The reason Intel is pushing for more cores is because we've sort of reach the "apex"
in terms of processor frequency. Increasing the frequency of the processor will not
make the processor much faster at this point because the data literally can't travel
fast enough through the ports in processors to keep up with the processor.
Imagine the processor as a person searching for a book using an online database,
which is extremely fast. But after finding the book he wants, the person must travel
to the library/bookstore to pick it up. It doesn't matter how fast the person can
search the book online (be it 5 seconds, or 1 second, or 1 millisecond), he's not
going to get the book much faster by improving his search speed. Similarly,
improving the speed of the processor won't make it significantly faster, because
we've already developed the processor to be ungodly fast. The only problem is
forcing the crapload of data to travel fast enough to/fro the RAM or other parts of
the processor.
In addition, power usage is a cubic function of frequency. So if you double the
frequency of the processor, power usage multiplies by 8. If you triple frequency,
power usage multiplies by 27. If you quadruple... power usage multiplies by 64,
reaching a temperature that'll probably melt your legs (if your using a laptop).
How do you solve that problem? Build a multi-core processor
The point of multi-core processor is NOT actually to increase processing power, but
to reduce the (physical) distance data has to travel. Each core in a multi-core
processor is smaller and less powerful than a single core, but data in each core can
travel significantly faster, thereby increasing processing speed (w/o increasing
processing power). The combined processing power of the several "unpowerful" cores
will actually have faster processing speed than an extremely powerful single-core
processor.
Less is sometimes more.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason Intel is pushing for more cores is because we've sort of reach the "apex" in terms of processor frequency. Increasing the frequency of the processor will not make the processor much faster at this point because the data literally can't travel fast enough through the ports in processors to keep up with the processor. Imagine the processor as a person searching for a book using an online database, which is extremely fast. But after finding the book he wants, the person must travel to the library/bookstore to pick it up. It doesn't matter how fast the person can search the book online (be it 5 seconds, or 1 second, or 1 millisecond), he's not going to get the book much faster by improving his search speed. Similarly, improving the speed of the processor won't make it significantly faster, because we've already developed the processor to be ungodly fast. The only problem is forcing the crapload of data to travel fast enough to/fro the RAM or other parts of the processor. In addition, power usage is a cubic function of frequency. So if you double the frequency of the processor, power usage multiplies by 8. If you triple frequency, power usage multiplies by 27. If you quadruple... power usage multiplies by 64, reaching a temperature that'll probably melt your legs (if your using a laptop). How do you solve that problem? Build a multi-core processor The point of multi-core processor is NOT actually to increase processing power, but to reduce the (physical) distance data has to travel. Each core in a multi-core processor is smaller and less powerful than a single core, but data in each core can travel significantly faster, thereby increasing processing speed (w/o increasing processing power). The combined processing power of the several "unpowerful" cores will actually have faster processing speed than an extremely powerful single-core processor. Less is sometimes more.