Which CPUs do you love or hate

[stefcep2]

I even notice a massive difference on my lowly AMD64x2 especially in some games that seem to make good use of dual core .

And when they can have an operating system that is able to perform operating system tasks in parallel thats when we'll really feel the benefits of multiple cores.

[stefcep2]

Single core CPUs were never a good idea, especially when we started to demand multitasking...

It never bothered me when multitasking on my Cyberstorm 68060 single core..

[koshman]

Single core CPUs were never a good idea, especially when we started to demand multitasking...

Well, who could know that we would need multi cores some day when some people said 640KB is enough RAM anyone could ever need

[bloodline]

The fact that the Amiga had coprocessors tells you all you need to know about single core CPUs

[obscurepanic]

like: don't particularly have one
hate: most of Intel x86 because the product line changes too fast.

Single core CPUs were never a good idea, especially when we started to demand multitasking...

For intensive computer tasks (like high-end games, data-crunching of any kind), I prefer multi-core. For non-intensive computer tasks, I prefer single-core.

Both have pros and cons.

[koshman]

What are the advantages of a single core? Other than power consumption and price. When we have multi cores with totally independent cores, which can be completely turned off and on as needed (is it already possible?) the power consumption also won't be an issue.

[Astral]

Well, who could know that we would need multi cores some day when some people said 640KB is enough RAM anyone could ever need

LOL- why would you ever want more I ask you?

[Karlos]

What are the advantages of a single core? Other than power consumption and price. When we have multi cores with totally independent cores, which can be completely turned off and on as needed (is it already possible?) the power consumption also won't be an issue.

On my Q9450, the clock speed of each core can independently switch between 2GHz or 2.66GHz as needed. That might not sound much but as the current draw is proportional to both the voltage (which increases with clock) and the number of gates switching per second, this would imply a pretty large difference in power dissipation between the two states.

[bloodline]

Just the furthur karlos's post, I have a 2.2Ghz Core2Duo here that on average uses less power than my old 1.5Ghz PPC 7447 ( aka G4)... But is many many times more powerful...

[jj]

Well, who could know that we would need multi cores some day when some people said 640KB is enough RAM anyone could ever need

 
Urban myth  was never said in that context

[Karlos]

The fact that the Amiga had coprocessors tells you all you need to know about single core CPUs

Well, to be fair, the coprocessor argument is slightly different. A dedicated GPU is almost always going to be more efficient at graphics operations than a CPU.

However, it is worth noting that modern GPU's are so efficient at what they do due to using a many-core solution to the inherent parallel data operations common to graphics processing.

If you heavily multitask, a multicore CPU is always going to outshine a single core, no contest. I was able to use 3 of my 4 cores for encoding video (three separate mencoder processes, see above) and get the job done in 1/3 the time it would take a single core. And all without losing any speed at all, since the fourth core was more or less free to run all the non-cpu bound stuff.

Of course, it would probably have been even faster if I were to use the GPU for the job

[Karlos]

To address the above point about each having their respective strengths and weaknesses, I honestly can't see any advantage to a single core CPU over a multi core one. Unless you are not in a position to leverage the more than one core, that is, in which case there's obviously no benefit of more than one core.

[bloodline]

Well, the only situation now where multicore is a burden is when using an operating system that can't use more than one core... So I guess that is rather ironicaly probably only AmigaOS now...

[stefcep2]

Well, the only situation now where multicore is a burden is when using an operating system that can't use more than one core... So I guess that is rather ironicaly probably only AmigaOS now...

Depends on what your definition of "an operating system using more than one core" is

What would interest me more than just having one program crunching numbers within one core, another crunching numbers in another core, a third crunching numbers in a third core etc is if the operating system itself could could be split across the cores running a different task in each core, or i could get one program to split itself across each core.  I hardly ever need to encode more than on video/dvd at the same time, but I'd like to have four cores all working to decode that single DVD at the same time.  At the moment this doesn't happen particularly  well, if at all, as most software and the OS is not designed to detach into parallel tasks like that. Most benchmarks I've seen from dual core systems are at best 30-50% faster than a single core at the same clock speed, and for some benchmarks with some dual core cpu's the dual core can even be slower.  (Windows 7 might be better, i haven't had any experience with it)

[koshman]

@ JJ: In what context? I'm sure SOMEBODY said it, I'm not saying it was Bill. Actually, he is/was quite the visionary and it doesn't sound like something he would say at all and I'm not attributing the line to him.

[joetee]

Hi,
> Just a roundup of the CPUs over the years that you loved or hated for whatever reason.
> Hate: 8mhz 68000
I dont hate because the first Amiga 68K because the custom chips let it run full speed - in color: sorry Apple!
Remember: A 68000 @ 7.159 Mhz (on an Amiga, obviously!) CREATED the entire "demo scene" with what you_could_do on a stock Personal Computer.

I love how simply adding a 68010 or an ICD (or Aminet!) 14Mhz Accelerators so cheaply and totaly upgraded the base machine bought in 1985.

Thats right: 1985!
...Were ya borne yet?...
*heh*

I will respond to the rest late...