Access and Dual Core Processors

[Bud Jay]

I recently purchased several dual core Athlon machines and involved them in
a large monthly update. The 'chines are all equiped with XP Pro or XP Media
Center Edition, and Office 2003. They are all equally updated with patches.

The original single core 'chines are able to show performance of up to 100%
CPU usage, but the dual core 'chines only seem to be able to use up to 50 %
of CPU capacity. The performance meter seems to be split the activity
between the cores, but the sum total never seems to exceed 50%.

The dual core 'chines, even though they have a higher number (4200+) vs
single core 3500s, perform much less well, and take much longer to process a
block of information in the Access databases. Note that the data is
duplicated and dedicated to each 'chine, and no outside interactivity is
needed.

We suspect that Access 2003 only uses a single core of the two available for
whatever reason. Can anyone confirm this and point me to any way that the
Athlon dual core systems can use both cores in an Access 2003 environment?

Bud Jay

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[Albert D.Kallal]

We suspect that Access 2003 only uses a single core of the two available

for whatever reason. Can anyone confirm this and point me to any way that
the Athlon dual core systems can use both cores in an Access 2003
environment?

This no a different if you use Intel, or AMD......



Most desktop applications (at least all of the major ones) will NOT
experience a
speed up with duel core machines.

The software industry as a whole does NOT HAVE ANY reasonable technology
that will split the tasks of a given program over two processors, and then
have some magical way to put the results together on the other side.


The results of the above fact/information means that:

For ms-access, or word, or Excel, or even your favorite super cool game,
having 1, or 20
processors WILL NOT MAKE ONE bit of difference. This is not really a
ms-access
problem, but a general problem that remains to be solved for the whole
software industry.


So, if you run word, or ms-access, or Excel on a 10 processor machine, or 1
processor machine you will NOT see any difference in performance. This
information applies to most, of not all of the software you will run on your
pc.

However, if you are running MORE THEN one program on your PC, and THOSE
programs are using processing then you experience a benefit. So, a duel core
system can't make a single program run faster..but it can run two programs
at full speed.



So, if you have one program running, and it is using full processing, and
then you launch some other program, then it can/will run on the OTHER
processor. So, more processors will not speed up a single program. However,
with more processors, then each program you LOAD can run on a DIFFERENT
processor. This means you don't get as much as a slow down when running MORE
THEN one program. (and, as mentioned, it means each separate program can run
on a different processor).



99% of the time in word, or excel, or ms-access, you are at some prompt, and
little, if any
processing is being used.



In fact, for about the last 4 or more years (even before duel core
processing), ms-access would not speed up with more processing anyway.
Ms-access is NOT processing bound, but i/o bound (that means ms-access is
slow NOT due to processing, but slow due to waiting for the disk drive, or
the network. These are the big bottle necks, and when you upgrade your pc,
you are not really speeding up the disk drive, or the speed of your
network -- these are the major bottle necks, and they are not faster now
then they were 5 years ago).



So, it has been a NUMBER of years that throwing more processing at a
ms-access will not help.

So, to answer your question, no, ms-access does not take advantage of duel
processors. Nor does your favorite game, or even auto CAD. However, ALL
SOFTWARE will benefit from a duel core processors IF YOU ARE RUNNING more
then one program at the SAME TIME (and ALSO those other programs are max
processing load).



If you are experience a slow down in ms-access, then check your setup, the
best list of things to check is here, and some of them often make a
SUBSTANTIAL difference.



http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/performancefaq.htm

 

[Bud Jay]

Albert and All....

Thanks for the detailed reply. Actually, the application, with much
tweeking, IS processor bound, not I/O bound. That is why it seemed so
evident that Access was using only one core.

Based on this, I will test next if throughput increases if I run two copies
of Access in the same 'chine.

 

[Charlie Hoffpauir]

On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 22:05:09 -0600, "Albert D.Kallal"

Most desktop applications (at least all of the major ones) will NOT
experience a
speed up with duel core machines.

<snip>

Although I do not have a dual core processor (nor dual processors),
I've read comments for a few years that Photoshop "does" speed up when
run on a dual processor machine. So it would appear that some desktop
apps do make use of dual processor capabilities.

Charlie Hoffpauir
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[Larry Linson]

Although I do not have a dual core processor (nor dual processors),
I've read comments for a few years that Photoshop "does" speed up when
run on a dual processor machine. So it would appear that some desktop
apps do make use of dual processor capabilities.

Over time, more and more applications will be programmed to take advantage
of multi-processor environments (of which dual-core is just a "special
case"). Photoshop is a compute-intensive environment and it made a lot of
sense for them to invest in this technology "early-on."

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

 

[Tony Toews]

We suspect that Access 2003 only uses a single core of the two available for
whatever reason. Can anyone confirm this and point me to any way that the
Athlon dual core systems can use both cores in an Access 2003 environment?

This behavior would make sense but I can't explicitly confirm it.

One way of being able to use dual CPU systems better might be to use
SQL Server/SQL Server Express/MSDE. I suspect it will use multiple
CPUs. But I don't know if it would make a significant difference in
a single user environment.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
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