dual-cores are now considered "Classic"

[taltamir]

classic, pfft.. bestbuy is just trying to hawk old and worthless leftover stock. and rendering webpages is harder then ever today; with more and more advanced and complex content and the ability to multi task (even on my i7 trying to multi open web pages in anything but google chrome is slow as snails... so is multi open in chrome on lesser CPUs).
People keep on bringing up the web, but the web is one of the places the benefits the most from more cores, with google chrome 100% scaling thanks to multiple instances. And the web is full of interactive websites with ever increasing performance demands.

the only time a single or dual core could ever be better is if you compare pre turbo boost era CPUs in the playing of old games, and those don't need the extra power.

 

[SonicIce]

remember when software and os's weren't as bloated as you moms ass and u didn't need 5ghz hex core to run notepad?

 

[taltamir]

remember when software and os's weren't as bloated as you moms ass and u didn't need 5ghz hex core to run notepad?

yea... those were the days where my mom couldn't use a computer because software was too dumb to do anything.
Nowadays she can hotplug a USB microphone, it is auto detected, her voip auto configures to use it. she hot plugs her usb scanner and it automatically installs the drivers. windows auto updates, her settings autosync between browsers, windows will automatically power cycle the video card or ethernet controller if it detects a freeze/crash, where things are better then ever then being automatic and transparent. Things "just work" as far as she is concerned...

of course, the moment she detects a momentary hangup while the computer is doing something without a GUI progress bar she will perform a hard reset instead of walking away for a minute or two as I tell her to. So I must ensure it is fast enough that it doesn't happen.

Feel free to replace mother with all my non computer geek relatives, friends, and customers.

And while I know what to do and how to handle all those things, I hardly have the time to faff around with it. What with being a busy senior on a hard science degree (BS of molecular biology). You think I have the time or desire to go into control panel, tell it to scans for new hardware, manually install the drivers, then reboot... just so i can scan a document or a picture for a school-project I am working on?

And for non windows? remember when you had to recompile the kernel on your linux just to make it compatible with <insert anything here>? or manually mount anything? There is "bloat" which is programs that take over your PC, but thats not bloat, that is just malware. Real bloat has the downside of bad performance, but most of it comes from bad programming rather then the doing of extra work. And while google chrome is a shining example of masterful anti-bloat programming, I use it alongside the bloated firefox because there are many things that chrome simply cannot do. To be fair, its more of a balance between speed and features... Features are usually more important, especially if you have the hardware to compensate.

 

[Soleron]

I think they'll bring it back to the forefront with the 5th-generation i7s. At least the "pent" part would make sense again.

Haven't you heard? Every Intel processor generation is going to be called "Second generation Core" from now on.

Conroe, Penryn, Nehalem, Westmere and SB have all been called that.