How many processors are allowed when running Vista.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:19 am

I believe under XP and before the limit was 2. Anybody know for sure?

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:00 pm

Sort of.

When MSFT refers to "processors", they're talking about physical processors. But Vista and XP both support unlimited CPU cores; see hereand here.

For example, on Vista Ultimate you can only have 2 physical CPUs, but it wouldn't matter if they had 2, 4, 8...n cores on each physical CPU. Likewise, XP Home only supports one physical processor, but an unlimited number of processor cores. So, in theory, XP Home should recognize all four cores of an intel quad with no trouble. If there was a second physical processor in the system, it would be ignored by XP Home.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 1:23 pm

Well your answer was not "sort of", it was what I was looking for precisely. Odd though that was so unclear (read "not found") on MS or even a general Google search.

Thanks

SebRad · Post by **SebRad** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 8:28 am

Hi, just as an aside does anyone know how AMD's 4x4 platform will be treated? From the OS point of view I guess it's 2 dual core CPU's but AMD are supposed to only be selling the CPUs in pairs. I guess if you can afford to buy into the platform you can afford XP Pro or Vista whatever to support 2 CPU sockets.
Seb

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 9:19 am

AMD's kinda behind intel atm eh?

I guess having 8 processors (2 AMD quad when they come out) would eliminate lag maybe? I dunno how often 8 is gonna be better than 4 though.

I suspect one quad would be ignored in Windows Home, but I don't know much about it.

As is, I'm saving up for a big ole, top notch intel quad. Maybe I'll get at the end of the year (I want to get something good). Hopefully DFI will have a new board (newer than ICFX3200-T2R/G) out by then.

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 12:22 pm

Trip wrote:I guess having 8 processors (2 AMD quad when they come out) would eliminate lag maybe? I dunno how often 8 is gonna be better than 4 though.

I'm pretty sure the purpose of 8 cores is about the same as of 4 or even 2 cores; to take advantage of multi-threaded applications. They'll probably catch on in the server market first where things like SQL servers and Exchange servers can actually make use of having multiple processors, but I imagine it could be years before we see your common, everyday applications able to fully utilize multiple cores.

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 5:14 pm

aristide1 wrote:Well your answer was not "sort of", it was what I was looking for precisely. Odd though that was so unclear (read "not found") on MS or even a general Google search.

Thanks

Yeah, I agree--it wasn't easy for me to find that info. MSFT isn't as clear about it as they should be.

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 5:19 pm

Trip wrote: I guess having 8 processors (2 AMD quad when they come out) would eliminate lag maybe? I dunno how often 8 is gonna be better than 4 though.

Depends on the software in question, but increasingly you're going to see applications get better at taking advantage of multi-core architectures. For example, the application I'm currently working on scales well to dual, quad, etc core systems.

I suspect one quad would be ignored in Windows Home, but I don't know much about it.

No, XP Home would recognize all four cores, so long as it was a single physical processor. On the other hand, if you had two physical processors, each with a single core, XP Home would recognize only a single processor.

As is, I'm saving up for a big ole, top notch intel quad. Maybe I'll get at the end of the year (I want to get something good). Hopefully DFI will have a new board (newer than ICFX3200-T2R/G) out by then.

I'd really like a dual or quad core system; my next build will definitely be at least dual, although by the time I actually build something, we'll probably have 32 core processors or something ridiculous like that...

(I have ridiculous buyer's remorse, can never purchase anything. It's terrible)