AutoCAD & Multiple CUP's and/or Multiple Cores??

[stykface]

Question.... In this link on page 6 section 4.3 it says AutoCAD 2010 supports Multiple CUPs, however my question is this: Does this mean literally multiple processors, or does this/can this relate to multiple core (dual core, quad core) CPUs? Just want to make certain..... the last time I asked was for AutoCAD 2009 and I was informed that it does not support multiple core CUPs.

[cadtag]

multiple cores or multiple physical cpus, doesn't matter. As far as the OS and apps are concerned, they are the same thing.

Now as for AutoCAD supporting multiple CPUs, that's a bit more complicated. That article is marketing speak, and while correct, is not complete. There are elements and subsystems in AutoCAD that can take advantage of multiple cores and run faster with more processors. The rendering subsystem is one, so if you do a lot of rendering, multiple cpus are a distinct performance improver.

But, AutoCAD as a whole is not multi-threaded, and the daily drafting tasks will not benefit from having 8 cpus running.

that said, at least a dual-core is desirable, since windows always has a lot of background tasks and processes running, bottom line for now, two cores=good, 4 cores=very questionable, 8 cores=wasted money. Unless rendering is a big part of your job, then spend the money on RAM and graphics

[stykface]

multiple cores or multiple physical cpus, doesn't matter. As far as the OS and apps are concerned, they are the same thing.

Now as for AutoCAD supporting multiple CPUs, that's a bit more complicated. That article is marketing speak, and while correct, is not complete. There are elements and subsystems in AutoCAD that can take advantage of multiple cores and run faster with more processors. The rendering subsystem is one, so if you do a lot of rendering, multiple cpus are a distinct performance improver.

But, AutoCAD as a whole is not multi-threaded, and the daily drafting tasks will not benefit from having 8 cpus running.

that said, at least a dual-core is desirable, since windows always has a lot of background tasks and processes running, bottom line for now, two cores=good, 4 cores=very questionable, 8 cores=wasted money. Unless rendering is a big part of your job, then spend the money on RAM and graphics

Makes sense. I know right now I have a Core2 Duo and I have a utility that sets acad.exe to one core, and everything else to the other. Also, the only thing I see in the Help file related to Multi-threading is simply the WHIPTHREAD system variable. It seems the only thing that controls is REGEN and REDRAW.

So, basically what you're saying is that most "functions" of AutoCAD in the main area of work doesn't really support or even need the support for multi-threading or multi-core use, correct?

[cadtag]

well, Acad does support multicore in the sense that having mutliple cores or cpus will not cause an immediate crash

Btu it doesn't take a whole lot of advantage of it. And yes, other than rendering and the mtext editor, multiple cores will have little impact on your day to day getting stuff done. You can see that by firing up TaskManager on a multiple core machine, and seeing 1 cpu cranking and all the rest running at minimum.

A pity -- if the eye candy, ribbon, palettes, and new layer manager actually were multithreaded and could use the additional cores, they might not slow down the rest of the software quite so badly.

Caveat -- I hear rumours that C3D 2010 can maybe use additional cores for dynamic updates, but have not seen that in action, nor had it confirmed by anyone who knows.

[stykface]

well, Acad does support multicore in the sense that having mutliple cores or cpus will not cause an immediate crash

Btu it doesn't take a whole lot of advantage of it. And yes, other than rendering and the mtext editor, multiple cores will have little impact on your day to day getting stuff done. You can see that by firing up TaskManager on a multiple core machine, and seeing 1 cpu cranking and all the rest running at minimum.

A pity -- if the eye candy, ribbon, palettes, and new layer manager actually were multithreaded and could use the additional cores, they might not slow down the rest of the software quite so badly.

Caveat -- I hear rumours that C3D 2010 can maybe use additional cores for dynamic updates, but have not seen that in action, nor had it confirmed by anyone who knows.

Awesome, makes much more sense now. Thanks for your response.