processors
and have for the past 20 years or so. They weren't affordable by the general public.
I'm still running dual processor machines that are 11 years old. They are still
the most reliable machines I have in my arsenal when it comes to some of my critical
applications that will run on them. The advatage with them was that the server boards
I used handled IRQ's smartly and I generally had no conflicts when good hardware
add-ons drivers were used. So at $12 to $15,000 to build a video/audio rendering
machine at that time, the average consumer would have no good reason to buy one.
Then along came the mulicore processors that are affordable. They really are engineered
to work properly depending on the support of the motherboard, how well it is engineered
and production quality. Then the software, from operating system to drivers, to
applications, have to be written smartly and as bug free as possible to take advantage
of, or integrate with the hardware. If you have sloppy programming, no amount of
good hardware will get you out of trouble, and it's no more difficult to write software
to multithread than it is to write it without multithreading capablities. It all
depends on the experience of the programmers. Believe me, the software is the issue
today. It overall, isn't keeping up with the capabilities of the hardware because
there are engineers writing software (and for some very big vendors) that should
be smacked over their heads with a keyboard! (from someone that used to program
robotics in an industry where mistakes can kill people and destroy a several million
dollar machine) ;-)
|
