Is AMD rly gunning for quad core for enthusiasts/home/office desktops/ If so, why, why why?

[imported_Crusader]

I dont fear conroe. I doubt it will be drastically faster in gaming, so whats the point?

Change to DDR2 memory, buy a new mobo.. just to use Intels first competitive product in the desktop sector in years?
*bonk*

Conroe is overrated because Intel has something a bit better than AMD finally so its like some earth shattering news..

but the AMD pricecuts will have most guys (like me) buying a cheap S939 4600+ and pop that bad boy in my board immediately with no need for DDR2 to get max performance out of it.

4600+s are not going to be any small fry.. even with the -almighty- conroe.

Give me conroe with a ondie mem controller and I'm sold.
I'm impartial between AMD/Intel.. conroe looks decent.. but I just cant get swept away with some insane fervor over it, like everyone else has.

Looks like a "northwood" victory to me all over again.
This aint no Athlon, nor Athlon64 blowout.

 

[imported_Crusader]

Oh, and I welcome quad cores.. but not for me till games use them.
So I'll be sticking with dual core for a while. DC is still a little cutting edge for my taste (when it comes to software support), so QC is def not appealing to me.

I only use my PC for visual studio 2005 and gaming... but I'm sure theres others out there with genuine uses for quadcore.. but it cant be joe sixpack.

 

[sandorski]

The time will come when Single Core will seem like something silly the Neandrethals used. We're merely at the leading edge of the Future. It's not that we don't need it, it's that we don't yet see what Multiple Cores will do to Computing.

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: Duvie
Actually you guys are looking past these things...
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=1830732&enterthread=y

Gknot and H.264 codec??? I was 66% faster with 4 cores versus 2 cores...i think that is tangible...
Tmpeg 2.52 and 3.0express with high precision and motion quality and I was about +50% faster with 4 cores versus 2 cores....
DVDshrink was 59% faster then 2 cores...
Cinebench was 80% faster with 4 cores versus 2 cores...common graphics engine
Architectural Desktop 2004 using Viz renderer (same engine as used in 3dsmax7) using radiosity was 2x faster then 2 cores...very helpful in processing complexed renderings....

Rendering would definitely speed up alot with more cores but how does a quad core architecture contribute so much to encoding performance since encoding is inherently a serial process?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: Duvie
Actually you guys are looking past these things...
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=1830732&enterthread=y

Gknot and H.264 codec??? I was 66% faster with 4 cores versus 2 cores...i think that is tangible...
Tmpeg 2.52 and 3.0express with high precision and motion quality and I was about +50% faster with 4 cores versus 2 cores....
DVDshrink was 59% faster then 2 cores...
Cinebench was 80% faster with 4 cores versus 2 cores...common graphics engine
Architectural Desktop 2004 using Viz renderer (same engine as used in 3dsmax7) using radiosity was 2x faster then 2 cores...very helpful in processing complexed renderings....

Rendering would definitely speed up alot with more cores but how does a quad core architecture contribute so much to encoding performance since encoding is inherently a serial process?

In the case of Premiere Elements, the encoding phase of a DVD burn does go twice as fast on a 3800+ X2 as it does on a 3000+, so evidently the bumblebees can fly, even if they're not supposed to be able to

 

[orangat]

Its one of those things that is a little confusing like why Doom3 runs so fast on P4s compared to AMD while having a smaller fpu.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: Duvie
Actually you guys are looking past these things...

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=1830732&enterthread=y

Gknot and H.264 codec??? I was 66% faster with 4 cores versus 2 cores...i think that is tangible...

Tmpeg 2.52 and 3.0express with high precision and motion quality and I was about +50% faster with 4 cores versus 2 cores....

DVDshrink was 59% faster then 2 cores...

Cinebench was 80% faster with 4 cores versus 2 cores...common graphics engine

Architectural Desktop 2004 using Viz renderer (same engine as used in 3dsmax7) using radiosity was 2x faster then 2 cores...very helpful in processing complexed renderings....

i appreciate these factors, but using all of them except perhaps DVDShrink (and even then, i don't think any of my mates know what that is) immediately puts you on a different usage level to 98% of the population, who use Office/IE/Limewire/WMP/Winamp...

which returns to my question about where future differential pricing is going...

If that?s all you're doing, you're a fool to spend more than $100 on a CPU, and you certainly don't even need dualcore. Even strenuous games don't need fast dual core CPUs...I was just fine playing all my new games @ stock A64 3000+ speeds (1.8GHz).


I don't even think its necessarily a question of applications taking advantage of multiple threads. People are stilling thinking of sharp shooting with their tasks and applications when almost everyone here is already multitasking, even if its only minor programs. I believe that better OS support for dual/multiple cores could really help. If the OS can automatically offload programs to unused cores, you're already vastly benefiting from the extra cores ? we?re not going to get that with 5 year old WinXP. Even simple multi core support where there is a more user-friendly method for users to manually control the use of their cores would lead to great benefits from dualcore/multicore. I?d set 2 cores for gaming, and set the other cores for running other programs such as IM chat, voip, audio/video crunching, distributed computing...whatever. Just because one application can?t use all of the cores to make it faster doesn?t mean we?re SOL because multithread support within applications isn?t the only answer to this problem.

Reverse HT would be a big step in helping to speed up single applications overall, but I still believe multicore is going to help to open up multitasking as we?ve never known before. The major problem I see now is user interface; we simply can?t use our available processing power as efficiently as we could be.

 

[pctwo]

I know I can't run ffdshow's denoise3d on HD material with a X2 3800+ @2.4ghz. I'm maxing out both cores. Doesn't mean I'm going to run out and buy a quad core system, but a few years from now when it's time to upgrade again and I can get a quad core for ~ same as the dual core I got this year, doesn't seem too crazy.

 

[sonoran]

Originally posted by: dug777what do you think of the differential pricing thesis i briefly touched on at a few points in this thread?

Dug, I believe your basic premise is flawed. To assume that quad cores will cost twice as much, is to assume you can never produce them more efficiently. Every process generation allows packing more and more transistors in the same die space. Just a guess, but at 45nm we'll probably be able to produce quad cores for the same price as today's dual cores.

As for who needs it? Show me the current CPU that can render photorealistic game graphics in realtime, while managing massively parallel artificial intelligence tasks, and I'll start asking that question too.

* Not speaking for Intel Corp *

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: sonoran

Originally posted by: dug777what do you think of the differential pricing thesis i briefly touched on at a few points in this thread?

Dug, I believe your basic premise is flawed. To assume that quad cores will cost twice as much, is to assume you can never produce them more efficiently. Every process generation allows packing more and more transistors in the same die space. Just a guess, but at 45nm we'll probably be able to produce quad cores for the same price as today's dual cores.

As for who needs it? Show me the current CPU that can render photorealistic game graphics in realtime, while managing massively parallel artificial intelligence tasks, and I'll start asking that question too.

* Not speaking for Intel Corp *

But that totally outstrips what at least 95%(i'm making that % up on the basis or my personal experience with family/friends/several workplaces ) of the worlds computers do/need to do/will need to do for the forseeable future

I get ya on the price of production

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: sonoran

Originally posted by: dug777what do you think of the differential pricing thesis i briefly touched on at a few points in this thread?

Dug, I believe your basic premise is flawed. To assume that quad cores will cost twice as much, is to assume you can never produce them more efficiently. Every process generation allows packing more and more transistors in the same die space. Just a guess, but at 45nm we'll probably be able to produce quad cores for the same price as today's dual cores.

As for who needs it? Show me the current CPU that can render photorealistic game graphics in realtime, while managing massively parallel artificial intelligence tasks, and I'll start asking that question too.

* Not speaking for Intel Corp *

But tomorrow's dual cores will still be more expensive than tomorrow's possible single cores, and if that extra power isn't needed, it's wasted money. However, Intel's shared cache designs are very smart, since the logics portion of a cpu doesn't take up that much of the die space, so going dual core with them while sharing cache won't come anywhere near twice the cost of a single core and should have a net performance boost per cost. (too bad AMD can't start pumping out some dual core semprons and get bang for buck)

 

[morkman100]

Originally posted by: dug777

But that totally outstrips what at least 95%(i'm making that % up on the basis or my personal experience with family/friends/several workplaces ) of the worlds computers do/need to do/will need to do for the forseeable future

I get ya on the price of production

I would guess that SLI is in the same boat too, but there are plenty of SLI cards and motherboards available. I know exactly 0 people with SLI and, from the Steam hardware survey, only 0.77% of Steam users use SLI. It's usually the power user or "I need the best no matter the cost" user that drives development.

 

[dmens]

Originally posted by: sonoran
As for who needs it? Show me the current CPU that can render photorealistic game graphics in realtime, while managing massively parallel artificial intelligence tasks, and I'll start asking that question too.

* Not speaking for Intel Corp *

show me a programmer capable of producing such a game first. sorry to say, consumer software is in general so poorly written even magic compilers cannot make it go fast.

back to the original poijt, there's a reason why people like carmack, or the OS X dev group drop by. they want to make sure they're not designing themselves out of the mainstream markets. no company will write a game that needs a quad, unless intel/amd assures them quads will be common by some targeted date. And since quads will not be common any time soon, amd's 4x4 is marketing non-ware, imho of course.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: dmens

Originally posted by: sonoran
As for who needs it? Show me the current CPU that can render photorealistic game graphics in realtime, while managing massively parallel artificial intelligence tasks, and I'll start asking that question too.

* Not speaking for Intel Corp *

show me a programmer capable of producing such a game first. sorry to say, consumer software is in general so poorly written even magic compilers cannot make it go fast.

back to the original poijt, there's a reason why people like carmack, or the OS X dev group drop by. they want to make sure they're not designing themselves out of the mainstream markets. no company will write a game that needs a quad, unless intel/amd assures them quads will be common by some targeted date. And since quads will not be common any time soon, amd's 4x4 is marketing non-ware, imho of course.

We'll see. It all starts with the first step.

 

[dmens]

Originally posted by: sandorski
We'll see. It all starts with the first step.

If there were any kind of real demand for quads, it would've shown up as a real product on intel's roadmaps, instead of some EE marketing gimmick. Moreover, which company is more capable of producing quads in volume? Die size, power and process all favor intel.

Plus, looking at K8L, that thing looks gigantic. A big reason not to do massed FPU's is power (fp ops burn a *lot* more power than other types) and die size (logic footprint is huge, for obvious reasons). if K8L is what it looks to be, then it will not be a quad friendly core on multiple axes.

 

[akugami]

One way for quad cores to benefit Joe Consumer is the reverse multithreading technology that AMD is working on. Dual core for Joe Consumer is really wasted since Joe Consumer usually only does 1 thing, and rarely 2 things, that may stress the computer at once.

 

[dmens]

If "reverse-SMT" (not a very good name) is to see the light of say, it'd be many tiny in-order cores (imho > 64) to accomodate the level of speculative execution it would need to match a single wide OOO core. If that is the case, the current dual/quad discussion is something very different. Unless you're referring to multiple aforementioned speculative engines. But then again, this has been looked at already by intel, and a single such core is quite large.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: akugami
One way for quad cores to benefit Joe Consumer is the reverse multithreading technology that AMD is working on. Dual core for Joe Consumer is really wasted since Joe Consumer usually only does 1 thing, and rarely 2 things, that may stress the computer at once.

shush, don't let reality get in the way of advancing technology That statement is so true, but to listen to most of the people in this thread Joe Average is playing Crysis/encoding H.264/working on a complex render in VIS AND watching HDTV..all at the same time Most people IRL regard computers as a a Office/intarweb browsing tool. They work on other things too, but one app at a time (there's that limitation of most people having only one screen remember?)...

Sure it's nice to have the powah, but surely at some stage consumers & businesses are going to wake up & realise that they plain ol don't need Deep Blue in the box on their desk...

I'm losing my way with this thread, but it's fun

 

[MattCE]

Wow, how could I ever use a processor that had more threads and a better architecture.... Hmmm....

HD Home Video Editing
Java Development (current need)
Hello, can you say fiber
Hell, I need it for my 10.2 MP photos already (current need)
Video archiving (those tapes ain't gonna last forever, but my concievably over 10+ TB gmail account might)
Are you ready for some Football (can't wait till I can bring in 4 games at a time in HD on a 100" plasma)

Okay, so these are just my wants and desires

What about...

Trickle down... everyone want's a sexier cell phone
Ability to serve education to third world countries on a budget
Did you like Ice Age 2, well the CPUs that created it hated it
Ultra trickle down... got to love the tech that'll create nano-robots to kill cancer cells

Okay, so I'm a geek, but hey, there's one place I don't like computers, and it's in my #$%@ car. (besides the engine management, which is completely acceptable. Hell, throw an octal core in there if it'll get me a few ponies)

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: akugami
One way for quad cores to benefit Joe Consumer is the reverse multithreading technology that AMD is working on. Dual core for Joe Consumer is really wasted since Joe Consumer usually only does 1 thing, and rarely 2 things, that may stress the computer at once.

shush, don't let reality get in the way of advancing technology That statement is so true, but to listen to most of the people in this thread Joe Average is playing Crysis/encoding H.264/working on a complex render in VIS AND watching HDTV..all at the same time Most people IRL regard computers as a a Office/intarweb browsing tool. They work on other things too, but one app at a time (there's that limitation of most people having only one screen remember?)...

Sure it's nice to have the powah, but surely at some stage consumers & businesses are going to wake up & realise that they plain ol don't need Deep Blue in the box on their desk...

I'm losing my way with this thread, but it's fun

I see a similar argument every time some geek complains about a product like the iPod. What they don't understand is the average consumer never uses a lot of the features available on most consumer electronics. Your computer can do a ton of stuff but Joe Consumer doesn't know how to do them nor does he want to. It's why Apple's iPods are so successful. Because it caters to Joe Consumer and not to the Dugg777's, Akugami's, Peter's, MattCE's of the world. I do like my iPod btw, just like I like my iRiver.

Personally, I think dual core CPU's will be pretty much all the average consumer needs for at least the next 5 years and likely longer. Best case scenario I can think of for the average consumer is video encoding (ripping a dvd or editing home movie) in the background, browsing the web or typing a document in the foreground while listening to mp3's, or maybe watching a video.

I'm getting a Nokia N80, probably next week. Slick phone, a tad on the heavy side. I have a wifi network at work so I'll be on the web all day...granted I'm at work typing this up so take that as you will.