Dual CPU's

Hi
I have an 800 mhz Pentium 3 on an Asus CUV4X-DLS motherboard, an All in Wonder video card, live sound card, firewire card, DVD player, cd burner, cable modem, etc.
I am using Win98 SE and have 256mb memory.
I read the CUV4X-DLS motherboard unleashes an amazing dual-processor power. Thanks to the two onboard Socket 370 that nest FC-PGA Pentium III Coppermine CPUs running up to 933MHz. With a fast 133MHz system bus, 256KB Advanced Transfer Cache (ATC) with ECC, Advanced System Buffering (ASB), and Dual Independent Bus (DIB) architecture built in the Pentium III processors, the CUV4X-DLS gives you a clear competitive edge!

I use the computer for editing video, web surfing and working with digital pictures.

My question is will a second pentium3 800 mhz CPU improve the performance of my computer also will I need more memory and an extra fan?

Thanks
Lewis

 

Yes, you'll need either Windows 2000 or XP Professional. XP Home does not support multiprocessors. I also support PeteC's observation that you'll ned more ram to take maximum advantage of 2 CPUs. I Gig would be nice, 512 at the absolute minimum if you want some noticeable difference.

The PIII 800 you have has a 133 MHz bus speed. If you are looking for real improvement in peformance you would see more from a board that uses DDR or Dual Channel DDR and a faster processor.

The bottleneck in most systems seems to be the memory bus. Case in point, my brother has a 2.0Ghz AMD coupled to 786 MB 133 Mhz SDRAM and I have a 1.53Ghz AMD coupled to 512 MB 266 Mhz DDR RAM. My machine runs just as fast and in some cases quicker than his. Processors are only one part of the big picture.

You may also wish to have a look at this thread.

Cheers,

ICE

 

SMP Compat

Operating systems that support SMP Configs

Windows NT, NT Server, Windows 2000, Windows XP, or any flavor of Unix/Linux

 

XP Home supports hyperthreading it does not support multiple processors. You can install Home on a dual cpu system but that second cpu is just going to sit idle.

There's a lot more information on dual processor setups over here.

Cheers,

ICE

 

Perhaps a controversal opinion, but I think you would be better off upgrading to a new processor and motherboard. With CPUs, 1 + 1 does not equal 2. That is dual processors do not give you twice the speed of a single processor. With modern CPUs running in excess of three times your present CPU, you'd get a better performance improvement for your buck by going for a 3GHz + motherboard, CPU (and probably memory too).

Also you have to be careful to match your CPUs. Certainly in the past you had to make sure the CPUs were within a step or two. Just finding another 800MHz processor might not mean you have the hardware you need to put together a dual processor system.