XP Home + Dual Core?

[dirigible]

Flame if you will, but i searched and did not find.

I am confused by dual core vs. dual processor. XP home doesn't support dual processor but some one claim it does support dual core???

Whats up? Anybody know? And obviously wanna know if I can install HOME on iMacIntell and still get full performance.

[RichCoder]

From what I understand, Windows XP Home doesn't support multiple socket cpus. The dual core cpus are on one socket and thus are supported on XP Home.

Do this as a test: While in XP bring up the Task Manger (ctrl-alt-delete) and look at the performance tab. if you see 2 windows, side-by-side, in the "CPU Usage History" group, then it is using the dual core cpu correctly.

-rich

[Mflanagan]

Dual core = 1 chip on motherboard with 2 processors on it. I heard XP home works just fine.

Dual Processor = 2 seperate Chips on the motherboard.

[settolo]

can anybody confirm if XP Home works with both cores?

[Tip]

I am able to confirm.
This is "an old hat" I think, because the dual core ability of XP home is working for a long time now - Pentium 4 CPUs are using Hyperthreading (two virtual cores) for nearly three years now and XP home supports this.

[dan_isaacson_net]

XP Home edition only supports ONE processor (one x86 thread). it doesn't matter if it's on the same chip (i.e. dual-core). So to answer your question, no XP Home edition is not designed for dual-core CPU's. Use XP Pro (it's multi-threaded :D and MS enriched).

[holyjewsus]

Everything I have read indicates that the above poster is incorrect...

[bdj21ya]

Yeah, XP Home certainly seems to be using both my processor cores. Otherwise, how would it be giving two different performance histories?

This is service pack 2 after all, which is not very old at all.

[dan_isaacson_net]

ok Windows XP Home edition did not support SMP (Symmetric MultiProcessing) before Service Pack 2. But since SP2 multiprocessor (dual-core or dual-processor) is aparently supported under XP Home edition.

If you are seeing two graphs in Task Manager's CPU Usage History under home edition that's a good sign your OS has access to both cores.

[blackSpruce]

Please see my post about the MS hotfix for dual cores on notebooks.

http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=1123

Since the post concerns Windows XP directly, I posted there, not here.