Is number of cores the new Mhz race

It used to be that processors were marketted using the Mhz (well before we hit the Ghz range) value, as if higher were automatically better.

A lot of consumers didn't know any better and much like cameras and Mpx they assumed that the highest value meant the best performance.

I think this has been partially superceded now by a number of cores race, it's early days yet, but we're now up to 4 cores on a die with 'HyperThreading' on the latest intel offering which will no doubt result in some headline somewhere claiming that it's 8 times as fast as a single core.

Complete nonsense of course as we all know that a single threaded application can only ever run on a single core at a time. The nature of the program is that it's impossible to split the work load because the instructions run sequentially. The best a processor can do is to start pre processing the two possible results of a branch (ie an if statement) if it has spare capacity, because one of them is guaranteed to be executed (it's all binary right, only 2 possible answers to any question).

I'm not suggesting a universal processor measurement, they've been tried before and never worked, and ultimately it really depends on what you intend to use the PC for, if you run many simultaneous processes or you actually use multi threaded applications, then multi core will be of great benefit to you, if not, then not so much...

I'm not suggesting a universal processor measurement, they've been tried before and never worked, and ultimately it really depends on what you intend to use the PC for, if you run many simultaneous processes or you actually use multi threaded applications, then multi core will be of great benefit to you, if not, then not so much...

Agree with you but to the vast majority more cores=faster pc as they dont know the workings of a pc. I find it amusing the pc's on ebay that are quad core but have the cheapest, nastiest mobo which bottle necks the whole pc, meaning it cant even utilise 4 cores as there aint enough bus capacity.

I do alot of video editing and compressing/extracting and for me the more cores I have the fast I can do things as the majority of my programs can use multi threads. But its all tied together with quality components (mobo/mem/hdd etc.) to minimise any bottlenecks.

it's early days yet, but we're now up to 4 cores on a die...

If you had £10 thousand spare you could get a Mac Pro with Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeons and 32 gigs of ram.

If you had £10 thousand spare you could get a Mac Pro with Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeons and 32 gigs of ram.

ten grand? where? i can only find this one:http://store.apple.com/uk_smb_67752/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro

i am going to hit the new AMD DRAGON 'FUSION' i have seen them at AMD test these new cpu's and they run at -230c temps when gaming and they coolded it by liquid nitrogen and liquid helium runs overclocked @ 6.5ghz making it the fastest cpu know to man

watch the official video

http://www.amd-unleash.com/products_platforms_dragon.php?SESSSUPERCSDD=9DpeFEmVIV9GTTPu_340627&gclid=CN-viLaZ-pkCFQOeFQod3S2MGA

I think (may be wrong) with multi-threaded applications, they can run each thread on a different core. Is that correct?

ten grand? where? i can only find this one:http://store.apple.com/uk_smb_67752/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro

You need to upgrade the processor from the Two 2.26GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon to the Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, and then upgrade the ram from 6 to 24 GB. And whilst your at it you might as well upgrade the graphics card to 4x NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB. You'll get £190 change from £10 thousand. It doesn't come with a monitor so if you want a monitor to match the computer such as the Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel), this will cost another £1173.

mine would be... £13,085.02 incl. VAT

Select the second one, and then add all the options

Could build a PC of the exact same spec for much less (and run OSX on it)

If you had £10 thousand spare you could get a Mac Pro with Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeons and 32 gigs of ram.

I read a review of a bit of kit specced like that recently, was it in the register or tomshardware?

Probably make a nice workstation, but it'd be cheaper without the apple tax.

I think (may be wrong) with multi-threaded applications, they can run each thread on a different core. Is that correct?

Pretty much correct. It gets more complicated when you need cross thread communication, shared memory access and the like.

Part of the problem that Intel are currently trying to tackle is writing compilers smart enough to efficiently optimise code to run on multiple cores.

i am going to hit the new AMD DRAGON 'FUSION' i have seen them at AMD test these new cpu's and they run at -230c temps when gaming and they coolded it by liquid nitrogen and liquid helium runs overclocked @ 6.5ghz making it the fastest cpu know to man

 

watch the official video

 

http://www.amd-unleash.com/products_platforms_dragon.php?SESSSUPERCSDD=9DpeFEmVIV9GTTPu_340627&gclid=CN-viLaZ-pkCFQOeFQod3S2MGA

It's a bit of a gimmic, none of us are going to be using liquid helium or even nitrogen at home to cool our processors.

They didn't run any games by the way, just 3d mark 05.