What is a dual processor upgrade for PM G4 Digital Audio?

[California]

Dumbie question, I know. But what is a dual processor upgrade?

For that matter, what is a dual processor?

i understand there are two processors, what I don't understand is why -- and more importantly, why is this better for editing?

Sorry so dumb. I just don't understand it nor do I understand why it might be a faster machine -- say the Powermac G4 Digital Audio Dual 533mhz -- why this is faster than the Powermac G4 Digital Audio 733mhz.

Do the processors run independently or sort of in tangent and speed bumps occur that way?

 

[Chone]

Well this concept should be easy to understand, see for example lets say the 733mhz processor is a guy throwing 733 bricks every cycle and 533mhz dual is 2 guys throwing 533 bricks every cycle, which are going to be more efficient? This also depends on the application used, its like trying to throw 2 bricks at once in a pipe that is only is as wide as one brick, in that case the 733mhz processor will be faster.

Of course this also does NOT mean a 533mhz dual processor will be equal to a 1066mhz single processor but you get the idea of how parallel processing work.

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

say the Powermac G4 Digital Audio Dual 533mhz -- why this is faster than the Powermac G4 Digital Audio 733mhz.

Do the processors run independently or sort of in tangent and speed bumps occur that way?

On most normal, cpu-bound tasks, the dual 533 would be faster, since it can split the workload between the 2 cpu's. This will vary from app to app, but most OS X apps nowdays are multi-threaded, meaning that they can by default utilize more than one CPU, if available, to execute their codebase, resulting in an overall efficiency and speed increase