tasks that utilize 8 cores 16 threads?

[hoorhay]

I'm inheriting an i7-4960X mobo and 32GB of 1600mhz cas 8 from a friend, for free. It's a nice upgrade from my 3770K. But honestly I don't know what to do with it. I'm breaking about even where gaming is concerned, but what to do with the extra threads?

He upgraded to E5-2690 v2 with 64gb of ecc. He runs lots of virtual machines to help him cheat at some browser game he loves. Either way, I'm not sure what to do, aside from benchmarking. But I only have a 390X, although I have a 2nd one being shipped at the moment. But I'm curious what kind of tasks I could try to put the cores under load?

 

[mrmez]

Yeah, put the 4960X in for sure.

It has potential to do to some monster processing, but most games will use 4 cores 4 threads absolute MAX.
On the 4790k GTA V is actually VERY marginally faster with HT off.
The X is clocked slightly faster so you certainly won't be losing out, but at this stage you might not see any improvement also.
In the future, this will change, and the x will be able to start flexing its muscles on newer games.

 

[velo3100]

If you really want to push the limit try heavy video editing or game streaming. That should use a lot of thread. You can also try some heavy programming if you know how to.

 

[Saberus]

BOINC can use as many logical cores/threads as you can throw at it, doing distributed computing for scientific research, so you can stress test while supporting research for whatever fields you want to sign up for.