Slashdot Mirror
Intel V8 Octa-Core System, Full Performance Tests
MojoKid writes "In the April time frame,
details of Intel's dual-socket 8-core system dubbed
'V8' became available but only preliminary performance numbers were shown.
The platform consists of quad-core Xeon processors in an Intel 5000X
chipset-based motherboard, along with FBDIMM (Fully Buffered DIMM) serial
memory. A follow-on article at HotHardWare goes into significantly more detail on the platform and showcases many more performance metrics on a Windows Vista 64-bit installation. The
POV-Ray and Cinebench 95 benchmark numbers alone are something to smile
about. 'Intel's V8 isn't about promoting a platform as much as it is a show of strength and a glimpse of things to come. What V8 and QuadFX show is that both Intel and AMD are on a path to offering true, enthusiast-class, dual-socket platforms. And that's a good thing. Perhaps AMD is a little further down the path thanks to a more tweaker-friendly motherboard in the QuadFX-compatible Asus L1N64-SLI WS, but until consumers have more motherboards to choose from and perhaps quad-core processors from AMD, we can't very well declare that the time for QuadFX has arrived. One motherboard does not a platform make.'"
From the Home Office in Bangalore India!
Top Ten Uses For Your New Processor Cores:
10. Vista (Starter, Ultimate Turbo Champion, etc). If this applies to you, stop reading list here, all your new cores are belong to Microsoft.
9. Time to install Web 2.1, baby!!
8. Full-screen full-motion porn on all three of your 30-inch computer monitors while running global warming computer model in background
7. Terrorism.
6. Receiving chocolate cake over the Internet.
5. As a tool to help you personally become a more productive worker, engaged citizen and attentive spouse and parent, rather than as a weird techno-fetishistic ends unto itself. Ha ha, just kidding!! LOLzzz.
4. Dedicated core for Safari installs/updates.
3. Department Homeland Security monitoring/spyware (federal statutory requirement)
2. AT&T Broadband/RIAA monitoring/spyware (in EULA)
1. Wife's monitoring/spyware (in the vows)
FTFA:
Our testing showed the V8 ssytem consumping much more power than anything else while idling at the Windows desktop; almost 50W more than QuadFX and over 100W more than the QX6800. With the processors operating under full load, however, the tables turned somewhat.
Yeah, the tables did turn. Under full load, the QX6800 - which is already power-hungry - uses 319W. The V8 and the QuadFX are at 474W and 498W, respectively. That's an extra 155-179W... For what?!
Is this a continuation of the P4 Prescotts, which used 130W+, IIRC? These beasts use *even more* juice.
Yeah, such CPUs have their place, but if this is an indication of the future of desktop computers, fu*k it. The V8 uses more power over a QX6800 (50W) while idling than what my CPU (E4300) uses at full load. Are we going to be able to buy 50W CPUs in five years, or are we going to have to deal with insane cooling solutions for 200W CPU monsters?
So, if Windows is only designed for two or four processors, why even consider eight?
Best not to listen to marketing dweebs for technical information. Windows NT ("Vista") is - and always has been - designed from the ground up to work very well with multiple CPUs. It's heavily multithreaded, fully re-entrant, kernel locking is very fine-grained, etc, etc.
I have no idea what this person thinks they're saying, but Windows NT4 was available for machines with 8 CPUs a decade ago and Windows 2000 has been running on 64-CPU machines for years. It's possibly some sort of incredibly poorly communicated misunderstanding about how modern machines are more likely to find multiple cores on a single package, rather than discrete CPUs, but even that would only require scheduler tweaking and certainly nothing "fundamentally different". It may also be a reference to Singularity.
What is clear, is that "Microsoft executive Ty Wilson" has NFI what he's talking about and needs to be whacked with a clue-by-four (and probably was). There's nothing at all wrong with Windows' SMP support, especially in the context of the hardware it typically runs on.
Of course, that's Microsoft... How does OSX and Linux handle eight processors?
OSX, not very well. They've only moved away from a single big kernel lock relatively recently - although Leopard is supposed to have some significant improvements in this area - and there's lots of work that needs to be done. Linux's SMP support is excellent (almost certainly better than Windows') and it's been running on machines with quite large CPU counts for years.