*shrug* I'm happy with it here; but someone else can move it if other people are getting mad about it.
Dual core works like this:
ever have two windows opened at the same time?
like... your music playing in the background... while you have MSWord up to work on your book report... and another window for the internet google research page you are plagerizing?
well, if you have one processer, you use something called timeslice. it thinks about each window for an equil amount of time. a fraction of a milisecond here, fraction of a millisecond there... and it just rotates through everything.
but, in effect, for every window you have open, you are cutting your processor in half.
now, enter: dual core.
you have your timesheet in front of you, with a schedule of what you worked, and an e-mail client open to send the letter when you are done with it to your boss. in the background you are compiling a program, downloading a huge program, installing some new software, or running a compression algorythem on your backup files. is it super slow? Nope. processer #1 gets maxed out with the big background process of death, and the rest of your system switches over to processer #2.
they've had dual, quad, and even eight processer systems out for a long time. (normally on servers) but with people becoming more in tune with their technology, multi-tasking isn't just something that geeks do any more.
in other news; if you really want to get your geek-on, you need an SLI motherboard. that's beyond the realm of normal costs for most people though. (but if you want a state of the art system that makes the X-Box 360 look like a cereal-box in compared to raw processing power, there's not better way to go at it.
SLI lets you run two video cards. bouth PCI-E
you can push up to 4 monitors (8 if you get a multiplexer) you can have up to two gig of deticated video memory, and the higher end video cards typically run with eight processers. (times two for two cards, that's sixteen processers, two gigs of the fastest ram on the planet, and a sesemee seed bun; all pushing forward the most amazingly awsome graphics technology ever invented.
granted; thoes video cards cost about a grand each, and you'll need two of them, and the motherboards that support SLI aren't super cheap either... and if you are going to get that sort of system, you may as well double your video memory in real ram. and you should probibly use dual-rate DDR3, and you'll need a dual-core processer to keep it all running. all that power is going to draw some serious heat, so you'll have to keep it cooled with a liquid cooling system... etc etc etc.
all and all, it caps out at about $8K
you could probibly put together a system running SLI for about $2K, and the dual-core system I put together just hit under the $400 mark (it was an upgrade though, just got the mo-bo, processer, and a gig of ram)
so it's more about what's in your budget.
-RuskiFace the Pirate
