XP Home Edition and X2 Dual Core compatability question

[richardrds]

I am sure this info is incorrect but i just want to verify it. I read a thread over at Extreme Overclocking forum that if you run a X2 Dual core CPU with Windows XP Home Edition that the OS will only reconize one of the two cores, and you need to upgrade to XP Pro in order for the OS to reconize both cores. This is the first I have heard about this and am sure it is incorrect, but since I am a XP Home user and getting ready to upgrade my 3000+ Winnie to a X2 3800+ i wanted to make sure before i order my X2 3800.

 

[Brainonska511]

The X2 will be seen as 2 cores by XP Home. You don't need to get XP Pro in order to use dual-cored or HT processors.

 

[richardrds]

Thanks for the fast reply, that is what i figured since i never read anything about an incompatability like that on the anandtech forums, but just wanted to make sure. The person that responded with that info over at the other forum said that Home Edition would reconize One physical and one logical core like a P4 HT CPU, but not reconize two physical CPU's or the second physical core in a dual core CPU. The funny thing is that this is a recent thread over at ExtreamOC and nobody corrected the persons responce and it was made 24 hours ago. Unfortunetely the OP responded taking the guys advice and said that he was going to buy a 3700 Single core sandiego instead of the X2 3800 because of the incorrect responce. I quess they are too busy laughing over there to correct him!!!!!

 

[Brainonska511]

That was probably the case. I'm pretty sure XP can't differentiate between physical cores and logical cores since on my P4 550 machine, it just shows the same information for both 'cores' in the device manager and task manager.

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511
That was probably the case. I'm pretty sure XP can't differentiate between physical cores and logical cores since on my P4 550 machine, it just shows the same information for both 'cores' in the device manager and task manager.

Yep, that is the case, windows doesn't know the differance between physical and logical cores. Thats why the Intel dual core extreme editions with hyperthreading don't always do as well as the non-HT version at the same speed..because windows just see's it as 4 logical CPU's and sometimes using HT instead of the second core, reducing performance by almost 60%.

But any way, windows licenses are by socket, rather than cores. So even a quad-core CPU will work with XP home, because it's only 1 socket.

 

[KDKPSJ]

Well, officially Home Edition doesn't support multi-processor - including HT. But remember that I said "officially." It is known that Home edition doesn't take a full advantage of SMP, but I am not sure since I've never installed Home Edition when I was using 2.8c, 630 and 820. As far as I know, it does show up multiple cores and has no problem of using them though.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: everydae
Well, officially Home Edition doesn't support multi-processor - including HT. But remember that I said "officially." It is known that Home edition doesn't take a full advantage of SMP, but I am not sure since I've never installed Home Edition when I was using 2.8c, 630 and 820. As far as I know, it does show up multiple cores and has no problem of using them though.

XP Home is able to differentiate between 2 cores and 2 sockets...2 cores are allowed, 2 sockets is XP Pro only.