Re: [PLUG] Hardware question

[Kevin Brosius <cobra@compuserve.com>]

> I have a chance to buy a pretty solid dual PII 1GHz workstation that I intend 
>          to use for sound production and editing under Linux. Is there any advantage 
>          to using a dual 1GHz machine of this vintage over, say, a 2GHz P4 or Athlon 
>          machine for my intended purpose. The price for the Dual machine is 
>          comparable to a modern 2GHz machine similarly equipped, so performance 
>          characteristics are really the only consideration here.


That's a good question...  Generally, the consensus seems to be that
1-1, a single CPU box has more overall horsepower.  So in your case, a
single 2Ghz box is generally more powerful than a dual 1Ghz box.  But
that's a simple generalization.  The first question to ask is, do any of
your sound editing tools support multi-threading?  If not, then I'd go
for the single cpu box.

A dual is nice if you run several cpu intensive apps at once, or do
parallel makes, or want to have a second cpu keep the user interface
responsive while loading the first heavily with number crunching.

I'd probably go single in your case though, based on my first comments. 
The overall performance is generally better on a 1-1 comparison.  Plus,
the internal bus speed (FSB) is likely higher on the 2Ghz P4/Athlon
you'll get today, compared to a PII.  That'll make the performance boost
on a single CPU even larger.  I'd probably say the same thing if the
dual's were a pair of 1.5Ghz cpus, unless you were sure that the apps
you want to use support multi-threading.  Then I'd start considering
it.  (I run a dual Athlon 1900MP setup on one box.)

-- 
Kevin
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