Convertion quad-core to dual-core is possible?

[NaturalViolence]

Quote:becasue dolphin only uses 2 cores anyway so the heat will be basically the same as if 4 cores were enabled becasue only 4 are being used anyway

That depends how you disable the cores. With older quad core cpus like a core 2 quad "disabling" the cores in the bios setup simply removes the bios ability to access them. In that case you would be correct. It would effectively have the same effect as not using the extra 2 cores.

However with newer cpus like the core i7 that you are using you can completely kill power to these cores to disable them. And that will reduce heat far more than simply not using them. TDP will go down considerably.

[Nemesis2k9]

(08-15-2011, 08:18 AM)linkinworm Wrote: lol wut, you dont understand how CPUS work, disabling 2 wouldnt give the other 2 a 1.6ghz boost they are all 1.6ghz regardless of what you do, dolphin will only use 2 cores even on a 1 million core cpu it would still only use 2, buy a better laptop

what*

[siferion]

Even if what your asking was possible, it would be a really stupid idea to actually do. Simple fact is that your computer is doing a whole lot of stuff behind the scenes to make sure things work, and to prevent catastrophic damage if something doesn't work properly. Having a couple extra cores that you know a program wont be using, means that's a couple extra cores that your computer will use for it's own tasks.

[linkinworm]

(08-29-2011, 10:27 AM)Nemesis2k9 Wrote:

(08-15-2011, 08:18 AM)linkinworm Wrote: lol wut, you dont understand how CPUS work, disabling 2 wouldnt give the other 2 a 1.6ghz boost they are all 1.6ghz regardless of what you do, dolphin will only use 2 cores even on a 1 million core cpu it would still only use 2, buy a better laptop

what*

Yes I know how to spell what, thank you for that.

[dannzen]

buy a rig... and dont waste money in amd notebooks

[Ocean]

NaturalViolence is right, even if you disable 2 cores you will still need the same voltage for high OC's as you did with 4 cores.

The processor will obviously consume less electricity with 2 cores disabled but you will still need the same operating voltage to OC the remaining ones.

[Lucario]

Lol okay that's new to me

[NaturalViolence]

Quote:The processor will obviously consume less electricity with 2 cores disabled but you will still need the same operating voltage to OC the remaining ones.

That depends on how you "disable" them. And whether or not the cores were actually being used.

Older cpus can't block power from flowing through the cores, they can only make the cores "invisible" to the bios so that the system cannot use them. Since the cpu cores consume far less power when they aren't being used this could save power when running 3-4 thread applications (however the power consumtion savings would be small and the performance loss would be quite large). However if you compare simply not using the extra 2 cores vs. diabling them this way you won't see any different in power consumption.

Now if you take a newer cpu like a core i7 that can completely kill power to unused cores the energy savings are far more substantial. However it is not a linear relationship. In other words of you take a 4 core i7 and disable 2 of the cores you aren't going to see a 50% drop in power consumption. This is because the cpu contains more than just cores and these other parts such as the IMC and cache also consume power. Quad core cpus tend to use about 30-50% more power than dual core cpus, not 100% more. With newer cpus the difference is even lower. And on newer cpus like the i7s killing power to unused cores happens automatically (powergate) so manually disabling them makes almost no difference.

TLDR: Disabling cores to reduce power consumption is dumb. A 4 core cpu can provide up to twice the throughput of a 2 core cpu yet only consume 30-50% more power at the same clock rate/voltage. Also the 4 core cpu has built in power savings features that will throttle down or kill power to unused cores to automatically save power.