Digital BW, The Print

> > Does Adobe Photoshop really utilize dual CPU's? I assume you are
> > using a Win2000 or XP OS? Find out before you buy the box.
> 
> 
> It does on the Mac OS...

Not necessarily!  - The key issue to remember with multi threading 
(multiple CPU systems) is that there are three things that must ALL 
work before you gain any benefit from the 2nd or 3rd.... cpu.

1) the OS must be multi thread compliant (not all versions are)
(for Winx systems it must be NT4 or Win2k or XP - I believe for 
Apple it must be OSX) Remember Apple just released their very first 
dual system a few months ago.

2) the specifi software application must also be multi aware

3) the specific plug-ins that run within that app must also be multi 
aware.

If ANY one of these three fail, then only one processor works. So, to 
make a blanket statement that yes, it is multi, is not 100% true. If 
you watch the CPU utilization graph as the application is running, 
you will commonly see the second CPU kick in and out. Run an 
action or automated process that uses many different filters, etc. 
and you will see this happen. You will also see that some filters, etc 
are MORE aware than others. IE: some will only use a little of the 
second CPU while others will use it 100%. 

The other issue with multi CPU systems is one of  bus width. It's 
quite easy with today's GHZ plus processors to exceed the max data 
rate the the bus can handle. Therefore CPU speed bogs down while 
waiting for the bus to handle the amount of data they are trying to 
feed through it.

The last issue to consider  is the law of diminishing returns here. 
Adding a second CPU will NOT give you double speed. You will only 
see about a 70% or so gain. This seems to be the biggest 
disappointment factor for those with new dual systems.

BTW: this is true for BOTH Windows and Apple systems. 

Greg