Does Vista take advantage of Intel's QuadCore ?

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Zorachus

[H]F Junkie
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Just wondering if Vista 32 or 64only, can take advantage of the QuadCore from Intel as opposed to just the standard DualCore found on Athlon64 and the base Core2Duo ? Also isnt it true that Vista64 MUST have a dual core processor minimum ?

Does having a QuadCore as opposed to just a DualCore make Vista run twice as fast or twice as smooth, or more realistically does it allow ya to do 4 major things at once like burning, installing a game, etc......Thank's
 
Although im not positive on this Vista takes advantage of every single core you throw at it. In other words if you happened to have an 80 core CPU Vista WILL in fact take advantage of all 80 of them. The so called "Future proofing" because cores will be the next ghz.
 
Adding more cores to the CPU doesn't double everything in relation to speed. No, it doesn't make Vista twice as fast. It'll further enhance multi-tasking, and it'll improve performance in multi-threaded application which can take advantage of the extra cores.

Basically it's little more than a marketting gimmick which will give little practical benefit beyond better ePenis benchmark results. (At this point in time, anyway.)
 
Catweazle said:
Adding more cores to the CPU doesn't double everything in relation to speed. No, it doesn't make Vista twice as fast. It'll further enhance multi-tasking, and it'll improve performance in multi-threaded application which can take advantage of the extra cores.

Basically it's little more than a marketting gimmick which will give little practical benefit beyond better ePenis benchmark results. (At this point in time, anyway.)
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Uhh if youre saying multiple cores is a marketing gimmick, then youre wrong. MC dont give you faster speed on one application, but it surely speed up efficiency.
 
Catweazle said:
Adding more cores to the CPU doesn't double everything in relation to speed. No, it doesn't make Vista twice as fast. It'll further enhance multi-tasking, and it'll improve performance in multi-threaded application which can take advantage of the extra cores.

Basically it's little more than a marketting gimmick which will give little practical benefit beyond better ePenis benchmark results. (At this point in time, anyway.)
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i dont understand why so many uninformed people keep repeating this nonsense. if something is written for multiple cores, it will be multiple times as fast! what you are talking about is just the basic way multiple cores will adapt to a situation/application that isnt coded for multiple cores. AGAIN, I REPEAT: if an app or an OS or whatever is written with multiple cores in mind it will be twice is fast, 4 times as fast, or whatever!

like someone said before me, multiple cores is the future of processor performance. not ghz
 
My comment doesn't negate the contention that multi-cored CPUs are the way of the future, nor does it negate the reality that multi-core operation is more responsive for multi-tasking and leads to better performance in suitable applications usage.

The comment simply indicates that if a person isn't doing heavy-duty multi-tasking or running applications which can make use of the extra features then quad-core is a waste of time in comparison to dual-core.

For the vast majority of people the potential of dual-core has hardly begun to be realised yet.
 
Zorachus said:
Just wondering if Vista 32 or 64only, can take advantage of the QuadCore from Intel as opposed to just the standard DualCore found on Athlon64 and the base Core2Duo ?
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Both Vista 32 and Vista64 can take advantage of the four cores in the Q6600 and QX6700. In addition WinXP Home and Pro will do the same. I am not certain about Pro/ Home N or the "emerging market" version of XP and Vista.

Zorachus said:
Also isnt it true that Vista64 MUST have a dual core processor minimum ?
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No that is not true.

Zorachus said:
Does having a QuadCore as opposed to just a DualCore make Vista run twice as fast or twice as smooth, or more realistically does it allow ya to do 4 major things at once like burning, installing a game, etc......Thank's
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Having four cores will improve the performance of CPU bound tasks. Installing a game and burning a CD etc. may be limited by other parts of the system, the harddrive for example.

I do not know if "Vista" is CPU bound. Given that it is an Operating system, not an application, I would certainly hope that it puts very little load on the system, leaving the largest amount of resources available for the applications. As such, if the applications that you are concerned with are CPU bound, having more cores will make them run faster.

InCogneato said:
i dont understand why so many uninformed people keep repeating this nonsense. if something is written for multiple cores, it will be multiple times as fast!
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No, it won't. The problem is that a lot of problems are not infinitely parallelizeable. As such, there is a limit at which adding more CPUs or cores will not give any performance improvement. Aside from that, adding more CPUs increases the overhead and often times the performance increase is hampered by that.

InCogneato said:
AGAIN, I REPEAT: if an app or an OS or whatever is written with multiple cores in mind it will be twice is fast, 4 times as fast, or whatever!
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I repeat: you are incorrect. Performance improvements from parallelization are dependent on the problem that the application is trying to solve. At some point, there is a limit at which a problem cannot be parallelized any more.
 
So by running a QuadCore in Vista it will allow ya to do more stuff at once with less chuggy or slowdown's ?

Does Vista64 do this any better or smoother as opposed to Vista32 ? Like let's say I hadve 4gb DDR2 in Vista64 compared to just 2gb memory in Vista32 is the difference the same ??
 
Zorachus said:
So by running a QuadCore in Vista it will allow ya to do more stuff at once with less chuggy or slowdown's ?

Does Vista64 do this any better or smoother as opposed to Vista32 ? Like let's say I hadve 4gb DDR2 in Vista64 compared to just 2gb memory in Vista32 is the difference the same ??
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I keep seeing you asking so many questions and I keep looking at the hardware you've got in your sig and I keep wondering: "WTF? When is he just gonna go get Vista and be done with it?"

Here's a question of my own: Are you ever going to get Vista or just keep asking questions about it from now till... well... who knows... ? The hardware you have listed in your sig is still considered by many people to be a monster machine, even in today's 4 GHz and higher overclocked water cooled "God boxes" but... damn man... :p
 
No, it won't. The problem is that a lot of problems are not infinitely parallelizeable. As such, there is a limit at which adding more CPUs or cores will not give any performance improvement. Aside from that, adding more CPUs increases the overhead and often times the performance increase is hampered by that.

I repeat: you are incorrect. Performance improvements from parallelization are dependent on the problem that the application is trying to solve. At some point, there is a limit at which a problem cannot be parallelized any more.
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most things are not infinitely parallelizable at all, im not sure why you would even bring this up. the performance gain wont be from parallelizing problems, that would merely be a bonus realistically. what application is only running one problem? none. many problems are sent out at once and many different problems are sent out over the course of your application usage, these can be distributed between cores so long as the application is coded for it to do so. in this scenario (which is basically the most realistic scenario) a dual core will outperform a single core by double. parallelization is merely a bonus and hardly what multiple cores are meant for.
 
bbz_Ghost said:
I keep seeing you asking so many questions and I keep looking at the hardware you've got in your sig and I keep wondering: "WTF? When is he just gonna go get Vista and be done with it?"

Here's a question of my own: Are you ever going to get Vista or just keep asking questions about it from now till... well... who knows... ? The hardware you have listed in your sig is still considered by many people to be a monster machine, even in today's 4 GHz and higher overclocked water cooled "God boxes" but... damn man... :p
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I just started to research Vista this last week or so before I make my decision......I will most likely get Vista64 in the next week or two, and also found a really good deal on a FX-60, and the RaptorX 150gb to install it on, but worried that this newer revied system I would have, would be too slow for Vista64 compared to the Intel QuadCore I dream of
 
Nice, and so far I haven't seen anything except that damned Creative soundcard that might give you hassles.

Good luck with it either way, and if for some reason you do end up having issues, take the time to figure out why you're having the issues before blowing up and bashing Vista, will ya, if it gets that far? :)
 
What do ya think of this deal ? I want to upgrade to the FX-60 being the top of the food chain for my Socket939 and I guess still good for gaming, and then I could throw in my X2 4400 into my Wifey's system :) ? I just wish I could afford the major upgrade to the QuadCore Intel, but that would mean, new Motherboard, New CPU, and new Memory, your talking like well over a $1000+ for that, and what % increase do I get for that much money ?

But for a heck of alot cheaper I can get this, and is this the correct OS I want, the 64bit edition of Vista, is this the right model version ?;
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2880882&CatId=672


This system compared to that Intel system in gaming 2560x1600 is there a hige difference or just a little ?

Thank's
 
I honestly believe that if gaming is the primary goal for the PC then quad-core won't, at this point in time, bring more benefit than dual-core. You'd likely get better scores in sythetic benchmarks, but to my understanding no games which can utilise the extra cores are slated for release until next year sometime at the earliest.
 
I would agree. It'll take time before the serious multicore-aware - aka multithreaded - games begin to appear in any significant quantities. And look at the pricing right now on that QX6700... way outta most people's leagues. In time it'll come down, as they always do (except for Itaniums, of course, but that's another thread entirely), and then you can look into it later on with higher speeds and probably more L2 to boot, perhaps.

For now, the Core 2 Duo remains the King of the Hill and for the forseeable future for price-to-performance and overclockability. AMD simply can't touch it right now... it's doubtful they will anytime soon.
 
InCogneato said:
most things are not infinitely parallelizable at all, im not sure why you would even bring this up. the performance gain wont be from parallelizing problems, that would merely be a bonus realistically. what application is only running one problem? none.
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I brought it up because you made a general statement saying that
if something is written for multiple cores, it will be multiple times as fast!
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I can write a program, for multiple cores that will have little to no improvement in execution speed. The point is that the performance gain from multiple cores is limited to the part of the program that can be parallelized.

Assuming that we had infinite bandwidth to memory, the execution speed of a program that does not require user interaction is limited either by I/O speed or CPU speed. If limited by I/O, we can throw 20 million cores at the problem, we will not get it done any faster, since we are waiting on I/O. It would make more sense to improve the I/O performance than spend money on adding cores.

If the program is limited by CPU speed, then we can improve its execution speed if we can parallelize the code. Certainly, if we have two CPU limited programs, using two cores will show an incredible improvement in performance, but each program will still need the same amount of time as if we had put the two of them on independent machines.

Zorachus said:
So by running a QuadCore in Vista it will allow ya to do more stuff at once with less chuggy or slowdown's ?
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It depends what you do. If you are running multiple CPU-bound programs, then yes, it'll improve performance. If you are running one or more I/O bound programs: no it won't.

Aside from that the improvements of going from dual-core to quad-core are likely going to be the same if you ran WinXP.
Zorachus said:
Does Vista64 do this any better or smoother as opposed to Vista32 ? Like let's say I hadve 4gb DDR2 in Vista64 compared to just 2gb memory in Vista32 is the difference the same ??
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Depending on what applications you are running, their memory requirements and whether they are able to take advantage of a 64-bit OS, the answer can vary drastically.
 
bbz_Ghost said:
I would agree. It'll take time before the serious multicore-aware - aka multithreaded - games begin to appear in any significant quantities. And look at the pricing right now on that QX6700... way outta most people's leagues. In time it'll come down, as they always do (except for Itaniums, of course, but that's another thread entirely), and then you can look into it later on with higher speeds and probably more L2 to boot, perhaps.

For now, the Core 2 Duo remains the King of the Hill and for the forseeable future for price-to-performance and overclockability. AMD simply can't touch it right now... it's doubtful they will anytime soon.
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Thank's for the advice......I wouldnt mind going to Core 2 Duo, but that upgrade even with just an E6600 is like $1,000. A new Motherboard and a good one is close to $300, then the E6600 is approx $300, and then 4gb memory is $500. And for me I would get the 4gb of DDR2, just for future proofing, so I dont need to upgrade memory again for a long time. Same thing I did with my current 2gb DDR400, I bought it three years ago, back then I didnt really need it, but it has lasted me through like three to four system upgrade's :) :)

Would going from a possible FX-60 plus stuff in my signature on Vista64, or upgrading to an E6600 show a huge difference in Vsita and Games or just a little improvement, again I game at 2560x1600 resolution
 
Zorachus said:
So by running a QuadCore in Vista it will allow ya to do more stuff at once with less chuggy or slowdown's ?
Click to expand...

I notice None of the Chugge or slowdowns you speak of.

I run a Core 2 Duo E6600 OCed on Air to 3.7GHz (1635FSB) & 2GB DDR2 800 and its the fastest OS I have used to date.
 
Zorachus said:
Would going from a possible FX-60 plus stuff in my signature on Vista64, or upgrading to an E6600 show a huge difference in Vsita and Games or just a little improvement, again I game at 2560x1600 resolution
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Vista will run perfectly fine on your existing rig. You don't need to upgrade to even an FX-60 for Vista itself. If you plan to run x64 Vista then drop another 2Gb RAM in it, if not then don't bother with the extra RAM.

Regarding the hardware upgrade I'd suggest you grab Vista first, and run it for a while as a dual-boot, rather than upgrading first and then trying Vista. You might find yourself satisfied enough with performance to justify delaying a hardware upgrade for a while and then getting something even better later on than your money would purchase right now. That's a simple, commonsense approach.

Gaming under Vista can't be reasonably assessed right now anyway, because display drivers aren't up to scratch. ATl have basically all their hardware features 'working' whilst Nvidia don't. Neither company has peformance optimisations in drivers yet. Another two or three months will see a quite different situation, I'd suspect. The current situation is simply what we confronted when XP was first released. New Windows versions are always better suited to applications usage than gaming at initial release. Gaming makes the migration anything up to six months later.
 
Catweazle said:
Vista will run perfectly fine on your existing rig. You don't need to upgrade to even an FX-60 for Vista itself. If you plan to run x64 Vista then drop another 2Gb RAM in it, if not then don't bother with the extra RAM.

Regarding the hardware upgrade I'd suggest you grab Vista first, and run it for a while as a dual-boot, rather than upgrading first and then trying Vista. You might find yourself satisfied enough with performance to justify delaying a hardware upgrade for a while and then getting something even better later on than your money would purchase right now. That's a simple, commonsense approach.

Gaming under Vista can't be reasonably assessed right now anyway, because display drivers aren't up to scratch. ATl have basically all their hardware features 'working' whilst Nvidia don't. Neither company has peformance optimisations in drivers yet. Another two or three months will see a quite different situation, I'd suspect. The current situation is simply what we confronted when XP was first released. New Windows versions are always better suited to applications usage than gaming at initial release. Gaming makes the migration anything up to six months later.
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Thank's for the reply ;) But how do I upgrade to another 2gb memory on my Socket939 ? I am already using 2gb DDR400, do they sell 2gb stick each of DDR400 ? Or if I fill up all four slots with 1gb memory each doesnt that change me from dual channel to single channel ?
 
Zorachus said:
Or if I fill up all four slots with 1gb memory each doesnt that change me from dual channel to single channel ?
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Yeah, but that's okay, because when you run dual channel you lose half your RAM.

...............................................

Don't flame me! I actually had a friend (currently pursuing a CS degree) that believed that.

4 1GB sticks works fine at dual channel, but you may have to reduce to DDR333.
 
But I dont think that 4 1gb sticks of DDR400 is a good idea, I thought it would just run in single channel mode being slower, than let's say just 2 sticks in the Dual slot's ?

The ultimate would be 2 sticks of 2gb each with a total of 4gb, but that is only available in DDR2 ? which means an Intel Core 2 Duo upgrade
 
If the amount of installed RAM is bottlenecking performance then it'll be the addition of more RAM which will give more peformance, NOT the retention of dual-channel configuration.

Suppose a situation where a person has 2GB installed and needs to increase the amount to get the necessary performance. In this imaginary situation the hardware used will mean the disabling of dual-channel when more RAM is added.

Will adding more RAM decrease performance? No, it will not. Performance will be improved, because the necessary RAM will now be available.

For a person who has hardware which will allow dual-channel configuration to be retained, however, the performance improvement will be a slightly greater one.
 
drizzt81 said:
I can write a program, for multiple cores that will have little to no improvement in execution speed. The point is that the performance gain from multiple cores is limited to the part of the program that can be parallelized.
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This is very much correct. The relationship between available resources and improvement in performance is described by Ahmdahl's Law.

There really are problems that aren't efficiently applicable to parallelization and must be completed sequentially: nine women can't have a baby in one month. Most software is written assuming only one processor because it's very tedious and error prone to write for multiple processors. Processor manufacturers used to make faster processors just by goosing the clock rates.

Since that party has ended, they're adding power by adding processors. Multiple processor machines are becoming far more common, now.

Spreading work out among processors never results in one-for-one scaling because there's overhead involved in coordinating the work for multiple processors. While some embarrassingly parallel problems do exist, they still don't scale perfectly because there's always another shared resource involved: memory, the network, even the display.

Vista doesn't really take advantage of additional processors: it's the applications that do. Some versions of Vista do indeed support applications wanting to use all for processors on a quad-processor box. But if an application is written to only use a single processor, then running it under Vista on a quad-core rig doesn't make it four times (or even twice!) as fast.
 
Catweazle said:
If the amount of installed RAM is bottlenecking performance then it'll be the addition of more RAM which will give more peformance, NOT the retention of dual-channel configuration.

Suppose a situation where a person has 2GB installed and needs to increase the amount to get the necessary performance. In this imaginary situation the hardware used will mean the disabling of dual-channel when more RAM is added.

Will adding more RAM decrease performance? No, it will not. Performance will be improved, because the necessary RAM will now be available.

For a person who has hardware which will allow dual-channel configuration to be retained, however, the performance improvement will be a slightly greater one.
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Thanks for the explanation :)......So if upgrade to this FX-60 for cost, my buddy works at TD, and get another 2gb of DDR400, and install that on Vista64 to play my games at 2560x1600 it wont be too much slower than a E6600 Intel setup with 4gb DDR2 in just two sticks ?
 
Zorachus said:
Thanks for the explanation :)......So if upgrade to this FX-60 for cost, my buddy works at TD, and get another 2gb of DDR400, and install that on Vista64 to play my games at 2560x1600 it wont be too much slower than a E6600 Intel setup with 4gb DDR2 in just two sticks ?
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I wanna respond but I just can't stop laughing at this guy. Gaming at 2560x1600? Man, I can't even dream of having a 30" LCD at this point and you're acting almost as if the hardware you presently have isn't good enough and I see that as absolutely hilarious. Sorry, I've had a bad day and I came home and wham, saw that post above and it just made all the bad shit from earlier seem meaningless, so thanks, in a roundabout way. :)

I'd love to be a "fly on the wall" watching you play games and complaining "It's not enough!!! It's just not enough!!!"

For the money you're about to spend, or you're considering spending, if "big screen gaming" is what you're aiming for, I'd say get yourself a nice XGA LCD projector and a 12' blank wall or an LCD display screen and crank up the AA on that 8800 and let 'er rip. The performance will be stunning at 1024x768 and the AA maxed out will make it beautiful and jaggy free.

Not sure what your end goal is at this point, I really don't, but considering every time I/we offer some advice your next question is "Ok, but how can I make that better?" over and over again. There's a point of diminishing returns, surely you realize.

A Core 2 Duo matched with some high speed dual channel DDR2 RAM at this point and that 8800 you've got are the best the industry has to offer at this time. In a few weeks, months perhaps, we'll see more powerful video cards, faster RAM, etc. But for now, what you actually have is pretty god damned powerful as it is and will be for a long time to come.

I finally created a sig here at the [H]ardForum so I don't have to keep asking...

/me points down... :D
 
I'll not be so blunt about it, but I have to agree with the general thrust of the above post.

If matching the benchmark scores of an E6600 based setup is a 'must' for ego-appeasement then get an E600 based rig. It's as simple as that. But for non-CPU bound applications (and most games come under that heading) the performance difference between FX-60 and E6600 will be more in benchmark results than it will be in game performance.

If you are currently trying to game at 2560x1600 and not achieving framerates which are playable then the first place to look for improvement is the display card anyways, not the CPU. You already have a dual-core processor. Can you squeeze a few more megahurts out of it. (intentional spelling error there ;))

Hell, I've an X2 4200+ (overclocked) in my rig and consider it good enough for any gaming that the platform is ever going to be capable of handling. I'd happily match that up with a pair of the best display cards currently available, and be satisfied with the performance enhancement I'd get.
 
First off I dont care about E-Penis envy :rolleyes: I have a sreious addiciton to computer upgrades, not that I need to be the number one geek on the internet with Nitro cooled QuadCore's clocked to 5ghz, and whacking off to my benchmarks scores, that is not my goal :D

I just like to test new hardware and get off on trying out new shit and getting it to work correctly, and being faster than my old setup, I dont brag about it or anything, just like technology
 
Changing from an X2 4400+ to an FX-60 will not gain you enough extra performance to match the dollars spent, especially if a $1000 upgrade is out of reach of your addiction. It'd be better to save up until you have the $1000.
 
Catweazle said:
Changing from an X2 4400+ to an FX-60 will not gain you enough extra performance to match the dollars spent, especially if a $1000 upgrade is out of reach of your addiction. It'd be better to save up until you have the $1000.
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No the $1000 is ok if it is worth it, and after checking this site here, the FX-60 compared to my X2 4400 is like 10-15% at most, but a E6600 can be like 30%+ more
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=432&model2=468&chart=166

For now I may just stick with the X2 4400+, and get 2gb extra memory and try out Vista64 on this rig ?
 
I wouldn't even bother spending the money on the extra RAM unless you find out you actually have a performance problem. Try Vista firsat and see how it runs for you, then bother about your hardware upgrades if necessary ;)
 
Catweazle said:
I wouldn't even bother spending the money on the extra RAM unless you find out you actually have a performance problem. Try Vista firsat and see how it runs for you, then bother about your hardware upgrades if necessary ;)
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Thanks for the advice again :) I just want to run Vista64 as smooth as 2007 possible. I would just hate to finally install this new OS,a nd not be happy with it running slow and be stuck with it. I usually only install my OS like once a year at most, would not be cool to have it and then it is slow with only 2gb DDR400, or a slow cpu ?
 
More RAM will help Vista x64 on your system more than a better CPU would ;)

x64 uses RAM differently to x86. 2Gb is a sensible base level for x64, whereas 1Gb is a sensible base level for x86. If you find you need more, then add it. The rest of your system specs shouldn't pose a problem.
 
Catweazle said:
More RAM will help Vista x64 on your system more than a better CPU would ;)

x64 uses RAM differently to x86. 2Gb is a sensible base level for x64, whereas 1Gb is a sensible base level for x86. If you find you need more, then add it. The rest of your system specs shouldn't pose a problem.
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so I can just buy two more sticks of DDR400, and pop them in the other two slots on my Abit AN8 Motherboard to have a total of 4gb = 4x1gb sticks. That would show a larger improvement in Vista64 than a cpu upgrade to FX-60 ?

I am sure it makes a difference what type of memory, like should match my current 2gb exactly the same brand and speed right ? I have Corsair
 
^

Of course. Same deal as having extra cores available. If the software being used isn't suited to taking advantage of the envorinment then no added benefit will be gained.
 
Catweazle said:
Basically it's little more than a marketting gimmick which will give little practical benefit beyond better ePenis benchmark results. (At this point in time, anyway.)
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You couldnt be more wrong.

Quadcore is not a marketing gimmick at all. I push all 4 cores to 100% when i'm rendering.

Now i do 3d animation for a living... I may not be the typical desktop user... but that doesnt mean the quadcore is a marketing gimmick, or even close to one. Quadcore is a real solution that is blazingly fast for the tasks i need done. Frankly a renderfarm of quadcores is mandatory for my work.

Quadcores are incredible cpus... especially intels. I'm so impressed with their performance.

Quadcores may not be meant for everyone... but they certainly are teh real deal and will be around for a long time to come. I look forward to more than 4 cores... I look forward to dual quadcore boards... The more cpu the better...

There is one problem though... DISK PERFORMANCE :) CPUs are so fast, that disk access cant keep up with the dam things.
 
JCF, the post you've quoted already stipulated that performance gains could be had for relevent applocations usage. The comment was in relation to other usage, which does not include relevent applications activity.

The fellow who is asking the questions in this thread doesn't seem to be wanting to do 3D animation, or anything of the sort. Any appeal to him which the 'quad-core' hype has created is marketting nonsense. That was the sense of the post.
 
He said it was "little more than a gimmick"

I just want it to be clear that these cpu's are not a gimmick. A gimmick would imply that they are a rip off, do not function as described and are more marketing than they are function. They are not certainly not a gimmick, but a very powerful piece of hardware... No one said every cpu is for everyone... the QX6700 is the real deal for those that need that power.

I agree that every gamer does not need a quadcore, certainly mom and dad do not either :) Dual is fine for gamers uses. (Multiple cores are still used by windows itself)

I understand his point, but he should have never have used the word "gimmick" They work 100% as intended, and perform incredibly well... with multithreaded cpu intense applications. It would be a shame to have people refer to these cpu's as "little more than a gimmick" when they are real work horses.

I think he just should have said "they're for higher end applications and generally wont accelerate your games right now, anymore than a single core cpu, or a dual core because most games do not support multithreading" I see that he and other sstarted to clarify this... but a gimmick they are not.

I certainly hope Intel continues this trend of more cpu horse power in the form of multi cores etc. I'm a long time multiple cpu user, I had dual pentium pro 200's at one point, Dual p3s, dual amd 2000+ etc. Multiple CPU's are essential the work i do, and many others.

Just wanted to be clear that they are not a gimmick. I'm glad someoen brought up the real problem of other peices of hardware being a bottleneck... it is so true. Hard disks are a major problem for these cpus. Photoshop for one, which uses disk for swap on mild to large files with lots of layers, even with 2 to 4gigs of mem (ps can only acess to 2 to 3 depending on the 3g switch in boot.ini) but anyways.. the disk perfomance keeps the cpu from ever reaching 100% in photoshop. But in rendering, the cpu's get pinned at 100%. I'm just so impressed with the performance jump in rendering with these cpus.

But again... Hard disk access speeds... severely limit the cpu in apps that really depend on the drive... such as video editing. If you have a nice drive solution, fiber channel raid etc it'll sure help.
 
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