What is Digg?71 Comments
- BlackKnight6, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Well games coming in 07, like Crysis and Alan wake, are able to make use of more than 2 cores. With both the games I mentioned the extra cores are mostly helping with physics. In my opinion, I like the idea of extra cores because it gives more stable framerates instead of widely varying ones. I have always hated a game running great (200+ FPS) but then an explosion sends physics objects everywhere and the FPS hits around 30, which almost feels like a hitch more than a FPS loss.
With extra cores ready for intense moments you don't have to worry. If the phyiscs is not intense then the extra cores are sitting doing little physics work. When it gets intense (physics) the extra cores go up to near 100% but the FPS stays alot more stable as compared to some really fast single core. This goes for other calculations the cores can be used for, other than physics, like when you get 40 AI enemies thinking at once instead of 10.
Again, my opinion about gaming FPS. - dicerandom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15People who can't think of a way to keep all four cores busy have obviously never run Gentoo.
emerge -eD world - lazydrumhead, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15I remember saying the exact same thing about a computer running a 900 mhz Windows ME.
Just sayin'. - saggygrandma, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18Just in time for the Apple Keynote?
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10No, everyone is jumping back to Intel because the C2D blows anything AMD has out of the water.
AMD will be back with some surprises in Q4 2007 (see the article I linked to a few comments above). But until then, AMD is going to have a rough time unless it drops prices again. - baxtermaddux, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13u forgot Windows Vista
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9[quote]Great...one core will do all the work..while the others sit idle!!! SWEET[/quote]
The others will run your Vista DRM. - koick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8how about two folding@home clients running, and still having two cores for whatever you're working on.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7[quote]This chip is good for people who use photoshop[/quote]
It only showed an 18% gain in Photoshop CS2 compared to the C2D.
The biggest gain was in 3D rendering, which is not surprising.
Yes, games will eventually benefit. But game devs will target mainstream hardware, not this high end stuff. - SjRaptor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
model name : Pentium MMX
cpu MHz : 200.456
bogomips : 399.76
$ uptime
22:02:18 up 108 days, 2:37, 3 users, load average: 0.52, 0.57, 0.49
I love my 200MMX :) - culbeda, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Um... MSSQL server anyone? MS licenses by the physical chip, not the core. So 4 cores for the price of one is significant when you factor in the thousands you'll save on CPU licensing for the other 3 cores.
Hell, it almost makes it cost effective. ;-) - trogdor282, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10*Opens book of not perpetuating stupid myths*
Bill Gates never said that. - MateyO, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7FWIW, when I got that first BLAZING PII 200, I couldn't get it to max out at 100% utilization either.
- Hydraulix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Actually the -D option in emerge -eD world is not needed. Since the -e option (empty world) already rebuilds everything. Basically you can't go any deeper than -e. But, I dug you up anyway since I'm a hardcore Gentoo user and planning on buying a quad system in the near future. :)
- sproutworks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7It's only a matter of time before games start supporting multiple cores. Most graphics intensive games could benefit from a multi core implementation. I turned on the multi core option in Quake 4, and it ran smoother on my e6600.
- hoppdawg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6as well as engineering analysis...
CAD
CAM
Computational Fluid Dynamics
Finite Element Analysis - atanguay, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7"can think of enough ways to keep all four cores busy, but here we are nonetheless..."
Maya
3D Studio Max
Cinema 4D
CATIA
Final Cut Pro
Adobe Photoshop
Cleaner
Need I continue. - slithy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I'll get excited when I see a quad-core using one die.
- Satertek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Valve has rebuilt the source engine to use as many cores as there are present, hopefully they'll be releasing the update around the time Episode 2/TFC2/Portal is released.
http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2006/11/02/Multi_core_in_the_Source_Engin/1.html - Satertek, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Did you miss the memo? Everyone hates AMD now that they've bought ATI. All the cool kids jumped back over to the Intel side.
- KniteWulf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I'm going to use Ubuntu with Beryl, with about 20 different desktops, with an instance of BF2 on one, HL, CS 1.6, DOD 1.6, Team Fortress Classic, HL2, CS:S, DOD:S, Garry's Mod 10, Photoshop CS2, Macromedia Fireworks, GTA I-San Andreas (five desktops), all of the NFS games on each desktop (about seven), and see how much CPU usage I can manage, although I'd like to see how much RAM one needs to run all of that with acceptable frame rates...
- BlackKnight6, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Crysis and Alan Wake are both games that actually benefit from more than 2 cores, mainly due to each games physics engines. So even for gamers these quad cores will be useful in about 6 months.
- dtd00d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@simpleid
Molecular computing is eventually what will come of computers. Each resistor/transistor/etc will be a specific type of molecule, resulting in tiny computer components.
They've electroplated certain virus strains already in order to make transistors (polarize one end with gold and the other with nickel, i believe, and then microwave them onto chips), so we're not that far off.
But in the meantime we can watch the computer illiterate become throughly confused with quad core processors:
"This is the new Core 2 Q6800. It has four cores."
"Why don't they call it a core 4?"
"Well, um..."
"What happened to core 3?" - freefaler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Actually it's a veeery good thing for servers.Linux naively can use all the CPU power in the server, as long as there is not too much slow I/O.
But, dudes, if you have 16GB of Ram and 4 cores for a database server this will be really fast (cached tables on memory, no I/O).And a dual CPU system can do miracles. - pvliii, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@IWorkAtApple
Correct me if I'm wrong but if you take one dual core chip and add a second dual core chip, you have two dual core chips. You don't get a quad core chip. - freefaler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A linux database server with a lot of memory for cached tables, all the CPUs can be used perfectly fine.No I/O, so veery fast server.Dual CPU (8 cores) boxes will be so fast.
- beers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2yhea, i'm keeping my eye out for amd quad cores too. currently the intel quad is way up there in price, and as such not really that appealing to most computer users.
I like amd, but i have to say that intel appears to be ahead a little b/c they have a quad core out. right now, the only thing stopping me from favoring intel's quad core is the price. - ohthehumanity, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2mmmmm MMX :)
- atomic16, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wow that is really convenient, I wonder if this means a quad core instead of a 8-core mac pro
- rockridge98, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ableton Live, Digital Performer, Pro Tools LE, Propellerheads Reason, Logic Pro, Native Instruments Komplete, MAX/MSP, Waves native. Need I continue.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4This will tell you when that will happen:
http://digg.com/hardware/What_s_New_in_CPUs_for_2007
You must Digg this now. Or not. But read the article, it's good. - epu2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3whatever floats your boat man...
- washingtonian, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Hate to be a stickler, but the PII/200 did not exist. At 200 Mhz, it was either a Pentium, Pentium w/ MMX, or Pentium Pro. PII's started at 233 and 266Mhz.
- lastberserker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Nope, just in time for Excel 2007 release to the public: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=excel+2007+multi.threaded+calculation
- BlackKnight6, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@OBKenobi
Quake 4 already uses 2 cores, I think game devs will already use 4 core, just like Crysis and Alan Wake. - sekyuritei, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Since the first digg about quad being available on Dell servers, they have the higher speeds available now. Personally, I'm still waiting for the -LV low voltage versions.
- weiran, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've got 2 dual core Xeons. Only way that I've found to max them our is to run 4 copies of a video encoding app at the same time.
- shank2001, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Don't forget Softimage! ;)
- dpcamp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1unless intel turns their xeon chips into quad cores as well i don't see it happening. I don't see them making dual chip motherboards for the core 2 line anytime soon.
- rc3105, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1tell me about it - half a dozen 939 boards here waiting for cheap cpus and they orphan the frelling socket!!!
woulda loved to drop in some dual core opterons or fx...
unfortunately for AMD I can snag a pentium D 805 on a board for 2/3 the cost of the cheapest dual core 939 cpu alone
*and don't you AMD fanboys try to claim 805 is a dog (maybe vs a 3ghz conroe) I use 'em everyday alongside 1M clawhammers - Intel is way ahead in bang/buck right now - LemonHerb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You hear that same sort of comment every time something new comes out. When they double the RAM in a video card reviews like to sound all knowing by saying nothing will take advantage of it. When Dual cores came out they said there was nothing out there for it. If you build it, they will come. Why would anyone write software for hardware that doesn't exist?
- MateyO, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Washingtonian:
You're probably right, what's funny is: it's only half the story...the box started out as a DIGITAL (as in DEC) Pentium 90 that we upgraded to a Pentium Pro 200. The CPU was on a daughtercard. Actually the whole system was pretty well engineered. - rabbitofdeath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1One OS to rule them all: ESX 3
- plonk420, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1what to do with all the cores?! MY DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING STATS ePENIS WILL OWN YOU ALL
and occasionally using two of the cores to encode x264... (i hear the efficiency results in losing returns above 2 cores... but that's just from what a friend had heard) - rmxz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@simpleid: Are n-cores really the future though? I hope light-based systems actually happen, that or just anything actually revolutionary.
Not so much the future, but very much the present in the server space. Sun's current server chips have 8 cores per die; and any high-end server with single-or-dual-core chips has to make up for it by adding multiple CPUs. But multi-core on a single chip is better from a inter processor communication and power consumption point of view.
http://tweakers.net/reviews/649/2
Well written server software can very effectively take advantage of these chips
http://tweakers.net/reviews/649/7
And also the present in gaming systems - doesnt the XBox have a 3-core chip and the PS3 something like 9? - rmxz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@slithy: I'll get excited when I see a quad-core using one die.
Uh, you don't get out much, do you.
Sun's current server chips have 8 cores on a chip; and are moving to 16.
http://news.com.com/Sun+puts+16+cores+on+its+Rock+chip/2100-1006_3-6141961.html - ibgordo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"For better or for worse, today's official launch of the Core 2 Quad Q6600 puts us well into the quad-core era. Not even Hennessy and Patterson, much less the coders at the world's largest software company, can think of enough ways to keep all four cores busy, but here we are nonetheless."
I have a feeling history will look back at this comment in the same way we now look back at "Why would anybody need 4MB of RAM" - cuppett, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's not about a single application owning the cores and utilizing them, the design is supposed to allow multiple applications to run on one or more cores at the same time.... Good to allow rendering to complete in one application without swapping out something else you may be doing in a virtual machine or sending things across the network.
- 35263526, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4God, I hope AMD hurries up. I feel like I castrated my computing power because I had a little brand loyalty and got an AM2 board...
- trm3446, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0i don't care how this works, but as long as i get my porn faster, i'm all over it
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