MultiCore Wars - My Opinion

[11modders]

I reckon that the multi-core wars is going to make buying new cpu's over the next couple of years very hard as, Intel and AMD keep on releasing CPU's with more cores, meaning when multi-threaded programs are the norm, it will always be 5 minutes before you'll be needing a new CPU...

Who's with me?

[directhex]

i get my hands on some benchmarks tomorrow which should really show what these things can do

[Tin Ribs]

It is always the case, they need you to keep buying so they keep changing the goalpost. Its just a case of picking one and sticking to it until you are showing signs of age then upgrade.

[directhex]

tomorrow has turned into, well, tomorrow

the gist, from what i understand, is: "memory bandwidth is the killer"

[mike_w]

Whether you "need" to buy a new CPU should depend on the requirements of the software, not your current CPU speed compared to new CPUs. Unless software becomes more demanding at an increasing rate, to match this supposed increasing rate in CPU power, then there shouldn't be any "need" to buy a new CPU. Your CPU could be a millionth of the speed of the newest processor, but if it runs the programs you want at the speed you want, there is no need to buy a new CPU.

[ikonia]

I'd be interested in seeing how dual cpu boards with memory controllers per socket perform against dual cores per chip with one memory controller.

[kalniel]

There was already one of those comparisons - comparing dual core X2 and a dual CPU opteron system with ccNUMA (assuming that's what you're hoping to take advantage of with memory controllers per socket?)

Result was the mem bandwidth of the ccNUMA system was almost double that of the normal one. However memory latency was higher as well, and actual task performance was identical.

[ikonia]

I'd certainly be interested in reading that article if you have a reference.

[kalniel]

First hit in google reveals..

http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2...5/index.x?pg=1

[ikonia]

is that the actual article you where refering to, or just one like it.

[kalniel]

Can't remember off the top of my head - it was some years ago.

However that article also says the same thing - the dual processor (dual 248) system has twice the mem bandwidth of the dual core (single 175) system, but worse latencies, and a near identical real world performance.

[ikonia]

thanks for posting it I found it an interesting read.

[directhex]

Originally Posted by kalniel

Can't remember off the top of my head - it was some years ago.

However that article also says the same thing - the dual processor (dual 248) system has twice the mem bandwidth of the dual core (single 175) system, but worse latencies, and a near identical real world performance.

real world is application specific

[CrazyMonkey]

nice read thanks.

[Pedant]

I think the multi core thing is very good for us developers who want to get some study in at home. By the time you're running oracle, an ejb container & anything else, you start to get greatful for the concurrency ability of your box. For this reason I have an old poweredge 6300 (4 * 450Mhz 1Mb cache zeons) to deploy onto & another computer to develop on. Probably better now to run on a dual core box, however, pricewise, I know which is easier on the pocket.

Before, I wouldn't have wanted to run a whole suite of applications on one computer as it'd just start to get too painful.

[neologan]

depends what a PC means to you. If you just want the best all the time, then yes i agree, you'll be upgrading a lot to keep pace. But if you can escape this rat race, you will be fine for two years without needing an upgrade if you're wise.

I can't imagine anyone needing more than an overclocked E8400 for a while to come. Totally GPU limited in the cutting edge games at the moment too.