Should I go dual core?

[Maxxarcade]

I'm looking at building a new system based on the Socket AM2 Platform. Right now I have picked out the Athlon 64 X2 5600+ with 2x1MB cache, and a Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3 motherboard.

The thing is, I use WinXP home. Will I notice any speed improvement over my current socket 939 Athlon 64 3700+? Since XP Home only uses one core, will there be any stability issues?

I'm not a gamer, in fact the most demanding 3D app I use is probably Sketchup. I'm wondering if the onboard Geforce 6100 will be close enough to my current GF 6200 AGP card, or if I should upgrade to the 7100GS.

I'm hoping to decide on the purchase by Monday. It's going to be about $550 for the whole system, so I need to be careful about what I buy.

[Maxxarcade]

Re: Should I go dual core?

Almost forgot, does anyone know if my old Audigy Platinum will work on this motherboard? I've heard of some problems with these cards on certain nVidia chipsets.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Should I go dual core?

If an Audigy will work or not comes down to cheer luck and the phase of the moons, no logic at all to it I'm afraid

As for the CPU choice, well, if you really never ever have any intention of getting a OS that supports 2 CPU cores there would of course be no reason to have 2 CPU cores, it will just waste electricity

[willawake]

Re: Should I go dual core?

hmm i never realised that xp home supports only one cpu (never used it really)

why the hell were there laptops with core duo and xp home??????

[Per Hansson]

Re: Should I go dual core?

"Support for two physical central processing units (CPU). The number of CPU cores and Hyper-threading capabilities on modern CPUs are considered to be part of a single physical processor, therefore multicore CPUs will work fine under XP Home Edition."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP

[willawake]

Re: Should I go dual core?

ok then

[Maxxarcade]

Re: Should I go dual core?

XP Home will work w/ dual core then? Tits! (o)(o)

[stretch0069]

Re: Should I go dual core?

Home will not support two CPUs, so i don't see how it will support two "cores". seems like semantics to me......

[willawake]

Re: Should I go dual core?

someone mentioned tits?

[Maxxarcade]

Re: Should I go dual core?

Damn, I don't want to upgrade to XP Pro or Vista, and the only thing stopping me from using Ubuntu Linux is full support for quicktime, and a few other apps and multimedia formats.

[kc8adu]

Re: Should I go dual core?

i coulda swore i saw 2 cpu graphs in xp home on my neighbors vp6 box after i recapped it.
i know it wont support hyperthread dualcore intels as that counts as 4 procs even 2 are logical.

[stretch0069]

Re: Should I go dual core?

I'm wanting to say that when I first got XP, it was Home Edition. I put it on my VP6. I only had 1 CPU showing. I was pissed because I didn't research before buying. So I put it on my little single CPU P3 and went and got XP Pro.

.....I think thats how it went...........

.......damned CRS.

[stretch0069]

Re: Should I go dual core?

Well......after reading this from M$....it all becomes clear......as mud.

so.....Home should not support a VP6 because the VP6 has two CPUs. Apparently, though, it will support a mobo with a Quad-core because its only one CPU with multiple cores (or threads).

I may have to experiment......I guess I'll just have to suck it up and buy a quad core.......then pop XP Home on it and see what happens.....