Multi core fad??

[MU_Engineer]

Yes, I know I am talking about At The Moment. I know that the trends will change, and when they change, the hardware required to run it will be common and pretty inexpensive. (See DVD burners today versus a few years ago- they're about 1/3 to 1/5th as much.) All hardware that is a break from the incremental evolution is quite expensive and generally not even fully utilized until some later time. Also, the early adopters work the bugs out so the rest of us can come on in and get proven, reasonably-priced gear. Going with the DVD example, the early adopters had the +/- format war that was expensive, and now most any burner will do all formats. It can pay to buy for the present and near future and let the future take care of itself for some things.

 

[ak47is1337]

just making the point that you can find software to prove any point you want.

The right statistician can find numbers to prove any point he wants to make.

Find me software where VIA wins

 

[hergieburbur]

just making the point that you can find software to prove any point you want.

The right statistician can find numbers to prove any point he wants to make.

Find me software where VIA wins

You win. :?

I suck at statisitcs anyway.

 

[hergieburbur]

Exactly. That is why I said that I don't beleive multicores are a Fad. They will eventually win out.

 

[pcrig]

alright its been about a year since the dualcores have arrived. and they are already talking about quad cores next year. my question is how the hell do they market that?

2 intel conroes are single core and if it's performance exceeds that of a mainstream pentium D that would be disastrous for marketing. so wat if they make a quad core.. theres bound to be a single version of it.. which will always be for the budget consumer. ie. most ppl in the world.

so wat do think bout my two cents?

Well INTEL doesn't make real integtrated dual core processors, AMD does.

Intel just sticks two processors on a pin board and deceive all that it is a dual core processor.

As far as dual core AMD they are the only way to go, for a while
until quatro arrive.

 

[MU_Engineer]

Oh, I agree 100% that multicores are not a fad, either. I just think that there is a limit where the increase in number of cores does not yield much more in performance. Might that be 8 cores, 16, 32 cores? I don't know. So what I am really trying to say is that the manufacturers work on rasing clock speed, IPC, integer and FPU performance, memory bandwidth, reducing cache latency, etc. rather than just multiply the number of cores.

 

[hergieburbur]

Oh, I agree 100% that multicores are not a fad, either. I just think that there is a limit where the increase in number of cores does not yield much more in performance. Might that be 8 cores, 16, 32 cores? I don't know. So what I am really trying to say is that the manufacturers work on rasing clock speed, IPC, integer and FPU performance, memory bandwidth, reducing cache latency, etc. rather than just multiply the number of cores.

Absolutely, that goes without saying. If I remeber right, multiple cores was just about always part of the A64 roadmap as well.

 

[ak47is1337]

No, I think that was only with Opteron. However, a unified bus structure allows for seriously lower latency and communication between cores that Intel simply doesn't have.

 

[joefriday]

Yes it's a fad. 80% of all the computer users in America will never need all the power of a dual core, let alone a quad core. But marketing is a funny thing. People will think they need multi core cpus, and pretty soon some bloatware will come along that will make that perceived need a reality. Honestly, does adobe reader really need to be 18 mb download? No. But it is b/c most people have so much cpu power and hard drive space that no one cares.

I surf the net, IM, type, and listen to mp3's on a 200 mhz MMX pentium box with 64 megs of ram and windows 98SE. It does everything that most "normal" folks ever do with their computer, yet those people would think that they need at least a Pentium 4 at 3+ Ghz to perform these tasks.

 

[ak47is1337]

just some advice; run FEAR on that.

 

[hergieburbur]

True, most normal people don't need them. However, there are a lot of people into high-end games, programming, productivity, and centralized home entertainment (think video and audio production along with HTPC). The apps almost demand dual core or more, and will continue to do so as they transition into multi-threaded apps. You will also see a larger perfromance increase in multi-threaded apps than you currently do in single threaded.

 

[joefriday]

If I were to game, do you REALLY think I would use that pc? :roll: Just b/c I'm using an old pc, doesn't mean I'm ignorant. I just sold my high performance rig this week (sempy 64 2800 on Tforce 6100 @ 2.5 Ghz), mainly b/c my wife's Dell 4500 can handle all the video capture/encoding duties fine (Northwood Celeron 2.0 ghz oc'ed to 2.66 Ghz). All I needed was a box to perform basic tasks on. You know, PRODUCTIVITY? This old pc was given to me from a friend, as I generally refurbish pc's and give them away to families with kids who need something to do their homework and surf the net on. This one is too slow for most people, so I decided I would use it for my needs. It works fine, and it's completely silent with a passive heatsink and a modern 60 gig hard drive.

Hergieburber: I agree 100%. I have (and had) some higher end boxes, but only b/c I actually needed the power. Gamers need their power in order to get their fix, and multimedia enthusiast need the power so things don't take days to encode. It's just that most folks, those who don't care about how computers work, generally have overkill systems based upon the tasks performed. They will hear propaganda about dual core cpus and feel that they need to upgrade. That's where the "fad" is found.

 

[hergieburbur]

True. In that respect, most people don't need anything more than a PIII. However, the high-end drives the market, so, just as Joe Average User is forced to get a Pentium 4, D, AMD64 etc now, they will be forced to upgrade to multi-core in the future.

Plus some common apps will become multi-theaded eventually. We see ithe same things with housing. you always fill up the space you have, even if you cen get by with less. Software will take advantage of the available capabilities in the future.

Thats why I don't think its a fad. Fad implies disappearing after a relatively brief period of time, and while we are still using silicon for our chips, I don't think we will see that.

 

[Heyyou27]

As scoobertscoobydoo said, that list is so far off.
The only 2 games on that list I know that actually receive performance increases with dual core processors are Quake 4 and Call of Duty 2.

 

[WINDSHEAR]

I had to respond to you and joefriday... I like having a high end box... because I like speed. It greatly cuts down my time on the computer, I don't waste as much time waiting for programs to open. Everything opens instantly for me, no waiting. I'm using a P4 530J 3.0Ghz Prescott w/ HTT overclocked to 3.27Ghz. In the future, I hope to upgrade to a Conroe/Smithfield, or a PD 950. You can really overclock those 65nm PD's.

 

[Corasik]

Intel would be absolutely delighted if the single core 'budget' Conroe (perhaps they will call it Core Celeron hehe) destroys 'Mainstream Pentium 'D's.

Pentium 4 is on its way out, its dead, good bye, processor history. The Conroe is intels future. If Single core Conroe does well, the dual core Conroe is going to be so much faster in multi threaded applications. (And alot of benchmarks are multithreaded).

Games will catch up sooner or later and use dual core, to run AI, and Physics engines on one core, and the main graphics rendering engine split between the other core, and the GPU's. Quad core no problem, use a core to do real time DTS24/96 surround sound encoding of special effects, even start splitting the main 3Dengine into additional threads could be done too. MMORPG's still use a cpu bound particle engine for 'magic spell' effects.

It will take time for programmers to 'learn' the best way to utilize the performance offered by multicore processors, but eventually it's likely it will be considered the norm.

Simple single core chips will still be ok for word processing, and web browsing, but even 'average' users will probably want dual cores or more sooner or later.

 

[chunkymonster]

Are the multi core cpu's a fad. No way! Here's another reason why...Intel for years marketed themselves as the speed king, SUPER GHZ=BEST CPU. Intel lost that race, not only by being 2nd to reach 1GHz, but also by not being able to hit 4GHz as they bragged they would in 2005. Methinks AMD realized the x86 architecture limitations and saw how the scenario was going to play out and leaped ahead to an almost obvious conclusion of multi core cpus. And even that was nothing new as servers have been multi core for years! Really tho, how fast was a cpu going to get before the rest of the computer hardware would be unable to take advantage of it. We see this now with Intels decision to keep the the north bridge/south bridge set up. AMD got smart and put the memory controller on the die and, two years later, memory speeds are just now catching up with DDR2.

Faced with the physical limitations of the x86 architecture and the physical limitations of the mobo connections, the only real way for cpu's to progress was to go multi core. As someone wrote, multi cpu machines have been around for years and anyone who has used them know the advantage of multi cores over a super fast single. Hell, I'm posting this using a dual opty machine! Since I went dually, I'll never want or use another single core machine again!

 

[joefriday]

it is a fad. Just like Pentium was sooo cool in 1995, MMX was all the rage in 1998, then Hyperthreading was the shiznit in 2002. You just weren't hip unless you had these things back when they were new and cutting edge. Now, all these things are just ho-hum and taken for granted. That, my friends, is a God-damn fad

 

[surf2di4]

not a fad

 

[ak47is1337]

It's only a fad if you do it just to have one..

 

[FITCamaro]

Dual core is only a fad at the moment because most things don't utilize it.
But its not going away. Ever.

Now, that does not clarify whether it is necessary. Does the average consumer need a dual core processor? No. Will they ever take advantage of the speed of one? Most likely not. The fact is we've hit a point where the hardware is far more powerful than the software there is to use it with. The average consumer surfs the web, runs Office, and listens to music or watches video. Can you easily multitask those things with a regular processor and 1GB of RAM? Yes.

What is dual core good for? Encoding, editting, 3D Design, Games, and any other intensive application. Will a certain number of cores ever be too many for those things? No. The more cores you have the better. However that only applies if the software supports threads. Of course now that multi-threaded apps are becoming more common, once you get the software written to support two cores, it'll support 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. Just more hands to share in the workload.

I think the statement that for the average consumer, two cores will be more than enough is correct. The only reason they'll need more is because of companies who load their apps with crap no one will use and that just takes away from the actual function of it. Look at cell phones. God forbid they just make a damn phone that can make phone calls. Now we need digital cameras, text messaging, the internet, MP3 players, games, etc. And all that crap does is drain your battery faster. My biggest beef with Vista is going to be the increased system requirements. The only reason I have to upgrade is that DX10 is only going to be supported on Vista. Thats a shitty reason to pay $200 to upgrade your Operating System.

Oh and the Pentium D and the Netburst architecture is dead. Sure it has way more processing power than the average person will use, but Intel wrote it off when it saw what it had in the Pentium M.

 

[russki]

oefriday: you are one of the most shortsighted people on these boards, and that's quite an achievement.

You "high performance" rig?! try running Photoshop on that with any kind of high performance. Just because your interests run with browsing internet and listening to MP3's, tasks that, oh I don't know, a Treo could do nowadays, it is hardly an indication of what PCs are mainly used for (again, aside from your entertainment after you get home at 7 pm). With heavy multi-tasking, photo editing, video editing, sound work, and a multitude of other applications, demands grow. For most people on these boards, gaming is of primary concern.

In this instance, multi-cores are a little bit ahead of their time, but that is simply natural. In the normal world [before Vista], hardware drives the software, and not the other way around. There was no point in developing multi-threaded applications (even if Windows had the "capability" to do so) since it was generally more pain, and Windows scheduler is pretty lousy, so there was no gain, other than the theoretical supremacy of the resulting code.

Now, that the technology is available, you will see threaded applications (like those that have been running on multiprocessor workstations in the past), which will benefit tremendously from multiple cores.

In terms of games - those are some of the applications that lend themselves superbly to threading - physics, AI, graphics (already threaded, if you think about it - what is a GPU other than a specialized additional core? Just couldn’t package them together), sound. There are possibilities of threads within these major threads.

The point is, it is all about the availability of tools for developers, who will then utilize them.

And joefriday, the processors you named were the fastest in their day, that's why they were all the rage. Your comparison simply does not apply. Dual cores are, generally, clocked slower than their single core counterparts. It is not about speed, it is a different framework. It would help if you would give us examples that were relevant to the topic.

 

[hergieburbur]

it is a fad. Just like Pentium was sooo cool in 1995, MMX was all the rage in 1998, then Hyperthreading was the shiznit in 2002. You just weren't hip unless you had these things back when they were new and cutting edge. Now, all these things are just ho-hum and taken for granted. That, my friends, is a God-damn fad

C'mon now, you can do better than that. Your own definition refutes your arguments. A fad implies a brief period of time. Yes, all those things were popular at their release, but they are all STILL AROUND. That means they aren't fads, they are lasting products. We will see the same thing with multi-core.

To put i it in perspective, look at cars. Are airbags a fad? how about fuel-injection or anti-lock brakes? Same concept.

 

[ak47is1337]

it is a fad. Just like Pentium was sooo cool in 1995, MMX was all the rage in 1998, then Hyperthreading was the shiznit in 2002. You just weren't hip unless you had these things back when they were new and cutting edge. Now, all these things are just ho-hum and taken for granted. That, my friends, is a God-damn fad

C'mon now, you can do better than that. Your own definition refutes your arguments. A fad implies a brief period of time. Yes, all those things were popular at their release, but they are all STILL AROUND. That means they aren't fads, they are lasting products. We will see the same thing with multi-core.

To put i it in perspective, look at cars. Are airbags a fad? how about fuel-injection or anti-lock brakes? Same concept.

Taking old technology for granite is called "progress".
Don't expect dual core to go away, ever. Intel already has 45nm processors with 4 cores coming out next year.

 

[baseline]

joefriday; Calling it a fad would indicate to me that you feel that multicore technology will eventualy disappear. This seems counter to the current and past trends amoung the hardware industry.

The trouble is its a chicken and egg sort of thing for the industry. Which do you bring to market first software or hardware? Trouble is you need both to achieve real success.

With greater power comes greater uses for the PC, perhaps in a few years people will actually use their computers for uses beyond surfing, e-mail and playing mp3's. You can do all of those things on a mianstream rig because we all didn't say; "were fine now" when we got ou 286's.

Multicore is here to stay and it will begin to spread to things like GPUs next since SLI is a cost effective, quick and very profitable way to bring mulicore like performance to the video subsystem. If you want to identify a fad then here it is...SLI.