Quad core doesn't support xp pro?

The brand doesn't make much difference. Those with similar specs will have similar performance. Many laptops are actually made by one of about 5 makers world wide and rebadged.

Last notebook I bought was for my wife. The head of tech at Best Buy explained why she thought the Sonys were the best but more expensive. Her next choice was a dualcore HP. I got that one and it's been perfect for 18 months. My one gripe about it, however, is that it was designed to NOT boot if a USB storage device is plugged in.

 

Thanks for the explanations, gnome. You take pains to answer questions. Wish more people were like you.

 

I have XP Pro and currently use Pentium 4 2.4Ghz with 2 gig Ram and I use Mixcraft 5 recording software and Tascam 1641 interface. I want to upgrade for better performance for recording music. any suggestions?

Sledge

 

More physical processors and less dies per processor are generally able to be more efficient for a number of reasons, but more expensive and wasteful of power, and typically are biased towards server implementations and opteron.

The more-cores-approach – they can have more cache per core, and in the case of the Opteron, they have more memory controllers per core.

Its a matter of memory starvation, memory locking, caching and memory latency/bandwidth.

On the opteron, now struggling in raw performance per die, scales nicely because for every die you have a dedicated memory controller and the advantage of local memory in a NUMA system.

Intel implements a shared cache for every 2 CPUs, even on quad core, so a 12MB cache quad core is two 6MBs, 6MB shared for 2 CPUs.

AMD implements a cache per core regardless, but its a lot smaller. This isnt a good thing.

Now, the intel, not having a memory controller per physical chip, has a shared memory FSB. So if you take a dual socket system, and put 8 cores in there (2 quad cores), you’ll have a really find system with massive memory starvation, as you get the dual channel/interleave but you go through the intel MCH to get to memory, so thats 8 CPUs lining up behing one MCH. The reason for the giant intel caches.

However, intel with the MCH, can get to new memory technologies a lot faster than AMD since its only changing the MCH and not the CPU.

In “real world/officemark” or gaming benchmarks, it is unlikely that you would see the benefit to using two dual cores vs one quad core. On the intel side it may not matter at all since the cache size per 2 cores can be made the same and there is still one MCH per two sockets.

Id get a single quad core and rejoice in the simplicity.

 

wow, ask and ye shall receive.

although I'm a novice at the internal workings of these machines, your last line says it all.

Would you say an Intel Quad core?

I use Windows XP Pro OS that I bought a number of years ago 5 to 7 years my guess. will there be a problem running that OS with the quad core system?

Sledge

 

No.

 

You can't really upgrade your system much... mostly a faster CPU (socket 478), is all. The newer Core2Duo and Core2Quad are Socket 775, so they won't work on your mobo.

If you want better performance, buy a new computer... or a used Socket 775 computer. They're much faster all around than the P4 generation.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-Precision-...0390775420?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item5194eaee7c

Above is a link to a Dell Precision T3400 w/E8500 (3.16Ghz) Core2Duo CPU, for $350. It doesn't have an OS, but if your copy of XP is "retail", you can use it on this computer. It also doesn't have a hard drive.. but you could get one used/new for $20/$40... or, you could get an SSD... $100-$300, which would make this system seem like a screamer compared to what you have.

The T3400 has a very good motherboard, and this one comes with a 90-day warranty. Or, you could spend $800-$1,500 on a new, Core i7 rig.

 

I hope that the term "upgrade" you were thinking of was not just buying a new processor chip. You are limited to the chip socket's design and the motherboard.

You are pretty much better off to buy a new computer. I have made my suggestions a few times in other threads. A summary is: (Looks like an i5 class computer would meet your need unless you really need some number crunching stuff).


If you trade using an internet browser, then a low-end PC will do. Intel i3 class and equivalent AMD processors. Price is about $500 or so.

If you trade using many charts, maybe a mid-end PC. Intel i5 class and equivalent AMD processors. Price is about $800 or so.

If you need to do a lot of backtesting, real time scanning, real time charts, heavy number crunching, then maybe a high-end PC. Intel i7 class. Won't be under $1000. Probably around $1200-$1300 and up.

The other thing to look for is how many PCIe slots available for expansion. These days most pre-configured boxes give only 1. It's only enough to drive 4 monitors if you buy a 4-head display card (more expensive). Or you can buy 2 dual-head display card (PNY, EVGA, etc.) for about $50-$60 each. But you must have at least 2 PCIe slots.

 

thanks for the info.

when I say upgrade I mean new computer components, CPU MoBo, SATA 7200 etc....

I just have to bit and piece it together for awhile, times are tough.

Will adding a SATA 7200rpm diskdrive help out much on my present system (P4 2.4Ghz with 2gig Ram)?

bit and piece plan is;

SATA 7200 HDD
quad core MoBo and chipset with 4 to 8gig ram

I have the retail XP Pro disk.

 

Unless you are running 64 bit OS only 4 gig ram is addressable, your P4 2.4 will run better on 32 bit xp pro or ubuntu