1) if one were to buy a dual core (or quad core) cpu chip, do all my existing applications naturally go faster, or does software have to be 'written' to utilize the new technology?
2) i heard once that amd64 needs a special xp-64 to take advantage of the speed. any opinions on this?
3) amd vs intel? i have had both.... any opinions? personally, i never saw any difference at all.
i currently have a p4 with 3GHz, 1 gig of ram. i want to be able to render video faster. and i would prefer to not have to buy any new sofware or a new OS to get the new speed, just a hardware upgrade and then build the new 'puter with all my old software and OS.
i dont understand all the ultra-geek words like 'hyperthreading' so please keep the replies a little on the simple side!
thanks
This article (http://icrontic.com/articles/dual_core) explains how dual core processors work in pretty clear English. As it says, the main benefit will be if you multi-task, unless your application is dual processor aware.