Quad-Core is it faster?

Quad core processors are no longer the future. Earlier this year Intel released the new Core 2 Extreme Quad Core processor, with all of this quadie goodness SolidWorks is sure to fly right? Well maybe, before you rush off and ask purchasing to get you one of these bad boys for the ultra low cost of around $1500 lets take a look at how they work.

For a program to take advantage of more then one processor it has to be "multithreaded". If you're like most people this may not mean a lot to you. Basically when an application is multithreaded it can do more then one thing at a time. Most PC programs (SolidWorks included) are not multithreaded; they approach tasks in a linear fashion (1 then 2 then 3 and so on). If an application is multithreaded it can take advantage of extra processors by doing things in parallel (1 and 2 at the same time). As you can guess this will increase your performance. If you would like a more in depth explanation about multithreading take a look here, but make sure you come back.

Now that we have a basic understanding of multithreading lets see how we can take advantage of this in SolidWorks. Currently SolidWorks only has one area of its program that is multithreaded: hidden line calculations. If you have a multiprocessor system SolidWorks will spin off a new process to run the hidden line calculations (you can see this in the task manager). There are a few other areas where SolidWorks will use the other processor but this is done internally without creating a new process. These areas are in opening files, doing mass properties calculations, and multi-body operations. What does this really mean for us in "real" numbers? About a 20-30% increase in performance compared to a single processor. Currently SolidWorks will only use two processes at maximum. Therefore a dual core will have the same performance benefit as a quad core at a significant cost savings.

Quad core technology is cutting edge, it's just too soon to recommend. As software works to keep up with technology we will see a benefit to having four processors. For now all the "Quadie goodness" can wait, spend the money on a Dual core with extra RAM or a better video card.