Intel today formally launched its first set of quad-core processors, which officials say should give the chipmaker a comfortable headstart on archrival AMD (AMD quad-core offerings will not be due until the release around mid-2007). A review of one of these quad-cores has also been published.
I hope the motherboards that support these new chips are a heck of a lot better than the sorry excuses that were the Core 2 Duo boards.
I went with an AMD64 X2 chip over a C2D because the motherboards were so much better (and cheaper).
Some will quote the relatively few apps that benefit from multiple cores. Others will argue that your wordprocessor might not benefit right now, but after it’s rewritten to take advantage… blah… blah… blah… X can run on its own processor… blah… blah… blah…
😉 (Better put a winky in, there!)
But the real need for multiple cores comes from marketting. Megahertz were petering out and a replacement was desperately needed.
That said, if you do a lot of compiling, these things really *are* a Godsend.
For the average desktop user… get real! 😉
Edited 2006-11-14 20:36
Not sure why you replied to me, but I am a developer and do quite a bit of compiling.
I also write my code to use both cores, so there is an extra bonus.
The Core 2 Duo motherboards were pretty underwhelming (and still are). I hope Intel’s quad core motherboards show a little bit more promise.
“””Not sure why you replied to me”””
Mainly, I guess I had something that I felt like blurting out and your post was a good excuse. 😉
Compilers are the apps that keep occurring to me as the killer apps for multicore.
That’s what multicore is about, I guess:
Developers! Developers! Developers!
Oh, dear…
Edited 2006-11-15 02:33
Yea, it’s true. But average users have always wanted high end hardware because they perceive that they can use it longer before replacing it (probably true, but there are diminishing returns).
Graphics people should enjoy it too. And anyone who does video editing.
I agree. The motherboard line up is a bit disapointing. That and I’m a little more interested in AMD quad core architecture. And while Intel is the first to the market with their quad core cpu, I’ll wait on a head to head compairison with AMD to make a decision.
I don’t really understand the need for quad-core CPUs. A dual-core one is still pretty reasonable, but a quad-core one would pretty much benefit only servers or people who seriously lots of stuff simultaneously, like compressing mp3s, video, rendering images and watching movies all at the same time..On an average desktop even a dual-core one is doing hardly any good.
Oh, c’mon.. imagine: a Beowulf cluster of these things.
:-3
Many pro-apps support multicore, for instance: Photoshop, Maya, POV-Ray, Cinema 4D, 3DSmax.
And currently quad-core CPUs are not intended for average pc, but rather for HPC, pro and enthusiast markets.
Edited 2006-11-14 20:18
Quad core will be in the OEM computers soon I bet so thats not right what your saying. Does average joe need duel core?, only because the economy say so and want your money.
You obviously don’t run Gentoo.. the more core’s you can get during an emerge -uDN world the better.
I believe the optimum number, for both shaver blades and processor cores, is 8; at which time, there will be world peace and the return of all forecasted religious icons to earth.
We are three-blades and four core from Utopia.
Getting the highest seti@home score (-;
like nobody needed more than 640KB of RAM…
Edited 2006-11-14 20:41
“like nobody needed more than 640KB of RAM… ”
At the time this was true. The problem was not with the statement or it’s validity but with the design that was chosen. Most people dont need quadcore today and won’t for quite some time. The important thing is to not unnecessary limit future needs.
Bill Gates also said something along the lines of never needing more than 640K of RAM.
Urban myth:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.folklore.computers/msg/99ce4b055…
well yeah, for normal home users its pretty pointless. I mean, do you really need a BMW, lexus etc when a yugo will do?
ok, bad comparison. But for ‘power users’, the more the merrier. Even if you are just running 4 apps at once ,that means you can split those 4 apps onto the 4 cores.
It’ll also get developers to start supporting multiple CPUs better/more. Hopefully.
That is the best point I’ve seen made.
As a developer, I think the problem with most desktop application developers is that they don’t understand multi-threading very well because most of them don’t have the hardware to make it worth doing anyway. They use it in things like Java GUIs, but I don’t think they really understand it.
I am sincerely hoping that an influx of multi-core systems will eventually bring developers to write better desktop application code because they will now have access to the kind of hardware that makes doing so quite meaningful.
You’ve forgotten the ultimative main reason for multicore CPUs in PCs:
It’s urgently needed for playing games! 🙂
BTW: SGI and Sun had multicore and even multiprocessor systems years ago, I remember the 64x tezro rack… so Intel, where’s your 128 core PC processor? 🙂 (The x86 architecture for children: Imagine a steam engine running at 500 mph where an airplane should be used.)
>Doc Pain
>(The x86 architecture for children: Imagine a steam >engine running at 500 mph where an airplane should be >used.)
Tell that to the Japanese: Bullet Trains hit upto 350-400mph.
Folding@home anyone? 😉
@Folding@home anyone? 😉
Already accelerated by ATI R580 GPU and Cat 6.10.
This is perfect timing on Intel’s part for me. I’ve been looking into buying myself a Core 2 Duo-based system and this will hopefully cause the prices of these to drop a bit, as the quad-core systems become the HPC processors of choice.
Now the Core 2 chips are going to be nice and cheap now that there will be people that waste their money on quad core chips. Time to upgrade the AthlonXP 1700.
Besides, pretty soon you’re going to need a 1KW PS just to power one of these bastards. It’s all really just PC decadence.
Quad-core will be useful for servers and datacenters.
remember when AMD first came out with 64bit duo-core Opteron, Intel kept saying ‘what for? it’s too early, nobody needs it’ and the next thing you know their market shares came tumbling down.
the review was appealing, but the cost of one of a quad core is a little to much for my budget. the low-end cpus like the pentium 4,d and the athlons 64 is all i need to run OpenBSD.
Edited 2006-11-15 03:28
I’ll wait for AMD’s Quad-Core CPU thank you very much.
AMD’s HyperTransport bus will make the return on additional cores much greater (as well as the bandwidth between each core, and memory subsystem), unlike Intel’s ‘stick 4 independent chips on the same die’, and they all communicate over what would be the networking equivalent of a HUB (Hyper Transport would be the equivalent of a Switch).
Intel is going to have their own interconnect technology next year and AMD isn’t going to release their quad-core technology until middle of 2007, which probably means the beginning of the third quarter. I don’t think that the K8L is going to compete clock for clock against the current Intel architecture either. So it doesn’t look to rosy for AMD at the moment.
So true, Intel just keeps rolling out innovation and imitation one after the other, things do not look good for AMD.
“which resulted in a slurry of reviews “. At last, an appropriate collective noun for most reviews!