How long will Dual-Cores last ? And Quad-Cores, what gives ?

[bjp999]

How about a cold one instead of arguing about this. We aliens have to stick together. :beer::beer::beer:

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: Aluvus

Originally posted by: Zenoth
Even excluding gaming, does the public "need" such powerful CPUs ? Will Mr.Joe regularly use 4, 8 or 32 Cores with his Winamp, Browser x y and z, and CD-Burning ? I can do all that on a Single-Core. What does the public ask for ? Why are engineers offering us that technology ? You know they could still develop it, but why do they offer us all the new processing power houses. Because it's "cool" I assume.

You're right, 640K ought to be enough for anybody

lol...that quote made me laugh so hard that i forgot what i was supposed to type...

 

[hans007]

well , we used to count with Ghz or Mhz, now we count with cores, since clock speed isnt rising much.

no big deal, same as always.


i figure CPUs will be "useable" for 3 years or so. though they will not be super fast in the last year of that anymore. but yeah... they last as long as they arent slow. some satelites still use 486s and such.

 

[imported_LouHead]

Originally posted by: nyker96

I agree, no game house will make games that is for only 1-2% of owners. It will attempt to cover the majority. So I take it games like Alan Wake is on the rare side, if anything Intel probably paid them to specifically put in quad support. Most normal game house will probably go for dual since we can all see that will be popular in the next few years.

I wouldn't be so quick to discount the planning of game developers, WRT the economics of gaming with mutiple cores.

Valve Goes Multicore

It appear Half-life 3 and possibly the next 'Mini-Episode' will both take FULL advantage of a Multi-Core (not just dual core), PC. This will happen, and set the bar for serious game developers.

With delivery and update systems like Steam, Valve is already planning on making games, and backwards compatable updates, for the 1-2% you speak of.

Very Sweet.

-LA

 

[cmv]

I only got my Dual Core laptop for the power savings over a Celeron model but now that I have it I love it. One crappy application can't hog the whole system. Now of course the issue of slow hard drives is going to become more and more important so the next cool things (besides n-cores of course) will be faster storage. I hope at least -- HDs are a real bottle neck.

 

[SpeedZealot369]

Originally posted by: cmv
I only got my Dual Core laptop for the power savings over a Celeron model but now that I have it I love it. One crappy application can't hog the whole system. Now of course the issue of slow hard drives is going to become more and more important so the next cool things (besides n-cores of course) will be faster storage. I hope at least -- HDs are a real bottle neck.

You can always get raptors in raid 0

 

[rudder]

A celeron 300 mhz, 128 megs of ram, and windows 2000 is fine for surfing the web and working in office. If you demand more from your PC and there is another product out there that allows you to get more you would say goodbye to the 300 mhz celeron. Whereas people like my mom will continue to use one.

 

[A5]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
Computer engineers saw this problem coming some years back and they debated the direction the industry would go. The proponents of multicore designs have been proven correct because AMD, Intel, and IBM are really conservative and lack expertise with the exotic processor designs that other factions proposed.

I certainly wouldn't say that Intel, IBM, and AMD "lack expertise". You can't really criticize them for taking the easiest route when you don't tell us what the alternatives are.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: LouHead

Originally posted by: nyker96

I agree, no game house will make games that is for only 1-2% of owners. It will attempt to cover the majority. So I take it games like Alan Wake is on the rare side, if anything Intel probably paid them to specifically put in quad support. Most normal game house will probably go for dual since we can all see that will be popular in the next few years.

I wouldn't be so quick to discount the planning of game developers, WRT the economics of gaming with mutiple cores.

Valve Goes Multicore

It appear Half-life 3 and possibly the next 'Mini-Episode' will both take FULL advantage of a Multi-Core (not just dual core), PC. This will happen, and set the bar for serious game developers.

With delivery and update systems like Steam, Valve is already planning on making games, and backwards compatable updates, for the 1-2% you speak of.

Very Sweet.

-LA

Only if the game is good.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
Only if the game is good.

I have faith in Valve - they make kickass games.

 

[piddlefoot]

tried n tested on so many games, lm sick of arguing this topic, dual core systems , OWN, single core systems for ANY online gaming, you have so many backround tasks, cpu overhead, and a few other things, the second core lets it all run smoother, all you single core'ers that have never owned one are in my opinion flat wrong, l hear some who own them say there single is better and in offline games like HL2 there right, for now, but online, or lanned, even most single player games are faster on a dual core, well not faster, SMOOTHER, smoother is better, clock speed has been a thing of the past for 2 years now, its all about throughput, how much info can be moved at once, not how fast it can be done, dual core utterly own single core, as far as lm concerned, in everything, a dual core 3 gig cpu is ALWAYS going to be better than a 3 gig single core cpu, no matter what your doing, its insane to still be paying lots of cash for single core rubbish.
And its BULLSHIT to ramble on about how friggin good single core cpu's are, because there JUNK and history.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
Only if the game is good.

I have faith in Valve - they make kickass games.

Ep1 was trash...

 

[imported_LouHead]

Originally posted by: piddlefoot
tried n tested on so many games, lm sick of arguing this topic, dual core systems , OWN, single core systems for ANY online gaming, you have so many backround tasks, cpu overhead, and a few other things, the second core lets it all run smoother, all you single core'ers that have never owned one are in my opinion flat wrong, l hear some who own them say there single is better and in offline games like HL2 there right, for now, but online, or lanned, even most single player games are faster on a dual core, well not faster, SMOOTHER, smoother is better, clock speed has been a thing of the past for 2 years now, its all about throughput, how much info can be moved at once, not how fast it can be done, dual core utterly own single core, as far as lm concerned, in everything, a dual core 3 gig cpu is ALWAYS going to be better than a 3 gig single core cpu, no matter what your doing, its insane to still be paying lots of cash for single core rubbish.
And its BULLSHIT to ramble on about how friggin good single core cpu's are, because there JUNK and history.

I wouldn't state it as ANGRILY as you did, but I think most rational people would agree. It is obvious that, in general, the race to Squeak out Mhz is bieng superceeded by the race to crame as many cores on a chip as possible.

The necessity for races aside, multi-core computing WILL be the future. All of the big boys are now starting to seriously develop for it. (Hardware and Software).

 

[Pederv]

Multi-core processing will continue to ramp up the number of cores until that decades old dream is realized ? PARALLEL PROCESSING! Then all serial processing will become obsolete.

 

[dev0lution]

Hate to rain on your parade, but servers have been seeing the benefit of 2-way and 4-way+ architectures for years. So now that you have the same effect, albeit on a single die, moving downwards into the desktop/notebook space, how's that a bad thing? True, the masses probably don't need it, but 80%+ of the market would be happy on a crappy single core, 512 of RAM, and an 80GB hard drive not to mention onboard audio. For your basic email, word processing and web that's totally fine.

But for the rest of us who have the latest software and do anything above and beyond basic usage, you can appreciate the fact that even mulitple instances of single-threaded apps on a dual core system don't bog you down. I mean, running a full backup and virus scan used to lag my A64 4000+ with 1GB of RAM enough to make routine tasks slower and forget about gaming on it while all that is running...

Bottom line if you look at what the masses "need" and what the technology thats available for the same price they paid even 2 years ago, there's no comparison. Software and functionality will catch up to make those new quad-cores lag before they're even end of life. And if we all wanted what was enough for the average user, we'd all be driving honda civics

 

[bjp999]

Originally posted by: dev0lution
Hate to rain on your parade, but servers have been seeing the benefit of 2-way and 4-way+ architectures for years. So now that you have the same effect, albeit on a single die, moving downwards into the desktop/notebook space, how's that a bad thing? ...

Agree totally. The difference is, though, that servers are doing lots of things at the same time, so the OS can handle divying out the CPUs/cores. The harder part is designing single task software that takes advantage of the parallel opportunities. The OS can't do this. Although there are some apps in video and image processing that can and do take advantage, they are by far the minority.

Intel has been trying to get the home-market software guys to start thinking multi-tasking since introducing Hyper Threading. Problem was, there was no real benefit in terms of performance and many people learned that turning if off gave better single-app performance. It didn't have the intended result of getting the software developers creating real multi-threaded applications. Strike one.

Intel's second try was with the CoreDuo. Problem was, the performance advantage for single processed applications just wasn't there, and it was pricey. People were buying AMD and not intel anyway. Strike two.

This is their third try. They COULD have come out with a single core version of Conroe and guess what - that's what everyone would have bought, because they'd have the exact same performance for most software and games. But by coming out with a much faster CPU and only offering it in 2 and 4 core configurations, they force those who want to upgrade to buy extra cores. They priced it low and clocked it low with tons of OC potential. Its popularity means that lots of people with multiple processors in their rigs are now asking - hey, make me some software to take advantage of this other core. And with the demand, it will start happening. Home run? We'll have to wait and see.

The demand for multi-threaded apps is KEY for Intel and AMD. Otherwise they are facing exponential increases in R&D costs to develop faster and faster single core CPUs. As others have mentioned, they are getting less and less benefit as those pesky laws of physics get in the way. And if they stop getting appreciably faster, guess what, people don't upgrade.

But if they can get us wanting MULTIPLE cores instead of FASTER cores, that's pretty easy for them. Intel has already made an 80 CPU (FPU anyway) processor in the lab. If Intel can be the catalyst for the transition in the SOFTWARE industry, they have buttered their bread for years to come.

Cheers. :beer:

 

[IEC]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
I'm not questioning why we move to that technology because it's "better", I'm questioning why it happens so fast, when, before, we were all happy with Mario Brothers. Do we HAVE to move on, and if so, that fast ?

It's because the Singularity is approaching.

 

[dev0lution]

Originally posted by: ariafrost

Originally posted by: Zenoth
I'm not questioning why we move to that technology because it's "better", I'm questioning why it happens so fast, when, before, we were all happy with Mario Brothers. Do we HAVE to move on, and if so, that fast ?

It's because the Singularity is approaching.

Charles Stross fan?

 

[MBrown]

I am pissed right now. I JUST bought my 4400X2 and now in about 2 or three months its going to choke and die with every game I throw at it because they are going to be aimed at quad core instead of dual core. Makes me want to drop out of the PC scene and go console. :|

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: MBrown
I am pissed right now. I JUST bought my 4400X2 and now in about 2 or three months its going to choke and die with every game I throw at it because they are going to be aimed at quad core instead of dual core. Makes me want to drop out of the PC scene and go console. :|

Not a chance...2 or 3 years maybe. Writing paralell code is a MASSIVE job, and just converting an existing game takes over a year.

 

[AndrewL]

Originally posted by: hans007
well , we used to count with Ghz or Mhz, now we count with cores, since clock speed isnt rising much.

no big deal, same as always.


i figure CPUs will be "useable" for 3 years or so. though they will not be super fast in the last year of that anymore. but yeah... they last as long as they arent slow. some satelites still use 486s and such.

This is what everyone else has been trying to say, but failed to say so simply. Its easier to think of it as the era of instruction parallelism has ended and now it is the era of thread parallelism. So instead of performance being clock speed its number of cores.

I do however think clock speed will continue to increase even if just slightly for a long while still.

I also think that the future of processing will either be 100's of relatively slow cores or (if clockspeed barriers are overcome) a compromise between core count and clock speed where clock speed would again become the primary performance measure.

 

[HexiumVII]

We are seeing a few new trends appear in processing. Multi parrallel processors are the easiest way to scale in performance right now, and we will absolutley see a big shift as all the consoles are multicore, forcing everyone to develop for multicore. Then there is the descrete processors which will allow some incredible performances that just isn't possible for general purpose processors. In the near future we might be seeing more add-in type chips for more specialized things like we see in the graphic, physics market. In the last decade we saw everything move to "software" mode, it will be interesting to see what ATIMD will combine.