Xp Pro only supports Dual Cpu's, not Quad

Question

Xp Pro only supports Dual Cpu's, not Quad

But does it support Quad Core? If you were to buy an older Quad CPU PC system, you would have to use Windows Server 2003, a version of XP that supports up to 8 CPUs. I could be wrong, but I'm guessing this is also the case with a Quad Core system like the Mac Pro. I recently purchased a Quad PIII xeon 1ghz PC to use for audio, and discovered this. Now I'm running Windows Server 2003 on that system. But I'm interested to know if there is some twist by which Quad Core is supported by XP Pro, since it is two processors with two cores each.

Joel

Posted on Oct 4, 2006 1:49 AM

Reply

Answer 1

StuAff

Level 1

60 points

Oct 4, 2006 2:33 AM in response to Joel Braverman

It does support quad-core- the OS (and your licence) distinguishes between physical processors and multiple cores on those processors. I have XP Home running on my Pro, and although it's only using one Xeon, it does recognise and utilise both cores- XP Pro will use all four (anandtech.com's Mac Pro review and umpteen users here will confirm this).

Mac Pro 2.66 Mac OS X (10.4.7) Radeon X1900XT, 3GB RAM, 250GB HD

Reply

Answer 2

c0ldy

Level 1

5 points

Oct 4, 2006 5:53 AM in response to StuAff

Until 5 Hours ago, when my MAC Pro decided to die on its logicboard.

I was running WinXP on a Seperate HDD with no problems
XP detected and used more or less all 4 Cores.
PCmark05 showed 2 CPUs each with 2 cores.

When the first Quad-Core CPUs will be released and thrown into a MAC Pro. i'm not quiet sure if Win XP will support those 8 Cores. by the Limitation of max 2 Sockets (2 CPUS) it should.

Though if it really would see all 8 cores. i kinda doubt WinXP takes any real advantage of 8 CPUS

so long
TheDuque

Reply

Answer 3

Oct 4, 2006 6:47 AM in response to Joel Braverman

Windows XP Pro on Mac Pro. When running Vue5 Infinite which reports how many CPUs are in use, it reports 4 CPUs.

Reply