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Quad Core = Water Cooling?

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enz660

Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2006
Location
Canton, CT
From what im thinking, if my core 2 duo is on the edge of needing watercooling for a good overclock, do those quad core's absolutly NEED it for overclocking?
 
For OCing, quite possibly. Then again, air was just meant for stock. Unless you upgrade your air cooling...but, then again! You don't always have to push an insane overclock..
 
I think the heat output somewhat suggest that it is time for some SERIOUS cooling ;) But it is the fastest CPU (on tasks that can utilize all 4 cores, of course) - so pushing the limits in cooling become reality.
 
quad core to me is a sales gimic at this point. I see it much like shaving razors...hear me out.

One razor blade works but it can be improved a lot by adding a second, and really that has been imporved by adding three...but personally i see no difference in 4 blades and especially 5. At some point you have to draw a line until it is needed. Until my beard grows of fiberglass i'm not sure i'll need a 5 bladed razor.

"We can put two cores on one chip and it works great...people love it. What will people love more? QUAD CORE!"

So...don't worry about the cooling IMO
 
jcll2002 said:
a beard isnt a computer

ROFL!

razor blade anology for a quad CPU... XD classic


Um kentsfield right now at this present point depends on how you use it. If you encode vids or dvd's, or megatask then quadcore is really freakin good.

if you don tthen you dont need it, but everything will start becoming multithreaded in the future so if you buy quad now, you buying a chip that is ahead of its time. And will last into the future.

games, apps and everythign else will start being able to utilise quadcore, its just a matter of time.
 
jcll2002 said:
a beard isnt a computer

No it isn't but until there is a real use for a quad-core setup outside of a server application then then the CPU companies should stop marketing quad-core chips to comercial users like you and me.
 
Why would they stop marketing when they can make money. Keep in mind, even dual core when released was not as good nor needed as single core. It's just natural progression. Problem is buying quad core right now would be very questionable practice unless you have real need for it now. Maybe in 1.5 to 2 years SOME softwares might utilize it. Wanna hear something funny from me? MOST CAD/CAM software doesn't even fully support dual core yet... and that is considered pretty damn high end market... :p
 
jinu117 said:
Why would they stop marketing when they can make money. Keep in mind, even dual core when released was not as good nor needed as single core. It's just natural progression. Problem is buying quad core right now would be very questionable practice unless you have real need for it now. Maybe in 1.5 to 2 years SOME softwares might utilize it. Wanna hear something funny from me? MOST CAD/CAM software doesn't even fully support dual core yet... and that is considered pretty damn high end market... :p

I understand that, but let me say this. I just bought a dual core CPU...at least they have the multi-tasking purpose if nothing else. If you multi-task enough to need a quad core then you may also need aderral
 
It won't be long before there are way more than quads. With the waffer shrinks we are seeing there will be more and more cores on a single chip. It is only a matter of time before apps are simply multi threadded. They could support single core, dual core, quad core, octa core, etc, etc, etc without any reinstall or change to the app. I mean with AMD's 4x4 we can have 8 cores and that is comming sooner than later...
 
I dubt it.
In programming, there IS certain things that can be done in parallel. But most things depend on previous results, so you can parallelize things only to certain extend. Beyond that no extra core help you and not even the marketing BS can change it.
I mean - when you run game or a benchmark your system is usualy enought iddle and suspended, that extra core have no use for it. And it is kinda impossible to write application that will utilize properly two or quad cores in 3D setup engine (before it pass infos for GFX card to done some pixel magic there) if it still has to run on single core.
And since single core is not going to disapear any time soon, the game developers can't afford optimize so hard for dual core, and therefore the dual/quad core stuff is just not going to be that much popular and in the end not that much supported.
 
I'm sure eventually, sometime in the future, all computers will watercooled. Or at least something more effective than air cooling.
 
trodas said:
I dubt it.
In programming, there IS certain things that can be done in parallel. But most things depend on previous results, so you can parallelize things only to certain extend. Beyond that no extra core help you and not even the marketing BS can change it.
I mean - when you run game or a benchmark your system is usualy enought iddle and suspended, that extra core have no use for it. And it is kinda impossible to write application that will utilize properly two or quad cores in 3D setup engine (before it pass infos for GFX card to done some pixel magic there) if it still has to run on single core.
And since single core is not going to disapear any time soon, the game developers can't afford optimize so hard for dual core, and therefore the dual/quad core stuff is just not going to be that much popular and in the end not that much supported.

As a programmer i believe your dead wrong.

Sure most people code in a linear fashion because they can't understand OO methods of programming, just as a quick example.

Single core machine:
Class person()
//command new person 1
//command new person 2
//command new person 3
//command new person 4

So you machine processes them in order 1,2,3,4 because it cant do it anyother way


Dual core machine:
Class person()
//command new person 1
//command new person 2
//command new person 3
//command new person 4

person 1 and 3 get processed by core 1
person 2 and 4 get processed by core 2

theoretically halving time to return results or do whatever needs doing



Quad core machine:
Class person()
//command new person 1
//command new person 2
//command new person 3
//command new person 4

Each core gets one command and takes 1/4 the time to do what your single core machine did (theoretically) and assuming all cores run at same speed of the single core machine and assuming your parent class is able to split the work.

as an even more base example:
Now apply this to game data, lets say pixels, instead of one core rendering your whole screen lets say it takes 1 second, you have two cores rendering half the screen each now you have done the same thing in half the time 0.5 seconds, now 4 cores 1/4 screen each = .25 seconds (theoretically) // now think about Xfire and SLI, this is not multicore, but multi cpu, its a tiny step from multicore gaming cards. But it proves its more then possible to divide something up and put it back together.

Programming is only limited by the people writing the code, multi threading any app is possible even things as linear as gaming.

main problems though,

1. most ppl cant code this way, they think in linear step1, step2 terms
2. you need a way to detect if a machine can even do paralell processing, creating heaps of overhead in most current languages and slowing down the app. Cause if you try to do paralell processing a non paralell processor it doesnt work.


Also if you look further into multicore software programming, they have proven you can run things like windows ona CPU with 32 cores each running at 1.5Mhz.

Multicore architecture is the way forward its just a bit ahead of the programming community right now, and alot of people are working very hard to learn how to write multi threaded apps.
 
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As a programmer I disagree also. In essence there won't be much change in the actual program. Say for JAVA for example there is a JVM (JAVA Virtural Machiene) this guy makes the app run. The changes for the dual core/quad core optimization will occur here and in the OS. The way compiled code is read and run will have to change. I am not saying there won't be language changes and enhancements but I feel the "JVM" will be the biggest area of change.

Do you really think that the CPU makers are just spending millions of R&D money to develop multiple cores because they can market them? No... They know this is the way things are headed. All the CPU makers have hit a MHz wall so they are working to improve the chips to do more with the MHz they have.
 
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