Any CPU engineer will tell you instantly we have hit the wall and all this multi-core desktop CPU stuff is just a scam really. The maximum number of cores without losing efficiency of code execution is effectively 3. Not 4 not 8 but 3. You can not utilise much more than this without actually starting to waste cycles of CPU time delaying/setting up use of threads to run on other cores.
And this is why consumer devices are getting the ability to handle more threads? XBox360 has 3 cores and can handle 6 threads. Wii U supposedly is based on the Power7 and uses 3 cores and can handle 12 threads. Why does Tegra and other ARM SoCs add cores and integrate more functionality with each subsequent version, if consumer applications of multithread are worthless? Yes, I'm extending "desktop" to "consumer" since in my mind it's the same thing.
Consumers can get applications for their iPhones that allow you to take multiple pictures and stitch them together in one giant panorama--that's a CPU intensive and parallizable workload. Any video transcoding will also benefit. Efficiency of code execution? You're not talking about prefetch units, decode units, schedulers, caches, registers, nothing? Just, if you have more than X cores, it hurts code efficiency? I'm not sure any CPU engineer would make a blanket statement about that when not knowing the instruction mix or details of the CPU implementation.
There are many many situations that the AMD 4.2Ghz PC will outgun an Intel i7 3700k fact. One of my lecturers at uni was pretty high up in CPU design for IBM in the 80s and you can bet your ass they tested every possible scenario for server and desktop OS efficiency as far as parallel processing goes. For desktop computers 3 or 4 is about it. So Moore's law is f**ked well and trully unless we start seeing 5 and 6ghz CPUs QUICKLY!
You misunderstand Moore's law. Here:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/09/moore/We've still got a ways to go, too:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/02/we-can-do-no-moore-a-transistor-from-single-atom/http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/08/researchers-open-door-to-electronics-made-from-single-layers-of-atoms/I'm leaning towards agreeing with psxphill in that you need to broaden your pool of knowledge--that one guy might talk a good talk but I think it's a minority opinion that he has.
The new Xbox and the new PlayStation are all confirmed to have x86 64bit CPUs already, and this means that those CPUs will be dropped into a much better design of motherboard architecture than any PC for sale in 2013/2014 with the same CPU to compete on price/performance.
Anything you can cite from the vendors on this? Or is it just rumors as to what CPUs they will use?
I am interested in CPU-related junk and some of your info seems just plain wrong. Nothin' personal.
