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Thread ID: 111195 2010-07-17 08:07:00 8-Cores? jd2759 (15763) PC World Chat
Post ID Timestamp Content User
1119704 2010-07-17 08:07:00 Any word about when 8 core CPUs are going to come out? jd2759 (15763)
1119705 2010-07-17 10:08:00 Not sure but I want one! that and a quad core gfx card.
Intel's 8-core CPUs will have 2.3 billion transistors 2.3b is a nice tidy number xD


Sandia National Laboratories recently conducted simulations on the benefits and pitfalls of multi-cores. Their simulations show that moving from 2 cores to 4 cores shows a big increase in performance. However, moving from 4 cores to 8 cores barely shows any increase. And moving from 8 cores to 16 cores actually shows a decrease, down almost to the point of a 2-core system in terms of overall compute abilities.

While these limitations were imposed primarily due to memory bandwidth limitations, we must realize that this 8-core behemoth (16-virtual core) machine will suffer from the same types of memory limitations on certain workloads. The only applications to see big benefits from 8-core implementations are those where high compute and low bandwidth are needed, and these are fairly rare.

In such a case, it would be better to have several individual dual- or quad-core CPUs each connected to their own physical memory along with NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Architecture) logic employed in the operating system.

Judging by the above It doesn't seem like they will be released to the public market for a while until faster FSB's and S/HDD's are developed
The Error Guy (14052)
1119706 2010-07-17 10:19:00 There are quad-core CPUs that have HyperThreading: while not really eight core they can do eight threads at once :) pcuser42 (130)
1119707 2010-07-17 11:20:00 The 8 core CPU's are slated to do 16 threads The Error Guy (14052)
1119708 2010-07-17 11:47:00 There are already 8 and 12 core AMD Opteron CPUs, but they are for servers. I think Intel may have 8-core server CPUs as well but I'm not sure, maybe someone can clarify? forrest44 (754)
1119709 2010-07-18 10:16:00 8 core cpu = waste of time.

I cant think of any reason to buy one when they come out, maybe like 5 years after they do it could be useful
hueybot3000 (3646)
1119710 2010-07-18 21:46:00 There are quad-core CPUs that have HyperThreading: while not really eight core they can do eight threads at once :)Civ 5 will support 8 threads - puts my core i7 to good use. KiwiTT_NZ (233)
1119711 2010-07-18 22:04:00 Finally a piece of software that can do more than one thread at a time, yay Gobe1 (6290)
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