Core 2 or AM2 + Other Questions

[aidanjt]

Although in theory this reverse-hyperthreading sounds a good idea, I can't help but feel it's similar to SLi/Crossfire in the reasons why it's been brought forward; it seems to be more of a gimmick to get more out of technology which hasn't been updated.

Except it's a lot easier to deligate pixel areas than unmanaged CPU instructions.

I still say an x800GTO2 will do you until DX10 cards come out, save the pennies for when the real stuff comes about.

[-ChEM-]

All games from the last 4 years use more than 1 thread, they simpily don't do so efficently, which is the problem.

you obviously dont understand the difference between writing in threads and running multithreaded, the threads of a program need to be delegated, on their own they are completely incapable of running on more than core... it will revolve around programs written in threads but nothing that has been written previously will work without at least some substantial rewriting... and its pretty pointless anyway as if you dont do it properly you will end up with things unbalanced and heavily dimished returns with the extra cores, which you will probably have experienced with apps in the past

look at low-res quake4 benchmarks for a decent example, aside from that no games ive heard of work on dual core any faster than they will on a single core of the same speed, and that is where reverse hyperthreading could come in

i think its a bit of a long shot, theoretically brilliant but in reality it will be pretty measly... but still, if you could get a 20% improvement by utilising the other core it would be a big big boost for basically everything thats currently released... and as we are still yet to see a substantial amount of multithreaded stuff theres no way of knowing how much longer single threaded performance will be important for

[kalniel]

Anyway, can anyone suggest the best graphics cards I could get in these price ranges:

£100 to £150
£150 to £200


Thanks for your continuing help guys.

100-150: A good make 7600GT
150-200: Probably a 7900GT - if you're lucky you might find an X1800XT, but I couldn't with a quick search.

What I don't understand about reverse hyperthreading (should it ever work) is why intel wouldn't just copy it - they are the ones that mastered hyperthreading after all. I know the X2 has the advantage in crossbar communication, but conroe has shared cache which would presumably make this sort of thing easier.

[aidanjt]

you obviously dont understand the difference between writing in threads and running multithreaded, the threads of a program need to be delegated, on their own they are completely incapable of running on more than core... it will revolve around programs written in threads but nothing that has been written previously will work without at least some substantial rewriting... and its pretty pointless anyway as if you dont do it properly you will end up with things unbalanced and heavily dimished returns with the extra cores, which you will probably have experienced with apps in the past

I know exactly what a multithreaded program is, it's a program with more than 1 thread of execution, whether it works efficently for multiple cores means ballancing workload between threads with a proper thread managment, which only some media and networking software does correctly.