Multitasking, physical core vs virtual cores

[evolucion8]

You are totally right GaiaHunter, plus sadly, the enthusiast market isn't where the profits comes from, we are just a very small equation of the total market, and these companies are here for profit, not for charity.

 

[Scali]

Enthusiast just have different meanings - I guess liking absolute performance is one, but not the single one.

I never said anything about performance.
There can be many factors involved... but settling for last-generation tech because it's 'good enough' is completely mutually exclusive with being an enthusiast.

 

[Nemesis 1]

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that it wasn't okay to compare an i3 (for example) to an athlon II x4. . . As far as I'm concerned it's okay to compare any cpu with any other cpu...but for the comparison to actually be valid concerning purchases, we need to compare similar platform costs.... Ie the i5 750 vs x6 1055 is a comparison that makes sense, i3 530 vs athlon II x4 is a comparison that makes sense, i3 530 vs i7 980x...doesn't make any sense...Shrug.

Anyway...so as far as threads go. I wonder if AMD has any plans to introduce hyperthreading type features? I know that bulldozer supposedly has a lot of components shared between the INT cores, but not to the HT level, there are still two execution units. AMD has smart engineers and I'm sure they'd used it if it enabled a huge performance boost...so wonder why they don't?

Also curious about other architectures. What about ARM, for example? Isn't HT a very power efficient way to increase performance (on Intel stuff anyway)? Do you guys think that it will spill over (SMT, not hyperthreading specifically) to ARM and such? Or maybe ARM already has something like it?

Then I kind of wonder about taking it one step further:
1. Some workflows don't benefit from HT, and in fact may be hurt by it...
2. Would it be possible for the processor to look at the thread that is executing and somehow "check" the execution units and enable or disable HT as needed?
3. What about if it was something the processor detected might benefit from more than one more thread? Could we turn on maybe 3 or 4 threads per core if needed, and disable them automatically if not? *shrug*.

Buying a CPU is no differant than any other product . Based on performance . Not on cost . Cost is upto the buyer not tech articles or abstract thought. Choice based on the product not its cost . Intel is monoply AMD has Intel hands tied as far as cost . Intel can not match AMD pricies . Or more lawsuites . You can thank AMD for pushing that fact . You can also thank Intel for AMDs pricies . If it were Up to AMD cheapest Cpu would be $350 dollars . Been there done that.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I never said anything about performance.
There can be many factors involved... but settling for last-generation tech because it's 'good enough' is completely mutually exclusive with being an enthusiast.

I think you are simply trying to create an argument where none is.

Nobody is settling for anything because it is good enough - people are settling for whatever is enough whenever money is a consideration.

Nobody here is advising someone to choose inferior tech if it costs the same as the superior tech.

Actually a premise of a forum like this, O/C, has always been get the most of what you got to save money.

But we are derailing this thread again - so please feel free to start a thread asking people people opinion on what an enthusiast is.

Intel is monoply AMD has Intel hands tied as far as cost . Intel can not match AMD pricies . Or more lawsuites . You can thank AMD for pushing that fact . You can also thank Intel for AMDs pricies . If it were Up to AMD cheapest Cpu would be $350 dollars . Been there done that.

This is good fun. Intel is at AMD mercy!

Intel guy: I want to give you this i7 980 for free my friend consumer, but AMD is evil and don't let us sell the i7-980 for less than $1000 when the i7-980 costs even less to manufacture than the regular 45nm i7! *sob* AMD is so evil with their lawsuits.

Sigh.

Better go before Virge shows up...

 

[taltamir]

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that it wasn't okay to compare an i3 (for example) to an athlon II x4. . . As far as I'm concerned it's okay to compare any cpu with any other cpu...but for the comparison to actually be valid concerning purchases, we need to compare similar platform costs.... Ie the i5 750 vs x6 1055 is a comparison that makes sense, i3 530 vs athlon II x4 is a comparison that makes sense, i3 530 vs i7 980x...doesn't make any sense...Shrug.

well, its a matter of context... it does make sense to compare i3 to i7 to see "how much more bang do I get for all that extra money, and is it worth it to me, and do I have a specific application for which being X% faster is absolutely needed, ex: A laggy game that will stop lagging if I upgrade".
What isn't fair is to disregard cost when comparing.

 

[Drift3r]

Come on Toms! Nobody who plays games runs another equally demanding app in the background. These are one of the reasons some criticize Tomshardware of degraded quality in reviews.

At least do multi-tasking with two apps which do not include gaming.

Some people multi-box MMO's on the same pc. I do it with EVE and EQ2 running 4 sessions at a time on my pc but I do it with a Q9650 cpu. It is demanding and does take up a lot of resources depending on the settings I choose. Usually for eq2 I have one client with balance settings and the others lowered to the bottom floor to do squeeze out as much performance as I can on my now old and outdated rig.

 

[evolucion8]

If you need more performance, overclock that Q9650, I was able to reach 3.82GHz relatively easy, since I live in a hot environment all year round, unless if I change to water cooling, I'm thermal limited and can't go beyond 3.82GHz without getting CPU overheating during Linpack tests.