Do they sell 8 core processors?

[lance70]

Hi, just curious if they sell an 8 core processor? We have a guy at work that's telling me his friend is buying one of these and the guy here at work is buying a 6 core, which I read about the 6 core processor but wasn't sure if that was even available yet. Thanks.

 

[Lemon13]

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/2009/20090526comp.htm

M. Knorr

MCSE, MCTS, MCSA, CCNA

 

[kmcferrin]

Yup. There are even 12-core processors from AMD.

________________________________________
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[lance70]

Thanks! I just wanted to know if he was making this up, thanks.

 

[gbaughma]

The Playstation 3 has an 11-core processor.



Just my 2¢

"What the captain doesn't realize is that we've secretly replaced his Dilithium Crystals with new Folger's Crystals."

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[kjv1611]

The Wii has Mario!

Wu-hoo! [LOL]

And don't forget Tilera. Just for talking and curiosity sake, worth keeping in back of mind. But not really useful for anything yet, from what I've read in various places:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/174318/tilera_targets_intel_amd_with_100core_processor.html

Tilera - 100 Core CPU.

 

[Sympology]

Pppfffttt.


I'll wait for my hundred core processor thanks.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2009/10/29/tilera-unveils-100-core-processor/1

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

 

[xwb]

You could have a fake 8 core - 4 cores and 4 hyperthreads (virtual cores). If you look at the process monitor on the i7s, you will see 8 cores.

 

[tf1]

The latest Intel i7-980X Extreme has 6 REAL processors (12 threads with HT).

Terry

Regards: Terry

 

[lance70]

Thanks, yeah wish I could afford one of the i7s, I still have the Intel dual core 2.8Ghz

 

[xwb]

You could go for yesterday's technology and go for a core 2 quad. Slightly cheaper than the i7s but you're restricted by the memory speeds.

 

[wahnula]

It's all academic as code writers are lazy and do not even take advantage of the current 4/6-core chips already out. Until some code authors get ambitious and target massively parallel applications those many-cores will just sit there twiddling their thumbs.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[kmcferrin]

Not necessarily. Instead of running a single application that has many threads, you can run many threads from separate single-threaded applications. That is a huge improvement.

Future changes to OS design will make sure that applications make more effective use of SMP-capable systems.

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCTS:Hyper-V
MCTS:System Center Virtual Machine Manager
MCTS:Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Server Administrator
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator
Certified Quest vWorkspace Administrator

 

[kjv1611]

Thanks, yeah wish I could afford one of the i7s, I still have the Intel dual core 2.8Ghz

Are you having any issues with your computer, performance-wise? What is it you use your computer for? Because, honestly, for run of the mill computer users, more cores won't amount to anything truly noticeable. And currently, of "modern" processors, it almost doesn't matter which one you run if you're not doing CPU-intensive stuff.

For comparison, when it comes to web browsing and such, I cannot honestly tell you I saw a big leap when going from an Athlon XP 3200+ to a Core 2 Duo E6750.

However, I can SURE tell a difference when I'm editing large audio files, for instance. When you deal with cutting/pasting, moving around LARGE audio files, and/or multitrack audio files, and/or special effects, filters, etc, you can VERY MUCH tell the difference in the CPU area.

A bigger case? 3D Graphics Design - CAD, Movies, Video Games, those sorts of things. My brother currently works in the video game industry. His personal computer still runs a Core 2 Quad Q6600 overclocked, and I think 8 GB of DDR2 Ram, currently. He pegs out the overclocked Q6600 very often. And at work, he's got a Core i7 based Dell with some large amount of ram, I'm thinking 6 or 8GB, but not sure. Anyway, he can peg all those system specs out, and still have to wait on the computer with much of the work he does - rendering, mainly.

But if you're using Office type applications - documents, spreadsheets, and/or surfing the web, even watching hi-def movies, pretty much any CPU currenlty on the market will provide about the same benefit.... unless you end up opening 15 windows, 10 tabs each, of web browsers, some video, big documents, etc... Or unless you've got a resource hungry antivirus/security product on your computer.

Alright, I probably typed too much. Have a good day.

 

[xwb]

As kjv said, other than video games, rendering, most people don't need multiple cores.

I do a lot of program development and simulations. I sometimes run 6 VMs, some with debugger sessions, a couple of explorer/browser sessions and maybe excel. With all that, dual core with 4Gb is fine. The perf meter is mostly running at 20% i.e. not doing much. If it runs at 100% for long periods then something has gone horribly wrong. Could do with bigger screens though: I'm always running out of screen real estate.

Only advantage of moving to the core i cpus is that they will cope with faster memory when it comes available.