What online FPS shooter is going to run 'not well enough' on a Cray supercomputer?
But does that mean we should all buy Cray Supercomputers now?
By the time this is implemented I'm sure octocore will be the default standard for desktop.
Besides a cutting edge dual core should have no trouble running these current four threaded programs you are talking about. I know this is true with Left 4 Dead 2.
It will be interesting to see the benchmarks comparing Intel Core i3 with hyperthreading and Athlon II x4.
I have a feeling this Core i3 will probably beat it by a good margin though.
I already know some games are featuring four threads. But that doesn't mean a dual core won't be able to play it. Total computational power matters more.
1. Your argument was that for games where a quad core does better, it doesn't matter because a dual core is 'good enough.' I just turned it around. You (or perhaps someone else) implied the multiplayer FPS games did best with dual cores, and due to their competitive nature, the added performance mattered more. However, in quite a few FPS and multiplayer games, quad cores do have the advantage, sometimes quite significantly.
2. There are already a good handful of games that make use of quad cores. More so than games that use PhysX or DirectX10 to any benefit. If you want to play every game on the market well, you need a quad core. This will only become more in favor of quad cores as time goes on, as the tipping point appears to have been reached where almost all software is developed with multicore in mind.
And remember, consoles drive game development, and the consoles are heavily multicore, so most game development doesn't have a choice of 'fast dual core' versus 'slightly slower quad core', multi-threaded development is a must.
An Athlon II X4 or Phenom II X3 are comparable in cost to high end dual cores, but will run every game on the market well. A high end dual core will not. This is true, regardless of whether you're interested in those games.
3. Hyperthreading on average adds 20% performance. The dynamics of the market won't change from how it is now, Intel dual cores will be matched against AMD triple cores. On average, they will perform the same, but on some things, the triple core will have a big advantage. If you want the worst case scenario to perform the best, you want a triple or quad core. If you want quake 3 to run as fast as it possibly can, take your dual core.
Telling me about four threaded programs doesn't count either when the latest dual core has easily handle it.
This is just wrong. GTA4, Dragon Age, ARMA2 and possibly others cannot run at 60 fps on a dual core. And there are plenty of other games where quad cores still have an advantage. Why do you only focus on software that doesn't stress cpus? There are games that run fine on the Atom cpu, does that mean we should ignore more demanding software? Why do you have such a hard-on for dual cores? If you're really about value and 'most software running well enough', you have no reason to upgrade to even the latest dual core, keep what you have until it barely functions.
Trouble is competing AMD hardware at the moment is running on a larger die size. (Phenom II die size >> Core i die size).
On top of this intel is @ 32 nm sooner which will further increase their yields per wafer.
I don't see how AMD can slash prices much longer as this is basically amounting to a battle of attrition.
It's not any worse of a situation than back in the 65nm Phenom days. Besides, what do you care about AMD's profit, I thought this was about consumer value?
I am guessing Intel will do something to these Core i3 chips to limit their overclocks so you very well just may be right.
They don't need to. The cpus aren't designed to hit high clock speeds in the first place, high speed cores haven't been the focus for years. Even if they did focus on hitting the highest core speed possible, power consumption and heat output don't increase linearly with speed, they do increase linearly with core count. As you try to push a cpu higher, power usage and heat output begin to increase exponentially. Even with water cooling and huge power supplies, cpus can't be pushed much faster than they are. Even the extreme overclocking runs, using liquid nitrogen (-196 Celcius) start approaching 0 Celcius on those 6 and 7Ghz runs. There's a very narrow frequency range in which power use scales linearly with frequency, and it becomes smaller with every process node. Eventually, there will be 0 reason to make a dual core (other than cost), they won't clock any higher than quads.
In 2005, nothing used dual cores. It seemed almost silly to buy a 2Ghz dual core when single cores (AMD) were pushing 3Ghz. By the end of 2006, those 2Ghz dual cores were still able to play the latest software, that 3Ghz single core was not. It's taking a bit longer for quad cores, but the same thing will happen. Heck, you said it yourself, only the top end dual cores are capable of playing many of the latest games well, meaning nearly the entire product line is already outdated. Just about any old quad core can hang in the latest games, even those dread awful Phenoms (the originals), but only the best representation of dual cores has a chance.
Ya I pretty much said that in a very long and winded way, it seems like the best option for AMD to counter the i3.
Well, considering Bulldozer (which has its own hyperthreading variant) doesn't come out till 2011, I'd say that's hardly a counter to i3. AMD's product lines are what they are, and they're not launching any new product for quite a while, you'll only see price reductions and small clock speed increases.
So I should consider Athlon II x4 a better choice than Core i3 for playing games?
Yes. i3 is not going to be something amazingly better than the core 2 duos it's replacing.
But if a person goes with 45nm quad core (like Core i7 860) the ventilation/cooling and PSU requirements jump up and everything else in the budget needs to be upsized to cover this. In the end the total price ends up being greater than the CPU dollar difference.
So the only options are a low end i3 and the absolute high end? There are quad cores from under $100, and only minimal increases in power supply cost will be required. Heck, if you have a high end video card, you already had to buy a more powerful power supply, and if you don't, you're not playing high end games.
You're basically arguing for everyone to get netbooks. Very low power and low cost, and if you limit the scope of the software enough, capable of playing anything you want.
You know, just go ahead and buy for i3 for $100 with minimal power supply and motherboard. Then in a year or two when you decide you need a quad core, buy a new power supply and motherboard to go with it, and a $100 quad core at that point. You'll really be saving money!
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