Do we REALLY need new CPU's?

[Gigantopithecus]

Most consumers are fine with anything that's ~ first gen C2D or Athlon II-grade.

AnandTech's forum users are not most consumers.

An SSD is the most dramatic improvement you can make to an average user's system for day-to-day tasks, and it has been for a few years now.

 

[trollolo]

i'm still appalled at how expensive SSDs are. i'd love to have one to load my OS and games on, but 64 GB does not last long when each game takes ~10 GB

 

[udontneed2know]

Is it possible to have a Sata III and normal HDD on the same system? If so you could then load your os and other slower programs on that and use your normal HDD for everything else.

I think some people may have skipped over the part where I said NOW processors seem like they will not be a bottleneck for some time. After today's generation there may be little need for an upgrade "for normal users" for a long while. But despite that intel is ready to release their next line, amd is hard at work on next years line, etc. I do understand quieter and cooler though for immediate needs, but faster? Not unless your doing stuff that really strains the CPU hardcore all day for work or game for a living.

Love the debate though. Fun to hear peoples thoughts. You can definitely tell who is tight on money, who has families, etc. Compared to those who are more well off financially lol. For me it will take 3 months of careful budgeting to pull off this new build of mine at 800 or so dollars. Oh to be poor with kids in today's world lol

 

[frozentundra123456]

hence the trend towards limiting games to 2 cores like the new battlefield. Forces you to upgrade PC if you want better single threaded performance. Sponsored by Intel Inside.

What??? This makes no sense to me. I would say most people are still running dual core CPUs. If there was some great conspiracy between intel and the gamemakers to make people upgrade, they could just write the code so that you need a quad core at 3.0 ghz. I think they are still writing games to work on 2 cores simply because they want the largest number of people possible to be able to play the game, thus giving then the largest market possible.

I have no great love for intel (or any other large corporation either). And I am sure they used strongarm business tactics in the past. But it amazes me the lengths people will go to in order to try to show Intel is doing something evil.

 

[greenhawk]

What??? This makes no sense to me. I would say most people are still running dual core CPUs.

Valve has a hardware review / survey that they do from time to time via steam that keeps track of that information. Though currently I am unable to find a link to the current survey to say what a sample of gamers are currently using.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

i'm still appalled at how expensive SSDs are. i'd love to have one to load my OS and games on, but 64 GB does not last long when each game takes ~10 GB

There've been deals on the 96 GB V100+ and the 128 GB m4. IMO - they're finally "affordable." If you have the money to fill a 64 GB SSD with games - you have the money for a 128 GB SSD!!!

Or you could be smart and just stick the quicker loading ones on a fast hard drive. Seriously, the F3 from Samsung and the 1.5 TB Hitachi make my old Raptor look slow.

And yes, we will always need new effing CPUs. Just went from a Core 2 Quad to a 2600k, and what a fucking difference it has made in Adobe Premiere. For internets? Well, you can get by with AMD Fusion; but so long as Flash continues to exist I'll keep hoping for the day you can get a 2600k with laptop TDP.

>this thread

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have no great love for intel (or any other large corporation either). And I am sure they used strongarm business tactics in the past. But it amazes me the lengths people will go to in order to try to show Intel is doing something evil.

Didn't "Rebel Moon Rising" REQUIRE MMX to play, which coincidentally, Intel's new Pentium MMX CPUs provided.

 

[udontneed2know]

How can anyone be against intel? They basically founded and created the CPUs we all use today. You think amd is actually innovating anything or just pretty much making cheaper quality intel CPUs? What is so horrible about a quad core 3.7ghz CPU with 6pm of l3 cache for 215$ when it is well .. Worth it?

 

[gevorg]

Yes, we really need new and better CPUs. There is lots of room and demand for them. The only difference is that we need these CPUs to be much smaller and much more power efficient. That is the main challenge of new CPUs in the next 5+ years. The speed they provide is plenty for 95% of users.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I agree with gevorg. I'm more interested in seeing increasingly power efficient CPUs than increasingly powerful CPUs. I'd love to see a chip with the capabilities of an i3-2100 with a low enough TDP that you could run a laptop all day on it. And by all day I don't mean the 8 hours on idle bullshit that manufacturers tout, I mean a full 8 hours under moderately demanding multitasking with run time to spare.

I'm also interested in seeing integrated GPUs improve. For every $100+ GPU I install in a desktop, I install a dozen GT 240s, 5670s, and the like.

Then again, I am very cognizant of the fact that different people need their CPUs to do different things. I suspect we'll start seeing increased niche partitioning with Intel soon, and we're already starting to see it with AMD.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

How can anyone be against intel? They basically founded and created the CPUs we all use today. You think amd is actually innovating anything or just pretty much making cheaper quality intel CPUs? What is so horrible about a quad core 3.7ghz CPU with 6pm of l3 cache for 215$ when it is well .. Worth it?

 

[Idontcare]

With this current generation of CPU's we are seeing quad core, multithreaded wonders that can push 4.5-5.0ghz overclocked and all that jazz. Really, when it comes to the real world do normal consumers really even need this generations processors? Or heck, even last generations?

IMO, for desktops the answer is no, the vast majority of PC users don't need 5GHz performance...but then again the vast majority of PC's aren't 2600K setups OC'ed to 4.5GHz either.

The actual market breakout of price/performance and marketshare/performance is probably pretty well matched up to the needs of the demographic.

The place where I see there still being an insatiable appetite by the market for higher performance across pretty much all demographics is in the mobile notebook/laptop segment.

I certainly don't need 5GHz in my laptop, but I'd definitely like 3.4GHz in my laptop with a 10W footprint

 

[skipsneeky2]

Sorry I had to lol.

LOL at the horse Frank from Scarface :awe:

 

[exdeath]

No. We do not need faster CPUs until we have data storage devices that aren't measured by pathetic kilobytes and megabytes per second...

Our data storage is based on 1950s technology. Its SERIOUSLY crippling our technology to the stone age. WTB non volatile RAM @ 20 GB/sec and to hell with third tier storage.

Any time I find myself waiting endlessly for something on someone elses PC, its always that goddamn HDD light on solid. Seriously FAWK HDDs. I don't want to see a faster CPU until storage is so fast that progress bars and hour glass widgets and the strings MB/s and KB/s are removed from Windows API due to non use.

 

[PreferLinux]

Yes, we do need faster CPUs. Try some workstation duties without a good CPU sometime and see what you think. Or server for that matter.

 

[RobDickinson]

exdeath you seem to have missed the SSD boat. never mind, I'm sure there will be a catchup lesson soon.


Ofcourse we need faster processors. Theres always more uses for clock cycles.

 

[exdeath]

Yes, we do need faster CPUs. Try some workstation duties without a good CPU sometime and see what you think. Or server for that matter.

And a good CPU 99% idle while the disk light is solid... what's the point?

To see a real revolution in computing we need to unify RAM and storage into non volatile RAM. Faster CPUs and the ability to process yet larger data sets that still can't read or write fast enough is just going to make people more aware of the real limit. The average Joe is starting to notice that their 16 core 16 GHz shiny new PC is no faster than their 15 yr old P4. Even slower because now their HD video is 4096p but still reads and writes at the same 20 year old 100MB sec that they did their 1080p on.

 

[RobDickinson]

and in the real world...

 

[exdeath]

exdeath you seem to have missed the SSD boat. never mind, I'm sure there will be a catchup lesson soon.


Ofcourse we need faster processors. Theres always more uses for clock cycles.

My SSDs do me a lot of good when I leave my house to work with computers that aren't mine every day. Even then the fastest SSD is still 100s of MB per sec, far cry from the 20+ GB sec speed of everything else in the PC.

600MB/s is still pathetic in the grand scheme of things. NAND flash is only a stop gap.

 

[hackmole]

You need faster processors for video editing big time. Today's processors are still way too slow. And everyone at my school is doing video for Youtube, Facebook and other projects. Videos are being taken every day with the iphones and such. New cameras with HD video require even more processing power than standard video.

So what might have been something that only a few people were doing 20 years ago is something that everyone is doing today. Video has become average user. Therefore, you need much faster processors to keep up with the more sophisticated average user.

 

[RobDickinson]

Theres many cases where the processing required doesnt need huge datasets or masses of volume of data. And we have tiered storage to mitigate these issues (L1-2 cache, main memory, SSDs, hdd's).

Yes spindle drvies are slow, does that mean we should quit making faster CPU's which can clearly be of much use for any number of tasks..

 

[hackmole]

Regarding Frank from Scarface, you should have seen him in the TV series "The Cat." His name was T. Hewert Edward Cat. He was a private security guard and fought like Bruce Lee. He was a one man wrecking crew who could over come 10 people at once in a fight. Nobody messed with him. I saw some old video clips of this series. Pretty Damn Hot.

 

[PreferLinux]

And a good CPU 99% idle while the disk light is solid... what's the point?

To see a real revolution in computing we need to unify RAM and storage into non volatile RAM. Faster CPUs and the ability to process yet larger data sets that still can't read or write fast enough is just going to make people more aware of the real limit. The average Joe is starting to notice that their 16 core 16 GHz shiny new PC is no faster than their 15 yr old P4. Even slower because now their HD video is 4096p but still reads and writes at the same 20 year old 100MB sec that they did their 1080p on.

What's the point of having either as fast as they are when they are both idle 90% of the time anyway? Let alone faster.

Don't tell me you really think that compilation, rendering, etc. is disk bound on a normal processor. Otherwise, how come the dual-CPU workstations, let alone render farms and such.

 

[Gryz]

i'm still appalled at how expensive SSDs are. i'd love to have one to load my OS and games on, but 64 GB does not last long when each game takes ~10 GB

60GB SSD is enough for gaming.
Install all your games on your HDD.
Then for the 1-3 games that you are currently playing, do this:
1) read the man pages for robocopy and mklink/J
2) install your new games on the HDD
3) use robocopy to copy the new game to your SSD.
4) rename the folder of your newest game on the HDD to something else
5) put a symlink from the original foldername on the HDD to the copied folder on the SSD
6) when done with that game, copy it back to the HDD (or delete the copy on the SSD)

There. OS on your SSD. Users folder on HDD. Old games on the HDD. Current game(s) on the SSD. 64 GB is more than enough.

But people don't know these tricks anymore. People don't know how to move files around, how to manage their computer. The more technology advances, the more clueless the average user becomes.

 

[Vic Vega]

With this current generation of CPU's we are seeing quad core, multithreaded wonders that can push 4.5-5.0ghz overclocked and all that jazz. Really, when it comes to the real world do normal consumers really even need this generations processors? Or heck, even last generations?

My brother built a computer 4 or so years ago with a Duo Core 2 CPU running 2.8Ghz and his computer still runs anything he throws at it with relative ease. Windows 7, running like 15 apps at a time, running a server and all that kinds of stuff. So, with this new generation and already hearing about the NEXT generation of CPU's I just wonder. Why? When I build my system out of the i5 2500k overclocked to around 4.2Ghz I really do not see it becoming any type of bottleneck for games or applications for many many years. Most games don't even use the CPU's 4 cores, let alone 6 or 8 or 12 or whatever it coming down the pipe next year.

GPU's are being used of course, but CPU's seem to have hit a point to where really theres no point to upgrading after this generations releases. What do you think?

Yes, we need newer and faster CPUs with greater capabilities. You don't have a use for one, that's fine, plenty of people do.