to dual core or not to dual core...

[Gary Jennejohn]

Ken Gunderson writes
> Anyhow, thanks for your input.  Was hoping that maybe someone w/a dual
> core rig could perhaps share some real world fbsd experience...

Here are some things which I've noticed

a) building ports in parallel is a much more pleasant experience.
b) transcoding movies with dvdrip is much faster if one uses two
passes because the first pass uses both cores and takes only about
1/3 as long. The second pass only seems to use one core, but that
leaves the second core free to do other things.
c) buildworld takes only half the time with -j2. I've tried higher
-jX values but > 2 showed no real benefit.

I have seen in top that the X server seems to run on one core while
other things, e.g. a terminal, run on a different core. That can be
good if the terminal is displaying lots of trace, for example.

-- 
Gary Jennejohn / garyjATjennejohnDOTorg gjATfreebsdDOTorg garyjATdenxDOTde