CPU Recommendation for Speech recognition

I do a lot of dictating of reports using Vista's speech recognition and
Microsoft Office 2007 Word. I'm currently using a dual core processor (X2
4400). I would like to upgrade my computer for better performance and speech
recognition performance is the most important factor to me. Would I be
better off with a quad core processor like the Q6600 or a dual core
processor that is faster?
Thanks.

LJS

LSkizynski wrote:
> I do a lot of dictating of reports using Vista's speech recognition
> and Microsoft Office 2007 Word. I'm currently using a dual core
> processor (X2 4400). I would like to upgrade my computer for better
> performance and speech recognition performance is the most important
> factor to me. Would I be better off with a quad core processor like
> the Q6600 or a dual core processor that is faster?

How about a better microphone/sound card (lower electrical noise) and a
quieter environment (less background noise to confuse the speech
recognition)? Also, avoid drinking alcohol - even small amounts make life
difficult for speech recognition.

Andrew

Andrew,
Thanks for the reply. The accuracy of the speech recognition is fine. I am
using a Sennheiser ME 3 microphone with an Andrea USB adapter instead of a
sound card. I dictate in a fairly quiet room. By better performance I mean
the latency or rate at which the dictated words appear on the monitor after
they are dictated.
LS
"Andrew Morton" <> wrote in message
news:...
> LSkizynski wrote:
>> I do a lot of dictating of reports using Vista's speech recognition
>> and Microsoft Office 2007 Word. I'm currently using a dual core
>> processor (X2 4400). I would like to upgrade my computer for better
>> performance and speech recognition performance is the most important
>> factor to me. Would I be better off with a quad core processor like
>> the Q6600 or a dual core processor that is faster?
>
> How about a better microphone/sound card (lower electrical noise) and a
> quieter environment (less background noise to confuse the speech
> recognition)? Also, avoid drinking alcohol - even small amounts make life
> difficult for speech recognition.
>
> Andrew
>

On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:36:56 -0500, LSkizynski wrote:

> I do a lot of dictating of reports using Vista's speech recognition and
> Microsoft Office 2007 Word. I'm currently using a dual core processor
> (X2 4400). I would like to upgrade my computer for better performance
> and speech recognition performance is the most important factor to me.
> Would I be better off with a quad core processor like the Q6600 or a
> dual core processor that is faster?
> Thanks.
>
> LJS

Is the speech recognition program multithreaded? If it is then you'll
benefit from a quad core otherwise you won't. Try the following
experiment, check and see if your BIOS allows you to disable one of the
cores. If it can then turn off one core and then see if you see a big
performance difference. If you don't see a difference between 1 and 2
cores then you definitely won't see a difference between 2 and 4.

I'm using speech recognition which is part of Vista (the operating system
itself) to dictate into Microsoft Office Word instead of a separate speech
recognition program such as Dragon or Via Voice. I'm not sure how that
actually uses multithreading but Vista I'm sure does. Thanks.
LS
"General Schvantzkopf" <> wrote in message
news:. ..
> On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:36:56 -0500, LSkizynski wrote:
>
>> I do a lot of dictating of reports using Vista's speech recognition and
>> Microsoft Office 2007 Word. I'm currently using a dual core processor
>> (X2 4400). I would like to upgrade my computer for better performance
>> and speech recognition performance is the most important factor to me.
>> Would I be better off with a quad core processor like the Q6600 or a
>> dual core processor that is faster?
>> Thanks.
>>
>> LJS
>
> Is the speech recognition program multithreaded? If it is then you'll
> benefit from a quad core otherwise you won't. Try the following
> experiment, check and see if your BIOS allows you to disable one of the
> cores. If it can then turn off one core and then see if you see a big
> performance difference. If you don't see a difference between 1 and 2
> cores then you definitely won't see a difference between 2 and 4.

In article <4787c00b$0$28869$>,
(LSkizynski) wrote:

> "General Schvantzkopf" <> wrote in message
> > Is the speech recognition program multithreaded? If it is then
> > you'll benefit from a quad core otherwise you won't. Try the
> > following experiment, check and see if your BIOS allows you to
> > disable one of the cores. If it can then turn off one core and
> > then see if you see a big performance difference. If you don't
> > see a difference between 1 and 2 cores then you definitely won't
> > see a difference between 2 and 4.

> I'm using speech recognition which is part of Vista (the operating
> system itself) to dictate into Microsoft Office Word instead of a
> separate speech recognition program such as Dragon or Via Voice. I'm
> not sure how that actually uses multithreading but Vista I'm sure
> does.

Unfortunately the fact that it is part of Vista, and Vista uses
multithreading doesn't actually tell you anything useful. Vista
is not one program that does all of the Vista things. It is many
separate programs - the joins are well-concealed in some places -
some of which are multi-threaded and some of which are not.

The logic was approximately "I have a sheep" (I'm using Vista) and "Some
sheep are black" (Vista uses multi-threading) therefore "my sheep must
be black". If MS had required of the Vista development teams that every
single program in it be as multi-threaded as is humanly possible, it
would not have been released yet, and we'd be looking at some time in
the 2030s for it.

You need to do the test, as described.

--
John Dallman
"C++ - the FORTRAN of the early 21st century."

John Dallman <> wrote:
> Unfortunately the fact that it is part of Vista, and Vista uses
> multithreading doesn't actually tell you anything useful. Vista
> is not one program that does all of the Vista things. It is many
> separate programs - the joins are well-concealed in some places -
> some of which are multi-threaded and some of which are not.
>
> The logic was approximately "I have a sheep" (I'm using Vista) and "Some
> sheep are black" (Vista uses multi-threading) therefore "my sheep must
> be black". If MS had required of the Vista development teams that every
> single program in it be as multi-threaded as is humanly possible, it
> would not have been released yet, and we'd be looking at some time in
> the 2030s for it.

Even if the speech recognition module itself isn't multithreaded, Vista is
enough of a hog that a quad core is probably desirable - one core for the
desktop window manager/GDI, one for the Office UI, and one for speech
recognition is already 3

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/
preferred email |
is "nate" at the | "A sufficiently advanced incompetence is
posting domain | indistinguishable from malice."

Why does the app have to be multi-threaded?
All desktop Win NT run dozens of threads.

About a decade ago people were saying a dual PPro system was
more responsive than a PII. Less context switching, still true.

"General Schvantzkopf" <> wrote in message
news:. ..
>
> Is the speech recognition program multithreaded? If it is then you'll
> benefit from a quad core otherwise you won't. Try the following
> experiment, check and see if your BIOS allows you to disable one of the
> cores. If it can then turn off one core and then see if you see a big
> performance difference. If you don't see a difference between 1 and 2
> cores then you definitely won't see a difference between 2 and 4.