I have seen discussions like this every year since people started building their own computers
such as why would anyone need a 1Ghz CPU, why do you need more than 500Mb of storage space
and each year the figures change, but the topic is the same
we never need the top end spec machine, but when you buy it you have a future proof machine that can last 4 or 5 years and still perform at a good standard.
when new hardware is released software developers can then produce software that can use the technology
The OS manufacturers can also add more features and build a better, more feature rich and compatible OS (in theory)
Plus when people say why do we need 8 cores.
The best way to look at this would be performing a task like video encoding
I remember when the resolution and sound quality was low and it took ages to encode a video, when we got faster CPU's and eventually dual core it stopped becoming a 3 hour task lol
but now with HD, 3D and the pending 4xHD, the hardware we use to encode this stuff need to be fast and multi-tasking
There are tasks out there that require more power than we have at the moment and the market will always be moving in that direction.
To understand why we need to keep increasing the cores you need to look at the physical limit a single core can achieve and the cost of creating a super fast single core
It is cheaper to keep adding cores rather than make a super fast single core.
So while current software only uses 1-4 cores we will need more cores in the future to perform day to day tasks as the software get more complex and will be designed to use more and more cores.
So while it is not needed today, it will be needed tomorrow.
This is just tech progress and this thread is a regurgitated thread that has appeared every year for the past 20 years or more
oh and don't get me started on how MS and Sony have killed the gaming market lol
I look forward to seeing the gaming machine and devices steam/valve have in the pipeline, I hope they shake things up in a big way