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Wildly OT: Processor Affinity

I know this is wildly off topic but it *could* be about modifying and it does relate to cars, sort of, heh.

I have a Centrino Duo, Windows XP Home notebook and I've been playing with Processor Affinity when working on my Datasheet (see, it is nearly on topic). I'm using Office 2003.

By default, Excel is affinited to both processors. When I recalculate the sheet, it loads both processor cores to around 50%, thus using about half of available processor power.

When I tell it to only use one core... and I recalculate... it fully loads that core and the other one is free to do whatever it wants. It takes just as long to recalculate my Datasheet (a few seconds).

This behaviour seems a little different to my Pentium 4 HT machine at the office, which loads up one core to the maximum when I calculate something in Excel.

I guess this is Intel's power management functionality built into the Centrino chipset / processor / funkiness..?

But if both cores can share the load, can they be tweaked to both devote as much time as possible to the recalculation..?

Reply to
DervMan
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HT is only one core with 2 paths to it allowing the system to buffer 2 sets of commands but when doing one long or repetitive command on a lot of data it's more efficient to just use the one path.

Not that I know of unless you try simply upping the priority of the thread.

Reply to
Depresion

That makes sense, then. It's Intel cheating heh.

So the Pentium 4 HT Extreme Edition is a dual core, hyperthreading unit - two cores, made to look like four?

Gotcha.

Reply to
DervMan

Yes, it's a clever step that can make some programs feel faster.

Reply to
Depresion

A nice marketing exercise then. Mind you, my work machine doesn't feel sluggish, that's for sure.

Reply to
DervMan

I might be wrong (it's happened lots before), but ITYF it's not badged as Pentium 4 Extreme - it's badged something like Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme.

-- "They said to me 'You could be anyone you wanted to be', but I was realistic and only ever aimed to be me, which I already was. So I gave up trying."

Reply to
AstraVanMan

Could be. I didn't pay particular attention to the adverts at the time.

Reply to
DervMan

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