Quad-core (in fact, multicore in general) CAN be useful on desktops IF....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Serge84
Let's see, specifically why you don't need a quad core for the average system... Well, on a gaming rig, what you are really interested in is doing one thing very very fast -- playing that game. Like it or not, almost no games, even in this day and age, use SMP. So unless your OS can manage SMP of programs on its own (which it does, to some extent, but it's not very good at it), a single, faster core will run games better than a multicore system that is slower. A server is generally designed to use SMP, but it uses it in a specific way.
A server will run more than a single program in that clock tick. Servers need to offer many services concurrently without any of these services taking down the whole machine. This makes SMP very valuable for servers. If you have ever tried to run a very nasty SQL query on a server that also provides other services you need, you really appreciate those other processing cores, because it means both things can happen without taking the entire day.
4 cores are useless much less 2. Your no better off since your just running at the same clock speed of one core. In reality 2 or even 4 cores are not going to be any faster then 1. It may seem like it in benchmarks ofcorse. But they are made to take advantave of dual and quad cores. Again almost no programs at all do this and are still single threaded 95% of them. Very nasty problem. Sure you can make the cpu run 4 different tasks at once but in raw speed, nothing is gained.
You don't get more power, only more multi tasking. So this is just pointless unless your crazy mad about having the latest junk and like to show off, or your really going to use it in a server for a perpous. Really as long as programs are single threaded its like saying your 4 core cpu is no better then mine give or take a small % of real speed gane here like 10 or 15%. Afterall the fastest CPU clock per clock is a FX-57 at 4.2ghz single core not a dual core. Now thats how you show off. If you compare one core2 solo to a FX-57, the FX-57 rapes any CPU at that speed. Just because you have 2 cpus doesn't mean you get some special 50% speed boost. The speed is always the same, your abillity to do 2 things at once is not. But programs people. So this junk is just hype. The real performance difference is only a convenionce of about 15% at most. Won't help me any.
The tech is useless if no program can use its advantages is a fact. Maybe great in 2010 but until then your gaining nothing but a nice utility bill. lol
That is precisely why operating systems need core-affinity tools (in Windows' case, it should be built into Task Manager). Until recently (in fact, until the original Core Duo) the assumption (which made sense) grounded with all programmers was that the target system had one physical core (even though virtual multicore processors, such as Intel HT, have been widely available for the past two years). This was a solid assumption because of lower-end processors that *didn't* support any sort of multicore (Celeron/Sempron, for example).
However, even with Core 2 Duo coming on deck this year (and Kentsfield next year), there will *still* be a rather large amount of single-core processors in service. It will take a while before multicore outnumbers single-core in the field, even with Intel dropping prices like so many cluster munitions. Until multicore outnumbers single-core, programmers have literally no reason to assume a multicore target (even for games); therefore, the programmers will continue to (correctly) program for the majority processor: single-core. At the OS level, task-monitoring tools (such as Windows Task Manager) are, however, where the ground floor for multicore support can be added rather easily. Windows Task Manager can *already* detect multiple cores (either physical or virtual); what it lacks (on the desktop side) is core-affinity management for underlying tasks. (This is where Windows Server 2003 differs dramatically, as Task Manager in WS 2003 allows for core affinity or even specifically running an application on a specific numbered core, though the default is for core affinity. I don't know if Windows Vista's Task Manager keeps the core affinity tools that WS 2003 has.)
