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totally_fly

macrumors member
Original poster
To me this sounds impossible, but is it possible to have a mac with two different speed processors?

and im curious, is there any way to upgrade my single proc. to a dual proc????

danx for da elp
 
I dont think you can have 2 different speeds, but if you have a powermac you can get a dual processor upgrade card.
 
Currently impossible.

It is currently impossible to have what you are talking about. The closest we have come is the graphics card, which has a processor running at a different frequency as the processor(s). Also there are cards which have processors that by-pass the primary processor (processor upgrades). The problem with what you are suggesting is that timing is everything in computers, especially the processors. I don't know the exact specs on why, but essentially, the processors wouldn't be able to communicate correctly, and therefore instructions would get all jumbled. Unless they come up with an innovative way to design the hardware and created software that could time instructions correctly, I don't see this happening. I don't really see the advantage to this, except in dedicated tasks like graphics, sound, etc. Maybe if they start making processors designed just for certain functions like a SIMD dedicated processor, a floating point dedicated processor, etc, all feeding off of a primary processor, then we may see some reasoning behind it. But honestly, I don't see anything like that happening in the consumer field, and as it is, processors work most efficiently by themselves, so I don't see a push for this sort of technology.
 
cool.. thanx for the info... i was only curious because lets say i want to upgrade my pm to a dualie.. i would have to pay for two processors... but if two different speeds were supported i could have my old 733 proc in there and a new 1 ghz proc as well.. newyas.. i doubted it was possible... thanx for clearing that up 🙂
 
Originally posted by scem0
you can't do that with PCs can you?

you cant get "upgrade cards" for pcs. If you have DP mobo for pc, you can have only one proc in it if you want. you can later add a second if needed but here is the thing:

AMD - must be same speed, if not only primary will function
Intel - both work at the slowest speed

just some trivia.
 
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