Improvement and SMP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Hi,

I do a lot of "number-crunching" applications. My old computer is too slow for this, now and I need to upgrade my system. Someone suggested to buy a dual processor system (a dual AMD Opteron 64-bit system).

I would like to know what is the improvement I should expect from:
-running my good old 32-bit applications on this 32/64-bit platform ? (I read somewhere up to 80% improvement, but what does that really mean? I don't really dig benchmarks...)
-running software that may not have been designed with symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP) in mind ?

I know Win XP pro supports SMP, but what about my favorite applications ? (i.e. MS Excel 2002, PowerPoint, Photoshop7.0.1, S+, as well as many others)
Is there a list of SMP-friendly Microsoft applications available somewhere ?

Also, some claim that, when running under 32-bits OS, the sole advantage of AMD Opteron 64 is to overcome the 4 Gb RAM limit. Is that true? AMD claims not (you bet!) but I am likely to see any improvement with this processor if I use only 3 Gb of RAM ???

Thanks in advance for any hint/suggestions
Alex
 
List of Limitations in 64-Bit Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;282423&Product=winxp


--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


| Hi,
|
| I do a lot of "number-crunching" applications. My old computer is too slow for this, now and I need to upgrade my
system. Someone suggested to buy a dual processor system (a dual AMD Opteron 64-bit system).
|
| I would like to know what is the improvement I should expect from:
| -running my good old 32-bit applications on this 32/64-bit platform ? (I read somewhere up to 80% improvement, but
what does that really mean? I don't really dig benchmarks...)
| -running software that may not have been designed with symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP) in mind ?
|
| I know Win XP pro supports SMP, but what about my favorite applications ? (i.e. MS Excel 2002, PowerPoint,
Photoshop7.0.1, S+, as well as many others)
| Is there a list of SMP-friendly Microsoft applications available somewhere ?
|
| Also, some claim that, when running under 32-bits OS, the sole advantage of AMD Opteron 64 is to overcome the 4 Gb RAM
limit. Is that true? AMD claims not (you bet!) but I am likely to see any improvement with this processor if I use only
3 Gb of RAM ???
|
| Thanks in advance for any hint/suggestions
| Alex
 
Back
Top