Part of the attraction of multi-tasking operating systems like
Windows and Linux is that you can have several processes going on at
once.  For instance, you might be surfing a website in one window
while your email downloads in another.
  If your system has multiple CPUs, and your operating system is
designed to support it, then it's possible for some tasks to be
assigned to one CPU and some to another.  This limits the ability of
a single intensive process -- say, a global virus scan -- to slow
down everything else you're trying to get done.

  A few specific high-end applications, such as Photoshop, are
written so that different parts of the same job can be assigned to
different CPUs.  These applications will actually run faster if there
are multiple CPUs available.

  OSes that support multiple CPUs include all flavours of Unix/Linux,
and Windows NT/2000/XP.  Windows 95/98/ME support only a single CPU,
and will make no use of a second CPU if one is present.

  There is some managment overhead in coordinating two CPUs; as a
rule of thumb, expect a 2-CPU system to crank about 65% more cycles
than one with a single CPU at the same clock speed.

Dave Gillett



On 1 Nov 2001, at 19:35, Ricky Barnett wrote:

> I am getting ready to build a pc can someone tell me the benifet
> of having two cpu over haveing one thank Rick

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