I've wondered this for a while.

First it was the dual core, which is, in my opinion, one of the most influential computer upgrades in history.

Then it was the Q-series quad core by Intel. Then the Phenon by AMD.

And fuck the triple core. No one cares about that.

And now, Intel has announced that they're going to release an octacore processor. That's 8 fucking cores.

VERY few things use quad-core processors, and in my opinion dual core is still the way to go for gaming. Because of the large time that dual cores were given to develop, manufacturers started to program things to make use of both cores.

But now, almost no one has done quad, and now we're getting 8 cores.

What the hell is the point?

The point is that these things aren't designed to run your games fast, they're designed for multitasking and large scale parallel processing. And to squeeze out the maximum FLOPS with minimum power usage and cost with current technology dictates that we go for a large number of cores.

"“Grand Central,” a new set of technologies built into Snow Leopard, brings unrivaled support for multicore systems to Mac OS X. More cores, not faster clock speeds, drive performance increases in today’s processors. Grand Central takes full advantage by making all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimizing it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. Grand Central also makes it much easier for developers to create programs that squeeze every last drop of power from multicore systems."
Taken from: http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/

Peace.

The thing i love about mulitple cores is I can assign programs to run on this one or that one and manually split the load across them.

For example, I have a script here at my job that syndicates our products, since we have a lot of them it takes quite a bit of power and time to complete.

I can assign the script to run on one core while using the other for pretty much everything else with little or no slowdown.

I wonder if asynchronous cores will ever catch on, using the faster one(s) to keep the system running smoothly while using the slower to run trivial, non-speed-oriented tasks.

Maybe even throw multiple architectures on one chip, an ARM core would be of great use to embedded system developers (but the ATOM might halt that)

Its because chip manufacturers have hit a clock ceiling. Processor speeds have been stagnate in the 3-4 Ghz range for years now, and the only way to keep up with the release schedule is to simply add more cores.

The thing i love about mulitple cores is I can assign programs to run on this one or that one and manually split the load across them.



....You can do that....?

*Runs to google*

Its because chip manufacturers have hit a clock ceiling. Processor speeds have been stagnate in the 3-4 Ghz range for years now, and the only way to keep up with the release schedule is to simply add more cores.

The new Nehalem has been brought to 5.7 ghz :D

The new Nehalem has been brought to 5.7 ghz :D

Very nice:)

....You can do that....?

*Runs to google*
Ctrl+Alt+Del>Task Manager>Processes>Right Click>Processor Affinity.

There are load balance algo's over-riding what you select, but generally the meat of the app stays on one core, leaving the others free enough to run everything else.

Im gonna get an octocore.

Ctrl+Alt+Del>Task Manager>Processes>Right Click>Processor Affinity.

There are load balance algo's over-riding what you select, but generally the meat of the app stays on one core, leaving the others free enough to run everything else.

Im gonna get an octocore.

Hah, wow, nice to know.

Never had anything more than one core, and I should be building a i7 computer in the next two weeks for myself.

Shit's going to be fun!

I would love an octocore on my system, damn running Maya+Quark+Photoshop+Media Server+DVR(TVR)+(other programs)+Firefox would be fucking awesome and DON'T FORGET VM WARE! btw i would need fuckload of RAM and Graphic power :(.
But its awesome :)

I would love an octocore on my system, damn running Maya+Quark+Photoshop+Media Server+DVR(TVR)+(other programs)+Firefox would be fucking awesome and DON'T FORGET VM WARE! btw i would need fuckload of RAM and Graphic power :(.
But its awesome :)

Well if the octocore is 64 bit (i dont see why it wouldn't be) then you should be able to get a fuckload of RAM. 8 cores*4 gb = 32 gb. Virtual network anyone?

Ctrl+Alt+Del>Task Manager>Processes>Right Click>Processor Affinity.

There are load balance algo's over-riding what you select, but generally the meat of the app stays on one core, leaving the others free enough to run everything else.

Im gonna get an octocore.

Wont 32 or 22 nm allow for decca? Im getting that Q4 09 , such a long wait. Or is intel planning on doing something else with those upcomming chips.