Does Windows XP MCE 2005 support dual CPU's?

[Protoform-X]

And more importantly, would a Media Center benefit from this?

Thanks.

[DeFex]

i would think it would, otherwise it would not support hyper-threading. how much benefit you would get would depend on what you are doing with it.

2 actual CPUs in a media center pc means 2x as much fan noise and a beefier (and probably noisier) power supply.

[nylint]

i would think it would, otherwise it would not support hyper-threading. how much benefit you would get would depend on what you are doing with it.

2 actual CPUs in a media center pc means 2x as much fan noise and a beefier (and probably noisier) power supply.
You're assuming that computer makers use logic. I see vendors selling HT proc-ed boxen with XP Home all the time. You know...SMP-disabled XP Home?

[djnes]

C'mon fellas...do we really need to start this argument again?

SMP != HT

Or, in plain english, hyperthreading and smp are NOT the same thing. XP Home supports HT, as does MCE2005. XP Home does NOT support dual processors, but I believe MCE2005 would, considering it's XP Pro.

Now, would MCE2005 benefit from it? I don't know why everyone always asks about the OS for SMP boxes. It's not the OS you should be concerned about. It's the apps that run on the box. If your using some heavy media encoding software that can take advantage of dual procs, then yes. If your simply watching and recording TV, and playing back music files, probably not.

[nylint]

The way I am aware that Hyperthreading works, it appears as two logical processors to the OS.

If I call up the Task Manager's Performance Tab, I'd be sure to see two CPU's listed under a SMP-capable Windows OS, right?

Is it there in XP Home? -_-

[nylint]

Never mind. Misled by M$.
The last tech bulletin I read echoed what this guy said:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,519222,00.asp

[djnes]

Here's a link showing that XP Home doesn't support SMP:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx

Here's a link from Intel explaining that XP Home and Pro support HT:

http://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-017343.htm

Now, once again, as I stated above, SMP is NOT the same thing as HT. This has been beaten to death, reincarnated, and then beaten to death again.

[Protoform-X]

HT is not the question at hand. I want to physically put two processors in a box with MCE 2005.

[djnes]

HT is not the question at hand. I want to physically put two processors in a box with MCE 2005.

Read my first post again. I answered the question. If your not using any extremely intensive encoding software that can handle two procs, your just wasting money and increasing heat, power, and noise.

[nylint]

Sorry, we kind of hijacked the thread.

If XP MCE is based on the Pro kernel, which as stated above it apparently is, it will support two physical CPUs just fine.

I see no REAL benefit to this, however, in a HTPC application. You'll likely be doing one thing at a time, like watching a recording, or burning a CD, etc. Dual procs are best at doing two computationally intensive tasks at the same time, rather than speeding up the very few multithreaded apps that are out there.

[Phoenix86]

That's likely a side affect of MS wanting MCE to be able to join a domain, so they "had" to base it off of the pro kernel, thus it's also SMP capable. Just a guess though, could be another feature they wanted in MCE...

[Ranma_Sao]

Read my Sig? XP MCSE supports Dual Procs just fine. (And shows 4 if you use Dual Proc, HT procs)

[[MS]]

And here is a transcript from Microsoft that contains the same response (yes):
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/chats/transcripts/03december18.mspx
Just search for "dual".

As to the benefit? Can't say for certain as I have nothing to do with MCE, the below is just a theory about what should happen.

Some of the work in MCE was to make sure that the data stream of record\playback\playthough were high priority to the system. When doing multiple things at once, the UI and other apps will be affected first (and if you push the system hard enough the record\playback might begin skipping on slower systems). A second CPU would be useful for allowing additional overhead before the UI start to slow down when. Again though, don't have anything to do with MCE and don't have one, the above is just what I'd expect to happen.

[Protoform-X]

Read my Sig? XP MCSE supports Dual Procs just fine. (And shows 4 if you use Dual Proc, HT procs)

Perfect, that's what I needed to know, I guess.