Re: P2 Dual Processor 400 vs. AMD 1.3 GIg

> My husband is going to upgrade my computer by giving me a P2 dual 400 or
by giving me an AMD 1.3 GIG processor.
>
> My question is here because I use PSP all the time and I wasn't sure if it
used the dual processor like Photoshop does.
>
> I just want a computer that will best utilize the applications that I'm
using.
>
> Thanks for any heads up you can give me :-)

Zoe,

 A dual processor is great for some things but I believe you have to run a
dual processor type operating system for the second processor to be
worthwhile.  That means running WinNT or 2000.  These are bulletproof
operating systems but they are not very compatible and they require a lot of
memory.  Their power comes from the fact that they do not do any DOS things
at all.  Many drivers for special things like scanners and tablets use DOS
drivers.  Some programs do not run under NT/2000.

What you get from a dual processor is the ability to do two things at once.
Lets say you were scanning a huge image in PSP and you wanted to check your
email at the same time.  In theory your email run would be the same speed as
if there were no other applications running.  PSP would be using one
processor and Outlook the other.

400MHz is a little on the slow side.  The other problem here is that you
have said nothing of the motherboard, hard drive, memory or video.  These
can make more significant differences in performance than the processor.  If
you have a 1.3 Ghz processor and a clunky old hard drive it will still take
forever to load programs, particularly if you have only 32 or 64 megs of
RAM.

An ideal system would be an Athlon or Duron with great motherboard like the
Asus A7V.  Add an Ultra DMA/100 hard drive, 256 meg of memory and an ATi
Magnum Expert 128 video card which is available in an OEM version for about
$50.00 and you will have something.

If you need to shave processor speed down to 900 MHz to afford the rest,
that would be a smart thing to do.  Some motherboards and video cards are
great for skipping across the lake, or to hold down napkins at a picnic.

A pretty good place for information is http://motherboards.org  Have him be
very careful with the motherboard and  processor he chooses.  The processor
effects what clock speed is used in many cases and you may not get all the
benefit of your hard drive or memory speed.

Paul Wilson
webgooru(at)gte.net

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