8 Core Processors

[schrammm]

Hello,
Yeah, I'm new to this site and I was just wondering : when can we expect to see 8 core processors in the majority of computer hardware stores this year? Thanks

 

[henydiah]

get all info in this thread
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/303953-28-bulldozer-rumors

 

[americanbrian]

Late September. 26th I think has been bandied around.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

just remember, more cores does not necessarily mean more performance. Many modern programs cant take advantage of more than 2 cores.

 

[jaguarskx]

The vast majority of games uses two cores, there are games that uses 3 cores though and provides a good performance increase over CPUs with 2 cores.

While there are a few games that can utilize 4 cores, the increase in performance from 3 cores is pretty small.

Even if a game is fully optimized to run on 4 cores, that would mean half the cores in an 8 core would be idling.

 

[Herr_Koos]

The reason I advocate multiple cores it that you can do all sorts of random stuff in the background and still run your games without lag. 8 cores are probably overkill for the average PC user, but then, we're still waiting to see how the Bulldozer core compares to our current concept of a CPU core.

 

[gamerk316]

The reason I advocate multiple cores it that you can do all sorts of random stuff in the background and still run your games without lag.

Backround tasks on most PC's wouldn't amount to any FPS hit. Seriously, threads are being swapped out ALL THE TIME to begin with.

8 cores helps when doing 8 heavy tasks in parallel. Due to the nature of PC's [IO waits, memory access, and software design in general], it is VERY hard to use that many resources from a single application. I do not expect to see games, or any other program, scale much beyond 4 cores, and fully expect diminishing returns to kick in.

And yes, more cores does not mean faster processor.

 

[Uther39]

Has intel actually revealed any plans to make an 8 core?

 

[gamerk316]

^^ some of their server chips for 2011 are supposed to be 8 core. Aside from that, I don't think they are targeting 8 core desktop until Haswell in 2013.

Then again, its not like software design is going to change overnight anyways. I doubt we'll ever see most tasks scale much beyond 8 cores for that reason alone.