How will games utilize current & future surplus of CPU clockcycles?

[KingGheedora]

So I was thinking that there's a scarcity of games out there that utilize the full amount of CPU clocks time available to them. Ever since dual core setups made it to mainstream, there has been a potential for more instructions to be processed by game engines. This seems to so far have gone un-tapped.

Everyone's read the articles and forum talk about this processing power going towards game AI, and physics but this hasn't really happened. Are there upcomming games that will change this?

 

[soydios]

All the hype is going towards physics-processing add-in cards, unfortunately. My C2D E6600 could easily take on another game thread. And my graphics card doesn't really have any extra cycles to spend on physics, it's already busy enough (FEAR maxed is quite a load).

 

[dexvx]

Not all games are completely GPU bound.

Next generation RTS will be quite CPU bound as well (evidence from the Rise of Legends series).