Does cpu limit how much you can download simultaneously

SuperDuperMe

New Member
Basically me and a freind are having an argument, he seems to think that a more powerful cpu with more cores will let you donwload more, i believe otherwise.

Hes saying basically that if you had a 50 core cpu you would be able to download more from the internet at the same time than say a quad core.

Now i presume this is absolute bs as to me surely you would be prohibited by Donwload speed and the ISP.

So if i had an uber computer with 50 cores, and a normal machine with 4, on the exact same internet connection, would i be able to download more off the supercomputer at one time than the quad core?

I know this is all speculation and its probably a stupid argument, but were both stubborn and i can see this ending in tears unless we can get a definitive answer lol


(I wasnt sure wether this should go in cpu or internet)
 
download is based on the internet connection as well as the ethernet or wireless card.
CPU really has little to do with it.

Your hard drive may have an effect on it though. Like if you had a unlimited download speed, say 1TB/s or something, and you had a 5400RPM HDD, you would have less downloaded in the same time as say a computer with a SSD.
 
This was my exact thoughts, but he claims that his teacher who "has worked for microsoft and IBM" (hes an absoulte compuslive lier) said that downloading x amount of files inhibits the cpu.

Obviously my instant reply was ok thats BS, as i have never seen less performance due to more downloads :/

He wont accept hes wrong but like i said hes a compulsive BS'er, we always have agruments like this and he just makes stuff up off the top of his head :p

Thanks for the headsup wolfeking.
 
This was my exact thoughts, but he claims that his teacher who "has worked for microsoft and IBM" (hes an absoulte compuslive lier) said that downloading x amount of files inhibits the cpu.

Obviously my instant reply was ok thats BS, as i have never seen less performance due to more downloads :/

He wont accept hes wrong but like i said hes a compulsive BS'er, we always have agruments like this and he just makes stuff up off the top of his head :p

Thanks for the headsup wolfeking.

Wolfeking is correct. It all depends on the connection speed. Here at school, a single download is usually 250 kbps. The more [multiple] downloads I have going, the slower the connection becomes. Even when I'm at home/work I have the same issue, though it is not as drastically slow as it is here at school.
 
Yes, its the strength of connection you have and your Hd speed that determines how much or how fast you can download.
 
Sorry if there is some confusion, i dont mean how fats you can download. I ment like downloading 10 files would slow down your computer in general more than one file.

for example, downloading 10 files while playing a game would give you less performance than downloading 1 file whilst playing the same game.

As an example.
 
no. Your CPU is not used in downloading very much.

The only time you would have a issue is if you have something like nortons running while you were downloading and gaming, especially if you barely meet the requirements of the game.
 
As Wolfeking said, CPU does not affect it. You can download as many files at once as you like. The speed of each download will just slow down.
 
Yeah that still wont affect the cpu. The more flies you download at once, the lower the speed will get for each of them. An example of this is, if your downloading 1 file and get 500 kb/s and the started another, the speed of the 500 would go down to 250 and then the other 250 will go to the other one.... anyway this is all CONNECTION nothing to do with the cpu.
 
Last edited:
I knew i was right lol, i can shove this in his pipe and make him smoke it :p

Thanks guys. You have achieved me a nice victory here.
 
Sounds like an awesome friend...Haha. Online games are effected by Downloads in progress. Depending on how much bandwidth you are using, You'll see a noticeable decrease in performance online, such as lag spikes, d/c, etc. but that's because your internet is choking, still nothing to do with the processor.
 
Hes an idiot lol, hes a good mate but anything he knows nothing about he makes his own thing up.

Its annoying as hell, i can usually prove him wrong but with this i was fairly certain he was wrong, but couldn't find any refutable proof :P.

Were both really competitive so when an argument like this breaks out it either ends in a sore loser or harsh words haha.
 
The only thing he could argue (which is completely different in this case) is that you could load pages quicker. Logic behind it? The faster the CPU, the quicker it can send out and receive the request it issues (from the browser). This is based off what Linus Torvalds has said before, since he found that out himself after optimizing the kernel. CPU could work faster under this new kernel, and as such, pages loaded quicker.

As far as straight downloading files, wont make a difference at all.
 
Last edited:
In theory, could it not be possible to download such massive amounts at a single time that a processor couldn't handle the shear amount of information being processed?

For example had we had broadband connections like we have today 20 years ago on old single core processors could that situation not exist?
 
In theory, could it not be possible to download such massive amounts at a single time that a processor couldn't handle the shear amount of information being processed?

For example had we had broadband connections like we have today 20 years ago on old single core processors could that situation not exist?

I agree with this, I was assuming we were referring to anything recent that's mid tier to some over powered beast. But if we go back to the old computer back when dial up was the only thing around, I can see there being a bottleneck.
 
Back
Top