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Intel Takes Quad Core To the Desktop
Rob writes to mention a Computer Business Review Online article about Intel's official launch of the Kentsfield chipset. Their Quad Core offering, Intel is claiming, is up to 80% faster than the dual-core Conroe released this past July. From the article: "Kentsfield, a 2.66GHz chip with a 1066MHz front-side bus, is more for computational-heavy usage, including digital content creation, engineering analysis, such as CAD, and actuarial and other financial applications. Steve Smith, director of operations for Intel digital enterprise group, claimed rendering is 58% faster for users building digital content creation systems, for video, photo editing or digital audio. In other words, Kentsfield is for high-end desktops or workstations only. For the average office worker who uses their PC for general productivity apps, such as communications and garden-variety computing, Smith recommended the Core 2 Duo from 'a price point and performance perspective.'"
quadrupoles chipset?
new processors out every month, I've bought an iMac 24" right now, to find that in 3 months they'll get another upgrade.
"Core 2 Extreme quad-core QX6700" - There's a mouthful. It's funny that Intel is continually trying to downplay the importance of this chip for the average user. They say it's best for "more for computational-heavy usage, including digital content creation, engineering analysis, such as CAD" ... sounds like gamers would flock to this. Maybe they realize it's a rushed product (to beat AMD to the punch), and it will be in short supply?
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
So how does Minesweeper run on it?
All I want to know is if QuadCore will make my World of Warcraft Elite battle load and display 4-times faster?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
4 cores is great and all, but I know they are still working on support for games such as many Steam offerings with only 2 cores in terms of multi-threading, so I'd have to imagine that game support to really take advantage of a 4-core system would be a long way away. I was still psyched about the low voltage powerhouses for laptops, and I'm wondering how much extra heat 4 cores are going to put out as well. How many apps are really geared to take advantage of 4 cores atm, really?
Missing a marketing opportunity. ... now with Intel Foursome!
What they need to do is make a Muti-Core NATIVE OS, so even single-thread apps can use more then 1 core, also why dont they just make dual-core processors faster! seems the only way we are going to get ahead in the field
... to the next mac pro.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
I know CPU power is a big factor in performance, but c'mon.. What about extending the rest of the motherboard? I bet things would run faster in dual/quad core mode if there were dual buses so that bottlenecks are reduced to peripherals and memory.
From what I've read about Intel's quad-core; it is not native like AMD's will be. They are basically are going to have two dual core's and they will communicate via FSB. That sucks compare to AMD's offering which will be native._ frontpage&Itemid=1&limit=10&limitstart=20
http://xstremehardware.co.uk/index.php?option=com
I eat Karma for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's why I don't have any.
We were issued laptops at the start of the project. Typical laptop is a Thinkpad T42p. They average somewhere between 1.6Ghz and 1.8Ghz.
Some people were complaining about performance (java is a hog, and they were using stuff that makes java look 'light'). so they requested new machines.
They were issued Core 2 Duo systems that are 1.8Ghz, with 2 Gigs of ram. This machines are nice. They guy from IT Support comes up to replace the system and starts saying that he doesn't know why we would upgrade to the desktops, they are the same speed as the laptops.
Ok, I expect that from some guy off the street, but IT Support?
(Note: For this work there is a significant speed difference, it is obvious, and almost immediate.)
Never mind the differences between a single core from a Core 2 Duo, and the core used in a Thinkpad anyway...
Unmarketable schlock!
.. since I am a journalist for a computer rag. Anyway, I would say it is a waste of money for most people at this time. Applications can barely use two cores properly, and games are still not as SMP aware as they should. On the other hand, if you run gentoo, THIS CPU IS KILLER :)
Dvorak on Doomtech
Send benchmarks to management with a report of what this guy said and ask if you can do your own support.
Two threats? You surely aren't running Windows, man...
But seriously, as it gets harder and harder to make larger CPUs run faster the trend is going to be more, smaller processors per die. Each core is by itself slower than a huge monolithic one, but the sum is greater thanks to non-linear scaling. The trick is getting software to efficiently utilize them all.
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
It's going like razorblades - the razorblade companies just try to outdo each other on how many blades that can be placed in a single razor. At this rate, expect as many processors as you can physically fit on, plus an extra processor for those tricky, hard to reach programs.
New Quad Core?
Earth warming more.
Or so says
The junior Gore.
Coolness to your every pore:
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Saying quad core is overkill is like saying my Porsche has too much horsepower. Or that my girlfriends bewbies are too big. Sure it might be more than you need on your daily commute, but it's nice to play with on the weekend.
Bigger, faster, and it's never soon enough.
Remember when one blade was enough?
I am about 50 percent faster on two cores -- I am guessing I will be maybe another 20 percent faster on 4 cores. If we get the Che Gueverra number (1, 2, many cores), I am not sure how this helps without a radical rethinking of how we write programs.
What? I thought EVERYONE used WinDVR to encode MPEG2 files of Battlestar Gallactica from their TIVO while playing F.E.A.R., and turn it into H262 for uploading as a a killer torrent while kicking but in Call of Duty 2? I suck the life out of an X2 4400 bitch, and I am NOT alone.
We cant all have a life, so I NEED that chip!
You insensitive clod!!!
Here's one from Toms Hardware.
Intel's right. On games it doesn't do any better. On video though, well, lets just say I know some architecture majors who would have loved these in their lab several years ago, when 1 frame took 10 minutes to render. And they had 300 frame videos to do.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I doubt intercore communication in the Intel design is any better than the Barcelona (it's impossible to say this far out in any event). What is known (I have worked with some of the quad core Intel stuff) is that the two dies produce a higher load on the FSB and require the FSB be clocked down from the equivalent dual-core model. This means that AMDs remaining advantage over Intel's offerings is made more drastic (aggregate memory performance, particularly in multi-socket configurations). I.e. an Intel that thoroughly spanks a high-end two socket AMD offering linpack wise (4 flops/clock), will offer as low as 33% of the stream performance as the AMD offering. So, particularly at the high end, there remains no clear answer about which solution to pick, as Intel currently far and away has the best performance once the data has reached the cache, but if the data set being operated on within small periods of time exceeds the cache, AMD can still win. This is one of the reasons hpcc has merit for measuring multiple aspects of a cluster (i.e. aggregate memory performance, node interconnect, as well as traditional linpack tests), it's not so simple to say what is the best unless an architecture allows for superior performance across the board.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
They still are, this isn't aimed at average desktop usage, RTFA.
For Minesweeper, you should have at least one processor core per game square.
It's the only way to play.
M$ EULA let you run M$ Minesweeper Operating System (Windows) only on two CPUs, AFAIK!
The Intel computer/rangetop will fry hamburgers faster than the AMD version, with no loss of computing power
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Actually both AMD and Intel have improved in heat & power consumption.
On Intel's side, the Core2Duo has a lower power consumption than the P4, despite having two cores. If you get the "smallest" version, the E6300, you should end up with a PC that has moderate power consumption combined with very nice performance.
AMD has recently lowered the prices on their "energy efficient" series of dual cores, and the availability has improved. If you buy an Athlon 64 EE 3800+ or an EE 4200+, you should also get a nice ratio of performance to power consumption, both at a somewhat lower level than with a Core 2 Duo. BTW, the higher-clocked models are IMHO overpriced when compared to the Intel Core2Duo.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Are you sure that the bookkeeping is the limiting factor in your program? It could also be that you simply run into a memory bandwidth bottleneck. When you have datasets that do not fit in the L2 cache, main memory simply cannot keep up with the amount of data that the CPUs chew through. With multiple cores that all share the same memory link, this problem is going to become only worse.
One more argument in favor of the AMD Opteron architecture, even though for single-threaded applications it is currently slower than Intel's best offerings. At least with the Opteron, you can have dedicated memory for each node.
Quad core, 2.8Ghz, 4Gb RAM, ...
Should allow Vista to raise up to "sluggish".
flyneye:I'm siting here today with the famous snaggle tooth whose home cluster has been busy with the new quad processor.So,what say snag,is this processor cool or what?
snaggle tooth: Heavens to Mergatroy, I've got an erection,a big one even.
flyneye:Well there you have it folks,Intel in the lead for the next 5 minutes.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
"For the average office worker who uses their PC for general productivity apps, such as communications and garden-variety computing, Smith recommended the Core 2 Duo from 'a price point and performance perspective.'"
I admit it. I'm not as hard core as a lot of Slashdot. I'm not a hacker, a programmer, and I barely use linux (mostly for tivo modding..o.k. I'm a little bit of a hacker, but just a little). Still, when I see the new chips like these that are much faster for digital content creation and not for the "Average office user", I find myself scratching my head. Sure the cubicles running MS Office and IE don't need this power, but the "Average" home user may very well.
Think about it. What is the average home user doing? I think it has a lot to do with digital audio and video. We are making home movies, converting our DVD collection to mp4s and mixing our own music. Most of this can be done with iLife if you are a Mac user (for example) but the hundreds of gigs of video I have of my family requires far to much of my time to "Rip, Mix and Burn".
Am I so different? It seems to me that the high-end workstation and the "average" home pc user really want and need the same thing from a productivity standpoint. For those of us that want to move into the digital home lifestyle, processing power is still a limiting factor. I for one find myself setting up my computer to encode video overnight far too often.
Does anyone else see the top of the line high-end processor as a very useable tool for the real average computer user or am I expecting too much from the average user? Really, even my dad wants to make digital videos of the family from time to time but doesn't have the hours it takes to do it.
Yeah, that much faster on carefully selected software. And slower on some single thread applications that rely most of all on clock-speed and uncontested memory bus access.
Would be nice for once to have headlines read something more honest like:
Speed improvements range from -20% for 50% of your software, up to +80% for 10% of your software.
There could even be a nice graph of how much software is improved (or degraded) at each 5% bin of performance. Otherwise it's no more honest than saying that your new Ferrari is capable of speeds up to 220mph, without mentioning that this can only be utilized during .01% of your driving.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You can now sweep mines out of four oceans simultaneously.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Only if you have 4 disc drives to feed the four cores simultaneously.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"Most people mainly use the computer for broswing the net"
Most slashdotters say this, so when you think of the IE/FF wars? Think that most people should stick with IE.
"And despite adverts on UK tv reporting that with the new dual cores, you can read email and listen to music, you don't need a 4 core or 2 core to do any of that."
Only if you ass-ume that E-Mail and music will never change. But then according to most slashdotters, people are just browsing the web. So stick with what they know...Windows and IE.
"The whole thing is a joke, for most people. Like cars that go 1000 mph, what is the point!"
To get away from posters still living in their parents basement. That extra burst of speed helps.
"...digital content creation systems, for video, photo editing or digital audio. In other words, Kentsfield is for high-end desktops or workstations only"
That sounds like a Mac user to me. The Article says "New systems boasting the CPU set to be announced today", and it's a Tuesday, the traditional launch day for new Macs. Do I see a pattern emerging here?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
scenario. Just a decent OS like OS/2 or BeOS. The best write up of OS/2 I ever saw talked about being able to compile an application, format a floppy and perform local database queries all at the same time and still be able to edit a column with no response issues. No multi core required. BeOS coudl do the same with many, many video playing back muliptle video streams simutlaneously. Again no multi core. I still can't do that in Windows without running into issues.
... now I can run 4 infinite while loops at once!
Kentsfield is a processor, not a chipset as the parent states. According to other articles, the Kentsfield processor will work with Intel's 965 and 975 chipset-based boards that are running Core2Duo's, providing a super-sweet upgrade path.
Wait, wait, wait... it's only 80% faster despite having 100% more cores? Where's that extra 20% going?
games journalism blog
Vista will solve that little "problem"
W indows%20Vista_Ultimate_English_36d0fe99-75e4-4875 -8153-889cf5105718.pdf
So... Is the quad core considered 4 processors? or just one?
I ask because the Vista EULA says:
2. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. Before you use the software under a license, you must assign that license to one device (physical hardware system). That device is the "licensed device." A hardware partition or blade is considered to be a separate device.
a. Licensed Device. You may install one copy of the software on the licensed device. You may use the software on up to two processors on that device at one time. Except as provided in the Storage and Network Use (Ultimate edition) sections below, you may not use the software on any other device.
From http://download.microsoft.com/documents/useterms/
(Emphasis added by me.)
In 2013, Intel will look back and say, "Four cores and seven years ago, our engineers brought forth on this continent a new microarchitecture, conceived in Santa Clara, and dedicated to the proposition that all men's wallets are created equal."
Gravity is a contributing factor in nearly 73 percent of all accidents involving falling objects. -Dave Barry
Dual-processor ( or dual core ) computers running Windows have been uncommon until recently. Software developers targeting Windows have not needed or been requested to make their software well threaded, until now. Dual-processor Macintoshes have been common for several years ( before OS X even ). I think more software written for the Mac is well threaded compared to software written for Windows, as a percentage. All the Windows users that like how Photoshop and After Effects take advantage of dual-processors can thank Mac users from the 1990's that demanded dual-processor support at that time. Don't bitch about poor support for multiple cores on Windows, switch operating systems.
Some of us remember when processors cost $600 and their clock speeds would DOUBLE every 6 months? Now those were depressing, then exciting, then depressing times.
Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately attributed to ignorance. -Napoleon
_OR FOR COMPILING_
Why can't anyone ever, EVER? remember that somebody out there somewhere actually creates software?
Cannot they comprehend that somebody does something besides Media Encoding?
Who do you think wrote the media encoder, and had to sit there waiting for it to compile?
They can't even post a single make -j8 benchmark, ever? Is it really so far-fetched that someone might be a programmer?
These reviewers keep sitting around and trying to figure out what Intel's new Quad-Core chip is good for:
"well, it's a good chip, but it might not be useful to you unless you're spending a lot of time doing media encoding."
HOW ABOUT FOR PROGRAMMERS DOING COMPILATION, AND DOING IT IN A BUNCH OF THREADS, IDIOTS?
in about 1984 when IBM released their new PC AT running at a staggering 6 MHz clock speed and capable holding of multiple Megabytes of RAM memory.
The funny thing about it is that they said it was for power workstation users running advanced applications and that no normal office worker would need such power.
It's the same story every time. But as long as I have to wait for anything this silly computer does, I need a faster one. As far as I am concerned, if anything takes more that 1/10th second, its too slow. Why would I want to spend my time waiting on a machine?
We've been waiting on these things to replace our "old" dual-core hyperthreading Xeons. They are pretty powerful, but spam is getting insane these days and when you're scanning a million messages a day through each mx server, then lots of cores will get a good workout, believe me.
I could test and profile and figure out the bottlenecks but I don't have the time to play with it right now and not having a 4-core computer, I won't see much benefit. Part of the problem may be figuring out what are expensive operations and bottlenecks in Java, but the point of all this multi-core stuff in my mind is that you can run Java and waste cycles.
Something as simple as taking a number-crunching task and making it parallel over threads on multiple cores is not enough. There obviously is some bottleneck, but finding it will take work.
When you have more cores, you can afford to sacrifice a little computational power in each core in order to make each core run with better heat efficiency.
You can't do this in single core chips where the market wants performance performance performance.
This is why dual cores put out bucketloads LESS heat than single core chips and draw less electric power, while still kicking the ass out of the single core chips in computational power.
That's the whole point.
If you can live with mediocre performance, I'd recommend something with passive cooling. Because the video card fans are often crap and there are far less replacements in the market than with CPU coolers. A passive heat sink will solve that problem altogether.
But note that you should have a well ventilated case for passive cooling.
C - the footgun of programming languages
1 core for Windows
1 core for your game
1 core for your anti-virus/anti-spyware realtime app
1 core for your registry cleaner/defragger
Sounds like a winner.
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