WOW, dual core has everyday purpose!!!

[OC4life]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28117

Could a 20% increase be across the board on all apps (games)? This would be huge for dual core.

 

[rseven]

This is bound to happen with more hardware and software in the coming year. It at least makes some of the price premium for dual core worth it.

 

[Zzap]

IMHO this article can also be interpreted as "the driver is 20% faster" - not every software that you run. (And btw. i'ts impossible to speed up _every_ program by 20% with more CPUs.)

 

[penixor]

IMHO this article can also be interpreted as "the driver is 20% faster" - not every software that you run. (And btw. i'ts impossible to speed up _every_ program by 20% with more CPUs.)

Why not? everything will become greater faster better with more cores and higher clocks. To say that there wont be an increase because, a second core cant do that much is a sillyh thing to say, we dont know how the new dual cores can be manipulated yet, they are brand new and all types of software will affect the. And obviously the ATI driver could give the second core more instuctions so that more is done, its easily seen that there could be a 20% increase if not more. Welcome to the world of multi threading my friend, its a brand new world.

 

[CanadianTSi]

Umm this driver has already been reviewed and the gains are minimal to none...

*Edit* Heres the link http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2629

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^^ as usual.

 

[Zzap]

And btw. i'ts impossible to speed up _every_ program by 20% with more CPUs.)

Why not? everything will become greater faster better with more cores and higher clocks. To say that there wont be an increase because, a second core cant do that much is a sillyh thing to say, we dont know how the new dual cores can be manipulated yet, they are brand new and all types of software will affect the. And obviously the ATI driver could give the second core more instuctions so that more is done, its easily seen that there could be a 20% increase if not more. Welcome to the world of multi threading my friend, its a brand new world.

It's simply a fact that there are (lots of) algorithms that _can't_ benefit from more cores. That means: _0%_ speedup. The common 'real life'-example is: try to prepare dinner faster with more cooks. You might be able to do all the preparation in nearly-zero time, but you'll always have to wait half an hour until the meat is cooked. (I hope you understand the problem I'm addressing). You might say that this has nothing to do with computers, but unfortunately it has. If you're really interested, I'll give you some 'real' problems that can't be solved faster with any number of CPUs, but most of them are not very easy to understand...
If you look around the web for parallel algorithms you surely find something yourself. (Btw. the part of a problem that can't be parallellised is called 'Serial Fraction')

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^^ well put - u can feed a CPU with alot of info, but if the harddrive cant send the info fast enough...... it doesnt matter

 

[Eldonko]

It's simply a fact that there are (lots of) algorithms that _can't_ benefit from more cores. That means: _0%_ speedup. The common 'real life'-example is: try to prepare dinner faster with more cooks. You might be able to do all the preparation in nearly-zero time, but you'll always have to wait half an hour until the meat is cooked. (I hope you understand the problem I'm addressing). You might say that this has nothing to do with computers, but unfortunately it has. If you're really interested, I'll give you some 'real' problems that can't be solved faster with any number of CPUs, but most of them are not very easy to understand...
If you look around the web for parallel algorithms you surely find something yourself. (Btw. the part of a problem that can't be parallellised is called 'Serial Fraction')

Good post. This time next year we will all be loving dual core though

 

[Zzap]

Good post. This time next year we will all be loving dual core though

...if the prices went down
(I hope I'm not being misunderstood, since I think mulitcore-CPUs are great. I'm only saying that you can't speed up _everything_ with more cores. But of course there are lots of applications that benefit greatly from additional CPUs. If they weren't so expensive I#d be the first to buy one (or two )

 

[greenmaji]

I could see were higher clocks on a single core system could almost be certain of better application performance..
but.. when it comes to utilizing more then one CPU the software simply has to be written for the task, and if dual core is forcing this adaptation of software development, sure why not, it makes the dual CPU guys investments that much more reasonable..

 

[darksparkz]

Well even as nvidia forceware drivers come out, their increasing benefits towards dual cores and a tad more noticeable with every new release.

 

[greenmaji]

this honestly sounds like a bad thing..
leaving the multi threading to the drivers rather then getting software developed for multiple cores.. JMHO though..

 

[JenBell]

just hope that when vista comes out, all the developers pay attention so the dc cpus are used properly by all software and not just some

 

[henesse]

Thread-level parallelism is someting you learn in game programming and nothing new.
Most if not all your new games will be based on them within the next 2 years.
It might not be worth getting a DC now but its the future.

 

[greenmaji]

yes but with drivers forcing the issue will other applications other then games be inclined to develop there software for mulitple cores (or will it just slow them down) either way it sounds like a definite possiblity to me..
yes games were already in the works.. but what about any other app.. such as poductivity, all the way down to your browser? I was asuming dual core was going to be a prevelent force in software development across the board.. of course I might have been too hopefull (the OS will do the job good enough bla bla bla.. )

 

[Zzap]

You shouldn't forget that rewriting software for multiple cores can in some cases be very difficult = expensive. I doubt that _every_ software will make use of multiple cores (except for spreading independent tasks over multiple threads, which is often not that complex)
In most cases the simple argument is, that the program runs fast enough on even a 5 year old machine. In other cases it's probably not the CPU that limits the speed but the harddisk. So why bother with rewriting these programs?

It's different with Games, 3D-Software, Photoshop,... . These (type of) programs are always too slow, so it make sense to invest time (and money) here.