Some Quad-Core Questions.

C

CaptainAwesom

New Member
My parents are offering to get me a laptop for my junior year so that I can start my college applications, write papers, and various other things. My sister's mac was $1800 and my parents said to pick one around that price. The problem that arises is my computer knowledge. I have assembled some desktops and know the basic components, but i want to know more about the processor.

Question 1: What are multithread applications? (please give examples and how many threads per app)

Question 2: It says 1.8Ghz(turbo mode 2.8Ghz), but how often will I access turbo mode and is it accessed autonomously.
 
D

Damorian

New Member
1: "Multithreaded applications have multiple threads executing in a shared address space. Threads are "lightweight" subprocesses that execute within a process. They share code and data segments, but have their own program counters, machine registers and stack. Global and static variables are common to all threads, and a mutual exclusivity mechanism is often required to manage access to these variables from multiple threads within an application." Found that on some site. Most large applications are multithreaded. Here's a short list of some that I found. http://www.denniskarlsson.com/smp/

2: It sounds to me like it underclocks the processor to save power. I'm not certain but I would imagine that as you start using more cpu power, it increases the clock speed. I'm not 100% sure on that though. There should be a way to change it if you get a computer with that feature.
 
ganzey

ganzey

banned
PLEASE DONT GET A MAC. THEY ARE EXTREMELY OVERPRICED. pcs are better and cheaper and can do more things. for $1800, u can get one hell of a laptop, but only a basic mac.
 
The Chad

The Chad

New Member
CaptainAwesom said:
Question 2: It says 1.8Ghz(turbo mode 2.8Ghz), but how often will I access turbo mode and is it accessed autonomously.
Click to expand...

You must be getting an i7 laptop pressumably? The Turbo-Boost is one of its features, while the processor is being used and a heavy load of tasks comes upon it, it can raise its clock speed up to 75% to cope with the tasks. The processor controls this by itself (Automatically)

"Intel® Turbo Boost technology maximizes speed for demanding applications, dynamically accelerating performance to match your workload—more performance when you need it the most." _From Intel's website
 
C

CaptainAwesom

New Member
ok, thanks for the input. yes! i do realize how overpriced macs are and will definitely get a dell. thanks for the explanations.
 
Gooberman

Gooberman

Active Member
Our school has 6 macs in a digital media class they render videos x2 faster than the other computers but guess what? the pcs probably cost <$400 while the macs costed $1500 lol
 
Bodaggit23

Bodaggit23

Active Member
Mac's aren't really overpriced, as they use top end hardware.

But, most people don't need high end hardware for their needs, so it's not worth spending the extra money, in my opinion.

My buddy just had to have his motherboard replaced in his Macbook Pro and it cost around $425.

I told him he could have bought 2 mid range laptops for what he paid for the Macbook, and still been ahead at this point. :cool:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top