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- geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17I bought a bunch of 2-way quad core intels(53xx series). But I'm rooting for AMD, I don't want to be stuck with only one company to choose from. I think computing really took off partly because of intel-amd competition.
- darkcaps, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14I'm still running a 233 Mhz Pentium 2.
- geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Having written multithreaded apps to take advantage of multiple CPUs, I know how hard this can be. It will take a few years for the game developers to catch up, but once they do you will wonder how you got by with one CPU only. Game developers could dedicate AI tasks to one or more CPUs(by offloading the processing to another thread), so you will be playing against a computer that can make decisions in parallel to your game play, no more pseudo multiprocessing via sharing CPU between threads. Maybe use neural nets that were before impossible to use. This new 'paradigm shift' greatly helps servers right now since servers have thousands of incoming requests which can take advantage of all cores. But yes, taking advantage of this for desktop users isn't so easy.
- Dumbledorito, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Athlon 1700XP with 4x AGP here. Of course, I do desktop publishing, so my gig o' ram and RAID array are just fine for that.
And it's probably a good thing I can't do MMO gaming with all the eye candy turned on; I get more done without the distraction of being online all the time.
Oh, wait... there's digg. Crap. - weister42, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Computers advance so fast that I don't even know what you guys are talking about. I'm still on 8x AGP and Athlon 64 3200+...and that was the ***** like 3 years ago.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'd like to make a comment that has both digg-up and digg-down sections to it...to satisfy everyone's urges...you decide which is which!
1) The techreport has good methodology for accurate results, and draws confident and reasonable conclusions from them. They are rarely contradicted by their peers and are often cited as authoritative based on their transparent and available data. Any complaints generally deal with style and cosmetics, which weight differently and are subjective.
2) Dual cores are yesterday's news, quad-cores are hot currently, 8 or more cores are today's news and when the 2 to the power of who-knows cores start coming at you faster than girls who share their shampoo secrets (and they told two friends, and so and so on) you will laugh when you look back to the minuscule operational differences between these products. As if anyone today can recall the operational differences between a 1.2GHz AMD or a 1.2GHz Intel. (Please don't if you actually can, we can wiki it). - MrPotato, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Son of a...The Tech Report needs to stop putting white text on that horrid blue background. 5 minutes after reading TFA and I still can't see very well.
- rotten777, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Gustomucho
You have lost your mind. I have plenty of reasons to need more than 1 or 2 cores. - donjaime, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I'de love to see some server configuration benchmarks one day.
It seems like gaming has a monopoly on hardware reviews. Right now I'm more interested in hardware choices for setting up a high performance/low cost Lamp box, than running video games at 200 Fps. - rotten777, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@Gustomucho
Being someone that works 12-14 hours a day on computers (multiple, different, mine and other peoples)... I can honestly say dual-core computing has made the biggest difference in consumer computing in the last 4-5 years.
I'll give you a for instance...
Someone has a nasty piece of spyware clogging up their single core processor. It is taking as much cpu as it can be given and the whole experience goes to hell. Everything is slow and they don't know why.
Or...
Someone is an advanced user, and deals with 4.3GB files all day long with encryption/compression routines and doesn't like sitting there looking at progress bars and their software RAID setup needs some of the processor cycles to do its I/O.. dual core to the rescue
Or...
Encoding/decoding video/audio to DVD is a common routine... multi-threaded is the ONLY way to go. Going to quad-core can get close to 4 times the work done as a single core.
Or...
A studio workstation is setup to run 32 tracks of audio simultaneous with more VST plugins (soft-synths) than you can count on your hands... 1 core will not cut it. Period.
I could go on. But multi-core processors are better for many many reasons. I still remember this feeling from putting 2 Pentium Pro's in a workstation board many moons ago... - sonofagunn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2We can take advantage of multiple cores TODAY. I have 6 windows open, a web server, a database server, and countless other programs running RIGHT NOW on my single core PC. Sometimes they fight for CPU time and cause very noticeable delays.
It's a myth that we're not ready for multiple cores. - SVPirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Lorks Mr Ontelli! AMD are catching us up! Throw more cores on the die quick!!
Ahh ain't processor wars great... - sonofagunn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Noobs. I'm typing this on a 500 Megahertz Pentium III.
- lowlight, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Do you look like this by any chance?
http://www.showcase.ca/microsites/trailerparkboys/images/features/p_blowing_bubbles_1.jpg - mitrovarr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'd say for most gaming right now, a quad core would just be a waste. Dual cores are certainly useful, for even if the game doesn't multi-thread you can put the OS on one core and the game on the other. However, quad cores in this situation aren't any better - most games run on only one core, and the OS doesn't need more than one extra to live on. I've never seen a game put my dual core processor up to 100% utilization, and I've only seen one that puts it above about 55% (one core at 100%, the other at ~10%.)
The only point in a quad core right now is if you do serious work with multi-threaded programs on your computer or you multi-task like a madman (especially if it involves virtualization.) Games might catch up within a year or two, but they aren't there yet. - sonofagunn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I let out on audible yelp when that page loaded.
- minorgod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm still running a 3.02 Ghz P4 on a 533 bus, but with a Raptor system drive and an ATI X850 XT and 2GB of RAM, I have no trouble whatsoever playing the latest games (mostly based on the HL2 engine) with almost everything maxxed out (I only run 2x antialiasing since my resolution is so very high, really don't even need it at all). I built this machine in 2002 and it still kick the crap out of most stock machines for gaming and disk-intensive apps. Lately, I play on my new core duo laptop with a GeForce 7900, but not because my old system can't handle it, I'd just rather play games in a reclining chair than at my computer desk (despite the 24" widescreen on my desk). Both can run at 1920x1250. Later P4 models and Core/Core2 processors really aren't that much faster for everyday tasks, just when you look at things like video compression. If you're just running office apps and aren't gaming or compressing something, forget about your processor speed and get the fastest drives you can. As for games, it seems to me that the video card is far more important these days than processor speed.
- ray901, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3actualyy AMD is having quite a few problems already
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070305/ap_on_hi_te/amd_warning;_ylt=AvBV_RHWgp4LIrdSpbqoXt3MWM0F - Gigabyte, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2http://duggmirror.com/hardware/Five_desktop_quad_core_CPU_setups_compared/
- Cherubim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's going to take a while for software developers to exploit the real potential of multi-core CPUs. The majority of end users are running applications that don't demand more than one core so it's only the tech heads and specialists that require the extra scalability of multi core CPUs.
- dodjieros, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0well, evaluate this setup if you think it would be cool (i have this assembled myself and i'm using it) : intel quad core extreme processor qx6700, asus motherboard p5wdg2 ws pro, 4 gb of kingston elite ram, crossfire enabled two asus ati radeon 512 mb gddr3/4 hd2900xt graphics cards, 2 seagate barracuda 7200.10 250 gb making it a total of 500 gb, hp dvd r/+w 16x lightscribe dvd, +another asus dvd-r 16x. lian-li case tower black with cooling system support and an arctic square cpu cooling support. this setup i've made for graphics and video editing and rendering.
- DaysInTheDark, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I agree.
Intel has created a way to more easily fit multiple cores on a cpu (they recently designed an 80-core cpu).
Software companies that are able to think differently and keep up with the hardware when it comes to developing for multiple core cpus are the ones that will survive. Some analysts are even suggesting old standbys (such as Microsoft) falling by the wayside and getting left behind if they don't adjust quickly enough to multiple core programming. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2That's the problem, everyone want to get the best product, but want everyone else to buy the competitor's product.
- Gustomucho, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3Unless programmers starts to program for Multi-Core, there is no point getting a Quad-Core. Right now they have problems exploiting Dual-Core, and it seems the more core, the more problems...
I thought the 1core to multi-core would be a lot faster than what we are seeing, it is like the developper have no idea about the the multi-core programming.
It is sad, hardware company are supporting gaming industry, but the gaming industry isn't supporting hardware company. - chrisinsocalif, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0AMD's new CPU should surpass Intels current lineup possibly surpass or match intels next lineup.
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197700269
http://www.crn.com/hardware/197007770
competition is good, keeps the prices down - Ramble, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Three years is pushing it for that rig.
- Gustomucho, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1If we were in 2008-2010 I would agree with you. Right now a solid 1 core is as good as 2 core for most applications (I am not talking Science Labs, but home computer).
I am not saying there is no need for dual or multi-core, but as of TODAY we don't need this kind of multi-core processing power, most of it would go to waste anyway.
Why buy a Ferrari when you can't drive it?
Show off - ray901, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3better? - how about just plain available, or AMD will definitely be gone some time soon....
/still looking for Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 35w - hungarianhc, on 10/12/2007, -10/+6Interesting stuff...
For the sake of competition, let's hope AMD's Barcelona core chips are better. Otherwise, AMD may be gone in 18 months or so...
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