Advantages of an Intel Quad

Again, I want to thank the responses that I received for help with the
"/B" switch using FC and COPY under Windows XP. Including
that switch solved all the problems - except that files that are 2 GB
and larger still can't be processed by FC.

I am in the process of transferring all of my standard applications
(99% consisting of Netscape for e-mail and newsgroups, Ersatz-11
which is an emulator for the DEC PDP-11 computer, and Ghost for
backup and recovery) to an Intel E8200 CPU under Windows XP.

Thus far, I have managed to get Ersatz-11 to function as it does on
my old Pentium III system along with Ghost V7 - although I had to
avoid using files equal to or larger than 2 GB since the recovery
failed due to a CRC error. Since I have only one file at present
(used under Ersatz-11) which is this large, I was able to split it
into 1 GB chunks without any difficulty. Has anyone used Ghost
V7 and also had this problem?

I will shortly attempt to install Netscape and see if that also works.
Has anyone had any experience with Netscape under Windows XP
(as opposed to Windows 98SE), i.e. should I expect any differences?

I also expect to upgrade to a Q9450 CPU and was wondering if
there is any difference to expect from applications which are not
set up to take advantage of even a dual core system, let alone one
with 4 possible CPUs, again with the understanding that the above
3 applications (Ghost must actually run under a DOS booted from
a 3.5" floppy) are not set up to take advantage of more than one
CPU at a time?

I don't ever expect to run both Netscape and Ersatz-11 at the
same time, although I guess that even with just 2 CPUs available
on an E8200 CPU, would that be a problem?

In addition, might I see any improvement if I were to use the
Intel QX9650 EXTREME core over and above the speed
change from 2.66 GHz to 3.0 GHz? I have yet to figure out
the benefit of using an EXTREME core - aside from the only
obvious advantage of paying about three times the price of the
Q9450 core. None of the technical stuff from Intel, let alone
anywhere else, seems to say explicitly why the EXTREME
cores are faster than the NON-EXTREME cores although
both have the same number of executing CPUs and L2 cache.
Might the full 12 MB L2 cache on an EXTREME core be
available to each CPU as opposed to being split into two
portions of 6 MB each for a NON-EXTREME core and
then shared between each pair of CPUs? If so, then an
application that can benefit from 12 MB of L2 cache might
run quite a bit faster when that is the only application running.

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine

"Jerome H. Fine" <spamtrap@crayne.org> wrote in message
news:48A8B9EF.7050202@compsys.to...

This is rather offtopic, no?
But I'm not one to care very much..

(snipped)

>In addition, might I see any improvement if I were to use the
>Intel QX9650 EXTREME core over and above the speed
>change from 2.66 GHz to 3.0 GHz?

yes

> I have yet to figure out
>the benefit of using an EXTREME core - aside from the only
>obvious advantage of paying about three times the price of the
>Q9450 core.

Unlocked multiplier, for one.

(snipped)

Single threaded programs will of course not benefit from extra cores