Dual CPU's on a mobo, double the performance?

[Deftones94x]

What are the main ideal uses for a dual cpu board, and say if you had a board with 2 XP 1800+ how much would it perform then a board with P42.ghz, or simialr.

I'd just like to know if dual CPU's is great for game serving and is it faster.

 

[SupermanCK]

theoretically, yes it is twice the performance...but in real world, NO
as for gaming server...it would be faster obviously if you are running multiple games...basically a dual set up should split up the calculation in half...so each CPU would calculate half of the math...so in theory, result in half the time it was suppose to take with one cpu.
the benefits of a dual cpu set up is best for server, heavy graphic works, heavy math computations...etc...

 

[AluminumStudios]

supermanCK's explanation was a little cloudy IMHO. Dual CPU systems don't automatically split program tasks in half. A program must be well threaded to take advantage of multiple CPUs (it must use different threads to do different parts of it's job.)

Dual CPU will be useful when you run multiple programs at once, or you have a program designed to use Dual CPUs. If neither of these conditions are true then your software will run a close to the speed of a single CPU.

There is OS and system bandwidth overhead with multi-CPUs too, so you never get the full speed of both.

Video editing, image editing, media, 3d rendering, animation, CAD, all benefit from multiple CPUs. I don't know it to be much of a boost to many games.

 

[SupermanCK]

my bad...just wanted to give out a quick answer...something easy to understand...but you are totally right AL Studios

 

[mobogasm]

Just wanted to add that in certain tasks with the proper hardware (multiple memory channels) dual cpu's and quad cpu's and higher can perform better than an equivalently equipped single processor. In many instances in my profession I have seen this to be true in server environments where 4 processors outperform one processor that is as powerful as all four together. Althought this is only seen for the most part in certain application server and other environments with applications / os's that were efficiently written for this use, not likely to be seen by a home user.

 

[Deftones94x]

Understood.

Thanks.

 

[pRoNe]

There is not that much difference in performance between single and dual cpu's unless the dual cpu's are symetrical in design, which unless it is a supercomputer like the cray or the likes.
The x586 design used by intel and amd are actually assymetrical meaning that when grouped they can not work as two independant cpu's and calculate there own alogarithims like the symetrical cpu's but rather they share the load.
There is performance to be gained in either setup, but not as much as what is expected from the consumers.
ie. a dual amd mp1800 system is about 15 - 20 % faster then an equivelent amd xp1800, with exactly the same stuff inside. like amount and type and even brand of memory, harddrive/s etc.
If they were symetrical it would most probably be up near the 100% but I would guess more like 75 - 80%.
If you live in Australia or have access to our magazines I suggest you purchase a computer mag called atomic.
a few issues back they did a write up of the pro's and con's of dual systems, and explained the symetrical and assymetrical systems in more detail then I could ever do.

cheers