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FSgeeK (531)    Feb 12, 2009 - 08:43 am

Right in most cases you can run a single core and just be fine. I kinda wish they made high end single cores that cost less than the dual cores. » Login to reply to this  Ring Wraith (20)   Feb 12, 2009 - 04:34 pm Most modern games make very good use of dual cores with many being completely unplayable on single core CPU's. And games are now starting to make decent use of quad cores as well. GTA4 for example craves more than 2 cores. » Login to reply to this  deimos47 (435)    Feb 12, 2009 - 04:54 pm | Edited on Feb 13, 2009 - 11:47 am enter new Nehalem HT. On Clarkdale (dual core + IGP), it will allow running 4 threads, and have most of benefit of Quad core without doubling the cost or price. And yes, we've all seen Quad score better in a handfull of games. But, its marginal considering double price. And some folks buy lower clocked Quad, which means lower performance in 95% of apps. ==EDIT: since like 2005 Intel has been waving the Hyper threading, SMT (whatever)... anyone know why AMD still doesnt have? » Login to reply to this

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deimos47 (435)    Feb 11, 2009 - 06:01 pm

Build it and they will come. With piles of cache, market leadership, and proven trackrecord of delivering, OEMs can count on Intel. Back in the old days, tried to cram RAMBUS down people's throats, and ended up with CPU and chipset recalls and lost half chipset marketshare to VIA. Simple cheap old fashioned SDRAM just as good. Nowadays Intel is very quick. Adapting to netbook trend, rather than forcing quad core into mobile. Atom barely hit market and already dual core. Short of horrific disaster, Clarkdale should be a hit. People like cheap and versatile, and the IGP and single chip chipset is certainly cheap. IGP definetly good enough for WOW, WC3, Sims etc... But, hopefully IGP fast enough for StarCraft2 **crosses fingers** and UT3. -- also hoping MC built with GDDR5 compatibility **wink** -- » Login to reply to this

GX-Brandon (369)   Feb 11, 2009 - 07:35 am

With NVIDIA's latest GT200 GPU containing over 1 billion transistors, and ATI not too far behind with RV770, there's just no way Intel or AMD can integrate that level of performance into a CPU. If Intel felt that discrete graphics was about to become obsolete, they wouldn't be dumping billions in R&D on Larrabee right now. » Login to reply to this  FSgeeK (531)   Feb 12, 2009 - 08:41 am And if nvidia can find a way to make the gpu a viable cpu the tables and be turned dramatically. » Login to reply to this  DanTheMathlete (235)   Feb 12, 2009 - 05:32 am True, which is why I used the ambiguous phrase," ... at some point..." Nostradamus has got nothin' on me :) » Login to reply to this

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DanTheMathlete (235)    Feb 11, 2009 - 06:37 am

If you consider 32nm architecture, 6 core processors and graphics integrated on the CPU die stagnant, then yes, CPU tech is stagnant. Also, the tock is just a die shrink and is always less sparkly then the tick. » Login to reply to this

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Ring Wraith (20)   Feb 11, 2009 - 04:10 pm

Yeah because people haven't been saying that for the last 20 years. Progress is good. Fear of progress is bad. » Login to reply to this

w00t (924)    Feb 10, 2009 - 11:55 pm

If anything, this isn't true anymore. The performance differential between those CPUs and CPUs of 2 years ago is minimal. Oh, and you DO lose a fair chunk of the value of a new Mercedes the second you drive it. It becomes instant second-hand. » Login to reply to this  Ring Wraith (20)   Feb 11, 2009 - 04:13 pm I'm not too sure about that. If anything CPU power is increasing at a greater pace now than at almost any time in the past. A top end 6 core westmere will have multiple times the raw power of a top end C2D from 2 years ago. Not all apps will show it, but its certainly there. » Login to reply to this  Labotomizer (993)    Feb 12, 2009 - 05:19 pm @FSGeek You're somewhat correct. Running multiple applications at once, regardless of if they're optimized for multi-threading, will still see an improvement. Also remember Windows 7 has a rewritten Win32 API that makes it much easier to multi-thread. Combine that with the out-of-order instruction support in DX11 and Windows 7 will really help devs move to multi-core support. If they no longer have to calculate and code all the parrallelism themselves it will be much easier to make that transition without exponentially increasing development costs. There's a reason heavily multi-threaded apps like CS4, Inventor, CAD, and other professional apps cost as much as they do. Optimizing them for that kind of performance is currently expensive. » Login to reply to this  FSgeeK (531)    Feb 12, 2009 - 08:35 am | Edited on Feb 12, 2009 - 08:36 am The reality is though my core2 e6600 is still under utilized by many software developers. While it is true you see pretty good synthetic benchmarks from the new to old, very little real world apps. take advantage of 4 cores if any. I was thinking about upgrading to core i7 then i thought to myself it would be a huge waste of money really, just on the overpriced motherboards and ram alone. However i dont think my e6600 will last forever, im hoping it will hold out til intel has the die shrink then maybe i'll upgrade, or if wolfdale is still out and like 80 bucks i might go that route. » Login to reply to this  Labotomizer (993)    Feb 11, 2009 - 05:54 pm Well, they're gaining performance at the same rate. Processing power doubles every 18 months roughly. Of course double of a modern day processor is a bigger jump than double of a Pentium 75. » Login to reply to this

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