FSX & Dual Core Processors

bigvern · Post by **bigvern** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:22 am

I've noticed there are a few good deals kicking around at present on new PC's with Dual Core Processors. Play are listing a Fujitsu D820 (which I believe is equivalent to 2 x P4 2.8Ghz CPU) for around Â£600 and just been in Comet who have a similar spec Acer base unit for under Â£500.

Question is, does FSX take advantage of dual core processor ability? What sort of performance is that type spec of machine going to give. Both units have a 7300 Geforce graphics card and 1024Mb of RAM.

It is a nice affordable upgrade - current PC is a P4 2.4 Ghz single processor but obviously don't want to part with @Â£500 if it's only going to be a small performance increase.

danielw2599 · Post by **danielw2599** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 12:29 pm

Is that how Dual core works? I always assumed that your total prossesor speed is just divided by two?

I have a dual core Centrino 2.16Ghz machine. Does that actually mean in theory Im running 2x 2.16 Ghz machine?

bigvern · Post by **bigvern** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 12:41 pm

It is very confusing as there are also "Dual Core Duo" machines which I presume are 4 x processors but the speed quoted on the spec for the actual CPU is < 2.0Ghz on those.

The salesman in Comet was trying to convince me it means 2 x the CPU speed but I never believe what you get told in Comet at face value, hence my query on here.

I'll maybe post in the Open Forum too as I don't think that many people visit the aviation section.

danielw2599 · Post by **danielw2599** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 1:04 pm

From what I can gather from the Intel website, Dual core doesnt mean 2xXXXghz as it uses the same single prosessor.

http://www.intel.com/technology/computing/dual-core/

At least thats my limited understanding of it anyway. Turns out I have the dual core duo thingy anyway.

Post by **NeutronIC** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 12:21 pm

Dual core is like dual cpu but on the same die.

It ends up being a lot faster than single core, requires code that supports multiple CPU's and it's performance isn't *quite* the same as dual CPU's - in some aspects it's better since they are on the same die, however in some aspects it isn't quite as good since it shares L2 Cache I think - not 100% sure.

Dual core is definitely the way to go - I think "Dual Core Duo" is just intel's way of marketing bods drumming home the "dual/duo" bit, quad-core is on the way but definitely not in the mainstream yet.

You're getting essentially two cpu's at the given speed - which is not the same as single cpu of double the speed, again, in some cases that's better (splitting tasks smoothly across two cpu's) and in some cases it isn't as good (a single task can't usually use both cpu's unless it can be batched and split across them).

Bottom line though, that's where it is all heading, not sure if FSX makes use of it - i'd be surprised if you didn't see a benefit of some kind though.

Matt.

decapod · Post by **decapod** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:04 pm

Dual core/dual CPU's also means that individual processes/threads make use of the 2 processing pipelines, so all your backround programs can use one side and FS the other.
You end up with more dedicated CPU power to your program.

If you look at the task manager, performance tab you'll see the usage of the 2 CPU's
I ran two programs on my AMDx2 64 5200+ last night - FS2004 (all options max'd running at 60fps solid) and my shape viewer on another monitor - both CPU's went up to 100%, but no significant drop in frame rates on either.
(The CPU got a bit warmer tho)

james10 · Post by **james10** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 10:06 am

In simple terms: Its two processers of the same speed working at the same time, so you can do more than one thing and also doubling the speed it does it in...

James