Does Visual Studio 2010 benefit from quad core vs dual core machines? Is compilation multithreaded?

Question

I have a Windows XP machine with a dual core 3.6G CPU and 4megs. I am not very happy with the performance. I was wondering if compilation in VS 2010 is multithreaded and does VS 2010 benefit from switching from dual to quad core machine?

Answer 1

What language are you working in? The native C++ compiler will spawn off multiple processes when you build. In VS 2008 it was one project per core; now it will use multiple cores even if you have only one (presumably huge) project. I don't think managed code does.

A helpful blog entry on what hardware will be useful with VS 2010 is http://blogs.msdn.com/ddperf/archive/2008/12/23/visual-studio-2010-hardware-requirements.aspx for more.