amd 8 core

[PP Mguire]

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

The problem with the FX chips are they aren't true cores. They are a more physical version of Intel's HT, but even though they are more physical they lack in IPC and thus lack in single threaded performance. I agree, that it is future proofing, but most people looking at these chips are gamers. There is NO game that even takes 6 cores to the full potential. When you game, you want higher single threaded performance and getting something like the i3 3330 or i5 3570k is way more beneficial than getting an 8 core. I edited and encoded FRAPS raw 1080p videos all the time and the difference between my 3960x and 2500k sadly was maybe a minute or two. This may sound like a huge difference to some, but really it isn't compared to the amount of raw processing power and price. I could encode these puppies in 10 minutes or less, which is really saying something compared to older CPUs like my i5 750 or even my little 6000+.

The big difference in CPU power comes from programs that render, and take huge CPU load while having GPU assistance. These kinds of tasks are usually left to the power houses like 6 and 8 core Xeons. Companies and others buy workstations for these tasks making something with more than 4 cores in a consumer desktop pretty pointless. One could argue, that once the newer consoles come out we will start to see multi-threaded games but I don't think so. I think we will see games that can finally start utilizing a 4 core chip, but rather will put even more strain on GPUs and RAM due to the demand for higher res textures and native DX11 support on consoles.

 

[SuxoR]

I think they are overkill and sadly I feel like it's more of an arms race to be able to claim they have "the fastest, highest core" processor.

The development of games has been slow and development costs have sky rocketed, this technology will call for new programming methods and more costs...the games won't get better even if they look *slightly* better

that's just imo

 

[kmote]

For a server on the other hand...
I did a pricing exercise recently for a varied virtualisation load and dual Opteron 6212 was certainly better than anything else in my price range.

 

[PP Mguire]

I think they are overkill and sadly I feel like it's more of an arms race to be able to claim they have "the fastest, highest core" processor.

The development of games has been slow and development costs have sky rocketed, this technology will call for new programming methods and more costs...the games won't get better even if they look *slightly* better

that's just imo

Gaming has been held back by one thing and one thing only. Consoles. Until the next gen comes out we will see the same crap coming out that wont utilize more than a few cores because the 360 has a max of 3 cores and very limited RAM. Once the new quad core based consoles come out this will change as new engines will be released.