The problem with the single thread comment is that most people when saying such a thing, they are thinking in terms of a single program running. But today we have multiple threads open for multiple programs almost always.
Talk like this is just ridiculous. Go ask IBM why they sell POWER CPUs by the truck loads whereas Oracle with their SPARC T3 have to make due with the crums. It's because IBM went the route of fat cores with high single thread performance (just like Intel, incidentally) whereas Sun (now Oracle) made the bet that weak cores with heavy multi-threading was the way forward and failed spectacularly.
Uhm, actually they're probably not. It's just that everyone who actually gives this some thought realizes that single-thread performance is still the limiting factor of the performance of many (if not most) applications, no matter whether you are running 1 or 16 processes on a system.
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Huh?
IBM Power 6 was a dual core and Power 7 is a multicore and each core can run multiple threads. I think the 8 core Power 7 can do something like 24 threads or some kind of crazy stuff.
Yes, but the SPARC T3 has 16 cores that can each do 16 threads. That's the difference.
That an application uses more than one core does not make single-threaded performance irrelevant. That's because there's usually one thread that limits performance, and if that thread can't be executed fast enough, then all the other threads will have to wait for it to clear up the dependencies.
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So now you're claiming that Power PCs don't go for high single threaded performance when compared to niagara? Sweet that.Huh?
IBM Power 6 was a dual core and Power 7 is a multicore and each core can run multiple threads. I think the 8 core Power 7 can do something like 24 threads or some kind of crazy stuff.
Don't worry, he also couldn't show any parallel algorithm for sparse graphs - he somehow seems to be of the opinion that any problem is trivially to parallelize if people would just try and fire incompetent programmers. But then he's also watching movies and playing games at the same time - he's obviously superhuman without those problematic limitations everyone else hasAncalagon44 said:
If I remember right, wasn't the benchmarks for Amd Hex core cpu's released only 2 days before the actual release/purchase date?
You wrote nothing to respond too. The fact you think something which may be poor as single thread will suck as multi shows you don't really understand multi threaded at all. How well something scales makes a huge difference when you start adding multiple cpus and even when concerning gpus as well.
This is not about AMD or Intel for that matter. You can babble all day, but the fact remains we are in the computing world a multi-threaded future. I'll take a cpu that has 80-85% single threaded performance if I can have two of them working together over the faster single core. And all 486 type posts are just plain silly.
Imouto
Golden Member
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In fact I think in the near future BD modules will get a feature allowing them to proccess a single thread in interleave mode, so yeah, this module thing would be a step closer.
Maybe that's the key feature for Bulldozer and the otherwise retarded design everyone claims.
Maybe that's the key feature for Bulldozer and the otherwise retarded design everyone claims.
With quite some focus on IPC - contrary to niagara which is THE example for an architecture that values cores over pretty much anything else.
There are obvious limitations that force everyone to implement multiple cores these days, but the focus between different designs is quite clear. Also many, many algorithms scale quite nicely to only a handful cores. Not to forget all those algorithms for which nobody so far has found any really good scaling work efficient solutions - you can ignore those simple facts but that's still true. Heck there are whole multi-billion dollar industries that need the fastest CPUs they can get because their problems just don't scale at all.
The IBM POWER CPUs (not the same thing as PowerPC, btw) are multi-core CPUs that are as engineered for single-thread performance as they can possibly get. There's even a "TurboCore mode" available for the higher-end POWER7 servers that deactivate half of the cores for just 250 more MHz. If you can't get your head around what that means for the importance of single-thread performance for many applications (both enterprise and games), then I'm not sure what will make you understand.
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This is oxymoron response IMHO. Of course, when talking single threaded performance it doesn't mean it has to be a single program. If a program spawns a thread to process something, then that thread would need all the (single thread) performance from the CPU core.
Another one again, now you are comparing 2 cores versus 1 core. This is not what we are pointing out about single threaded performance. :hmm:
LOL_Wut_Axel
Diamond Member
- Mar 26, 2011
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Single-threaded performance is important, for these reasons: higher single-threaded performance improves multi-threaded performance as you add more cores. Games are often mentioned in this topic because most take advantage of two-four cores, and therefore they'll want for those cores to be faster. If your IPC is low enough, you'll end up in a situation that even with 50% more cores, your multi-threaded performance won't be any better (See Phenom II X6 vs Core i5). More cores is better, but having each of those cores being fast is just as important, if not more. AMD needs to find a balance. Unfortunately, for some time, they have not. I doubt with Bulldozer they have, since they're pricing their 3.1-4GHz Eight-Core to compete with Intel's Quad-Core with no HT at 3.3-3.7GHz.
You'll get high multi-threaded performance, perhaps even better than the Core i5, but you'll get significantly lower single-threaded performance. It overclocking on average 500MHz higher won't alleviate the situation much, given the huge deficit in single-threaded performance.
You'll get high multi-threaded performance, perhaps even better than the Core i5, but you'll get significantly lower single-threaded performance. It overclocking on average 500MHz higher won't alleviate the situation much, given the huge deficit in single-threaded performance.
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RussianSensation
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Really? Is that why X4 competes with i3 and X6 competes with i5 CPUs based on AMD's pricing?
2 threads run across 2 CPU cores and 4 threads run across 4 CPU cores last time I checked.
So if 1 quad core CPU has cores which are 40% faster than another quad-core CPU, then the former will run the same code up to 40% faster.
Single threaded performance would be irrelevant only if you could break any code into an infinite number of threads. So in that case you could split 1 thread into 8 threads on an 8 core CPU and use more muscle of more cores to compute it faster. But since most programs only use 2-4 threads at the moment, single threaded performance in the context of a quad vs. hexa vs. octa core CPU is still very much relevant.
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This is oxymoron response IMHO. Of course, when talking single threaded performance it doesn't mean it has to be a single program. If a program spawns a thread to process something, then that thread would need all the (single thread) performance from the CPU core.
Another one again, now you are comparing 2 cores versus 1 core. This is not what we are pointing out about single threaded performance. :hmm:
You really are dense. Now matter how you spin it, this is a multi threaded world and future. Now understand this, top notch single threaded perfromance doesn't mean it will perform as well in a multi-threaded scenario. There is a little thing called scaling. Its fun, but its old, running into one corner because your a company fan is fine. But spouting stuff that is false or looking at one small aspect is stupid.
Being a dummy and bringing up 100 486s is really silly talk. Blue you are an Intel fan, you are not objective. I base my judgements on what I see in the workplace and home. With both servers and desktops. I remember Kyle over at Hardocp used to say he ran a P4 with HT over a FX AMD because his desktop was just smoother, despite the fact the AMD FX benched faster over the P4, even in single threaded apps.
We will soon have true 3D type desktops, I see users log on and just to do their job will open 4-5 programs and load 8-10 browser windows. Having more resources to do 8 things simultaneously I believe is better than being able to do 3-4 things faster.
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RussianSensation
Elite Member
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I run 40-50 tabs sometimes across 2-3 browsers, usually 20-30 in 1 browser alone on an E6600 2.4ghz stock speeds. Funny thing: My E6600 2.4ghz + 60 GB Vertex SSD stomped all over my Core i7 860 @ 3.9ghz + 1TB Hitachi 7200 rpm drive in this scenario. If you want to run 200-300 tabs you need an SSD, not an 8 core CPU.
In the year 2014-2015 this will become the reality. Right now, 90% of programs most people use at home use 1-4 threads. Some very intensive games like Arma 3 might use 6 cores, but then you are GPU bottlenecked in such a beastly game. Obviously, if you render, encode, transcode, etc. then you want 6-8 core CPU - but again I bet a lot of these people who are encoding video are putting it on their tablet or smartphone for which QuickSync is good enough in terms of visual quality. QuickSync Version 2 will only improve in Ivy Bridge. Speed will increase by a factor of 2x as well.
You do realize that most people are now buying laptops and notebooks not desktop PCs right? You do realize that quad cores in laptops won't be mainstream until 2015? You do realize that developers code based on the most common denominator since it's very expensive to re-write code for 10% of the high-end users. You do realize that next generation of consoles is still ways off (2013-2014) and the games won't be optimized for another 2-3 years after they launch to take advantage of 6-8 threads?
In other words, it appears that AMD is about 1 full generation too early with an 8-core CPU. Considering today a 6 core Phenom II can't s outperform a fast 4 core Intel CPU, it seems it also was ahead of its time based on the current trends in multi-threading software code.
And by the time about 40-50% of common programs use 5-8 threads, we will have marched on to far faster, more power efficient and faster per clock Haswell and Bulldozer Next Generation CPUs in the year 2013. For someone who renders, encodes and specifically runs 6-8 threaded apps, an 8-core CPU is a must have today. But to buy an 8-core CPU today hoping that in 6 months software will suddenly start using 6-8 threads is wishful thinking, esp. not when most programs are now shifting to utilizing 4 threads effectively.
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Even though they may have it in the warehouse on the 22nd, AMD may not be allowing them to ship until a later date(waiting for other retailers, BIOS tweaks, etc). However, I think this does bode well for a release date/benchmarks coming SOON.
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Unfortunately, you are the dense one here. Anyone can easily see the reason why, with all the multiple responses not only from myself but from others here trying to explain to you the reasons to consider single threaded performance.
Then by your logic you should have followed Kyle and bought yourself a Pentium4 with HT because its better at multi-threading at the cost of single threaded performance. And by your judgement, there is no need to consider the AMD FX at all...
And here you go on trying to explain yourself out of this situation. Yes, I can open hundreds of application even on an old dual core machine. The thing is that most of the programs (like browsers) are actually idling most of the time (until you do something with them).
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If you have recorded a video of that, then it would make a great Youtube hit. Just joking...
T_Yamamoto
Lifer
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1) you live in Greensboro? YOU LIVE NEAR ME
2) video, post on youtube, trolls will come
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