There have been several discussions around various parts of the forum about using 32 bit SMP in VBox and the fact that it is faster if one uses a single CPU. I decided to test this out and have some results for you to digest below. First I wanted to see if there was any speed difference between 32 bit 1 and 2 cpu and also see what difference there was with 64 bit . I used for this test a Ubuntu 64 bit host 4 Gig of ram on a laptop. The results mean little as far as actual performance because it is all subjective, but it does show a clear difference. I did not install the 3D effects so the actual grade is going to be lower.
Test 1 was Windows XPpro 32 bit SP3 single CPU 512 meg Ram
Test 2 was Windows XPpro 32 bit SP3 Dual CPU 512 meg Ram
Test 3 was Windows XPpro 64 bit Sp2 Dual CPU 1024 meg Ram
For the Test 3 I used the same software (32 bit) so it will reflect hyper-threading and not the actual 64 bit dual core, but as I said that was subjective to real world where you run 32 bit apps on both types.
- XP32-1CPU-test.jpg (83.57 KiB) Viewed 1826 times
- XP32-2CPU-test.jpg (82.39 KiB) Viewed 1826 times
- XP64-test.jpg (82.84 KiB) Viewed 1826 times
I have found that converting a Windows machine that was previously installed as a single processor to a multi-processor is hit-and-miss and usually works better if you select a single CPU. Also just for completion I am using the PUEL version of VirtualBox version 3.0.8
You must have at least SP2 for Windows XP or you need to get a patch from Microsoft to be able to use SMP
Comments and other test results are welcome, but what I am interest in is the difference between single and multiple cores preferably 32 bit, and if this was a clean install or an upgrade to SMP.