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              Outbreak Magazine Issue #13 - Article 7 of 15
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The Truth Behind Dual Procs and "Hyper-Threaded" Procs
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by: bloodcar (bloodcar@earthlink.net)


Some of you may have bought into the whole "hyper-threading will make everything run 
faster" and / or "dual procs make everything run faster."  You think "Oh, I cant wait to 
get my hyper-threaded / dual proc computer set up! Its gonna own!" But when it finally 
comes to your door, you get it ripped from the box and finally installed, you quick get 
your hopes and dreams bashed into a billion tiny little pieces.

If you bought either of the above mentioned products because you thought it would hake 
Q3 or UT2k2 run any smoother, you were wrong.  Why is that?  Well, in order for a 
program to take advantage of dual procs or a hyper-threaded proc, they have to be 
specially coded for them.  So dont get your hopes up of being able to take advantage of 
them while gaming.

"So Ive wasted my money on something that I cant take advantage of."  Not entirely 
true.  If any of you have ever rendered large images, you know it is pointless to run any 
other programs while the renderer is running because they will both just chug along at 
slow speeds.  Dual procs / hyper-threaded procs will help you people out though.  That is 
as long as your operating system supports it.  The workload is split in half between the 
procs allowing more programs to be run without the big hit in speed.  But as of right now, 
if you dont render or use any programs that require pretty much a whole proc by itself 
and want to compute while rendering, then dont bother in any of these technologies.  
Wait it out for now because maybe in the future with the rest of the Intel line going 
hyper-threaded and AMD next generation going down the same route, we may actually 
see games to take advantage of this.

You can learn more about hyper-threading technology at 
http://www.intel.com/homepage/land/hyperthreading.htm?iid=ipp_dlc_procp4p+body_in
tro_ht& and http://www.zephirtech.com/article.html?i=90

If you wish to correct any mistakes that I may have made or you simply wish to talk to 
me about this, you can catch me in #Outbreakzine on Dalnet.
