16/32 cores CPUs in 2012-2013...

[abfan123]

I'm not really "updated" in the hardware industry since I'm not visiting the news sites too often, But just read an interesting article:(Sorry if that's already an old news)

32-core CPUs from Intel and AMD

If your CPU has only a single core, it's officially a dinosaur. In fact, quad-core computing is now commonplace; you can even get laptop computers with four cores today. But we're really just at the beginning of the core wars: Leadership in the CPU market will soon be decided by who has the most cores, not who has the fastest clock speed.

What is it? With the gigahertz race largely abandoned, both AMD and Intel are trying to pack more cores onto a die in order to continue to improve processing power and aid with multitasking operations. Miniaturizing chips further will be key to **** these cores and other components into a limited space. Intel will roll out 32-nanometer processors (down from today's 45nm chips) in 2009.

When is it coming? Intel has been very good about sticking to its road map. A six-core CPU based on the Itanium design should be out imminently, when Intel then shifts focus to a brand-new architecture called Nehalem, to be marketed as Core i7. Core i7 will feature up to eight cores, with eight-core systems available in 2009 or 2010. (And an eight-core AMD project called Montreal is reportedly on tap for 2009.)
After that, the timeline gets fuzzy. Intel reportedly canceled a 32-core project called Keifer, slated for 2010, possibly because of its complexity (the company won't confirm this, though). That many cores requires a new way of dealing with memory; apparently you can't have 32 brains pulling out of one central pool of RAM. But we still expect cores to proliferate when the kinks are ironed out: 16 cores by 2011 or 2012 is plausible (when transistors are predicted to drop again in size to 22nm), with 32 cores by 2013 or 2014 easily within reach. Intel says "hundreds" of cores may come even farther down the line.

Source:
http://tech.msn.com/products/articlepcw ... 140&page=2

[bigC]

Hmm, so a processor with a lower gigahertz can be faster then one with a higher value if it has more cores?

If your CPU has only a single core, it's officially a dinosaur.

Doh!

[abfan123]

Well,
Please correct me if I'm wrong, But AFAIK, It's the single core speed.
For example if you have Core 2 Duo 3GHZ and Core 2 Quad 2.4GHZ then Core 2 Duo is 3GHZ*2 (6GHZ total) while Core 2 Quad is 2.4GHZ*4, Which is 9.6GHZ.
If I'm understanding it correctly then yes, Core 2 quad 2.4 should be faster than Core 2 Duo 3.0 . (Please correct me if I'm wrong)

[statm1]

Well it goes alittle deeper than that. At this point a Core 2 Duo is actually fastest because there really isnt much that has been made to take advantage of more than 2 cores. Theres barely anything that can use 2 to its full extent really. But as for the actual performance of a 2 or 4 core processor the speeds of each core aren't really combined (AFAIK) into one speed that all the cores can take advantage of. Its my understanding that if a particular app is written to take advantage of multi-core then it passes instructions to one core, a few more to another core, and so on. They all function independently of each other with their own particular speed. What makes multi-core faster is that if your apps take advantage then its like doubling or quadrupling the speed of that app because one core doesn't have to take on all the work.

Thats what is exciting about whats going into Windows 7 because they more or less future proofed the architecture by giving it full support of up to 256 cores. So it knows how to give each one of those cores its own instructions. But as far as I know the highest ive heard about so far is like 70 or so cores and even thats still in experiment form. But to be perfectly honest. I don't think any OS or app right now or in the near future will really have enough to even give all those cores something to do.

[André]

Beside huge scientific calculations like disaster simulations and what not that are done on huge multi-thousand processor super computers.

[abfan123]

Well, I wasn't talking about multi-processors.
I was talking about multi-core processor. Please correct me if I'm wrong, But the most cores I've seen so far was 4.
So 32 cores inside 1 processor is quite much.

[André]

The idea is the same between multi-core and multi-processor. It's just another place to do the processing. The current faster supercomputer that can be used for open research has 45,000 quad-core AMD Opteron processors for a total of 180,000 cores with 362 terabytes of RAM.

But statm1 is right. Most software right now doesn't make good use of multi-processors and/or multi-cores.

[statm1]

Just to make the distinction.. I personally only know about a consumer motherboard that has come with 2 separate processor sockets. I think multi-core is pretty much the future more so then multi-processor.

[André]

I don't think I have ever seen a consumer mobo that has 2 processor slots. The ones I've seen are all for servers.

[Psykocyber]

There are enthusiast motherboards with two slots.
Multi processor is not something we will ever see in a normal computer. That will always be a server thing for 99% of the time.

And you cannot say GHz*number of cores. Its just plain wrong. A single threaded app (like Avant, *hint*) can't run any faster than the speed a single core allows.

IMO, there are more to the quad/dual discussion than if a single app can use more than two. What if you want to run your antivirus while you are gaming? On a dual core you will see a massive slowdown, not on a quad core.

[abfan123]

Well, I've tested by just opening Avant & closing all the applications and tried to open a lot of heavy websites on startup, I've seen that all the cores were busy.
I'm not a multithreading expert, But what do you set in the task manager in the "Set Affinity" section?

[André]

Don't set anything. Vista has some support for multi-core CPUs in that it will try to split all the running applications evenly over the multiple cores. That doesn't mean, however, that it is truly multi-threaded.

I wouldn't mess with the affinity options because the OS already does that.

[Psykocyber]

It will not split up threads, it will just spread out the load. I just tried watching multible HD videos on Gametrailers. 25% CPU use (Quad core). Chrome uses around 50% and spreads the load evenly. Avant is single threaded.

[André]

Hence why I didn't say threads. I said applications.

[Psykocyber]

Well... 'split' it the wrong word. Each application runs in it own thread. So, Windows doesn't 'split' anything, it just distributes the threads kind of evenly.