Ok, both company's are coming out with Quad core chips either by the end of the year or begining of next year, and I realize that they are more or less for server side release first. Here's the question though, when they go for the general public, I'm guessing by mid summer to late fall next year, is the OS really going to reconize four CPU's in one? Win 2k Pro along with XP Pro will only see 2 CPU's so what about Vista then? Is the quad core chips even going to be feasiable (?) for the standard home user? Just wondering, both companies are making a huge hype out of it, but if the OS doesn't even see that they are there, why the hype? In a server situation, I can completely agree that having a dual chip mobo could potentially yield you 8 CPU's which is a huge gain and couple that with gigabyte network cards could great not only having to only have one server instead of four but...... Thought I'd ask what you guys thought.

Well, first and foremost Linux already supports quad core CPUs, as well as multi CPU systems... I think that sky is the limit for this OS.

I also think that this is not going to be much of a problem for the M$ operating systems. There is always a possibility of making a driver that is going to "fool" the OS to utilize all four cores. No worries mate ;) It's gonna be just fine... and expensive too :(

"No worries mate  It's gonna be just fine... and expensive too"

LOL well you have a point there.  ;D

What about Vista? Is it limited to 2 CPUs?

I have no idea, haven't found anything on it.

WindowsXP can do fine with quadcore CPU's. Afterall, it does fine with two dualcore cpu's.

Really? It sees all four cpu's? I was under the impression that it would support 2 cpu's total. Guess I was wrong on that one.

heh a core works like a CPU imho,it's the same but then as an all in one package. so a dual core CPU works the same as a Dual Single core CPU setup, only inmost cases the dual core setup can be faster but less stable where as a dual single core setup wins in stabillity, anyways dunno how that is for nowadays :)

As I do recall that my Dual OpteronDP 244 Sledgehammer, it had 2 single core'ed OpteronDP 244's each running 1.8Ghz which have 1MBL2 per CPU Core.

They could handle stressed jobs at a much higher degree than this Athlon64 X2 4400+ Toledo I have now, it's  Dual Core CPU with 2x 2.2Ghz Cores with each core 1MB L2.

And yes ofcourse it is faster but with running more apps at one time.
The OpteronDP setup was far better and more stable, since it did have 1x Corsair XMS Platinum TwinX1024C2REPT, 2 identical 512MB PC-3200 CAS2 Registred ECC Modules.

I suppose with ECC Reg. Ram,  that system setup alot seemed alot more stable with very heavy loads not sure really just a deep thought. the CPU's , the OpteronDP 244's were Sledgehammers.

Thanks Thandor, that makes sence. So in theory, since XP will recognize two phyiscal sockets (two CPU's) you could still run two quad core chips giving you a total of 8 core's and have XP see all eight. If you really need it to.

I suppose the same would count for Windows 2000 Pro?

As far as I know, licensing for Win2000 would be the same, but I've been told Win2000 isn't able to tell sockets apart from Cores or real CPU's.

Therefor, only 2 CPU's (logical or Cores) will be seen by Win2000. Since official support has ceased, I guess MicroSoft will never release a patch for this shortcoming.

An exception would be Win2000 Server I guess, since it can handle more CPU's (but I never used that, so I can't be sure)

Thanx FalconFly & Thandor :) it was just swirlling in my mind hehe :)

Thanks aton guys, I was more or less curious on this because of all the hype. I'm not planning on getting a new CPU any time soon, my 3200+ works just fine for now (besides with this new job I'm looking at something bigger, V5 6000 hehehehe  ;D). I was curious though on how this was going to work though.