QUAD CORE... the useless technology?

Hi!

I have been a year waiting for buying a laptop, because they advised me to wait for santarosa... now, they have strictly told me to wait for the QUAD CORES... is there really a big improvement from those QUAD to those DUAL CORES???

when will they be available in the 14.1"-13.3" range? will it be at a normal price? is it worth waiting?

 

quad core in those laptops are a bit away i guess
they'll need to make them smaller and cooler first

 

quadcores will be another 12months. they are not worth it for current programs, unless you do a lot of rendering..............if that was the case you would know about multicores..........so im guessing no.

Seroously, don't wait. HEX cores will come very shortly after quads and then 16 and so on bas scaling becomes easier. Multicore GPUs will also come out later.

what do you use it for? if its nto demanding then this is all irrelevant. since office programs will run on almost anything

 

Quad core will be over-kill until there are more multi-threaded applications.

I recently encountered a desktop being used for GIS. The operator said it was slow but it contained two dual core 1.6GHz Xeon CPUs. Any one core of that computer was little over half as fast as one core of a T7300 and he was running a single threaded application so three cores would be idle. That sort of config must be intended as a small server.

John

 

As it stands currently, unless you're doing high end graphic work or database crunching nothing really can use a quad core. And on a laptop, short of the Clevo D900C (Sager 9260) there is no way to get a quad on a laptop.

So I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Jeez man, if you need a laptop, just buy something. If you keep waiting around for the next big thing, you'll never buy anything. You know why? Because when that big thing that you've been waiting for finally comes out, they'll anounce yet another future technology to be released. Then you'll wanna wait for that. And guess what's gonna happen when that comes out? I'm sure you can catch my drift...

Just buy yourself the most up to date computer you can afford now and don't worry about the next big thing.

 

Well, I guess they could slap two Yonah onto the same board and call it a quad-core. (Yonah over Merom to save 6W of genital burning heat), but you're looking at a 62W TDP. So you'd need something like the cooling system of the Asus C90S (made for 65W Conroe) to dissipate that much heat without burning anything under the lappy.

 

As a hobbyist programmer I can tell you, it's not just that applications have to be multithreaded, you have to specifically write your code to take advantage of each core.
And as it is, with some games that support dual core now, you will NOT get any benefit from a quadcore in game, until it's specifically written for it. I promise you that.
There is no benefit, other than more multitasking ability in *windows*.
EDIT: But it is the way of the future. It's coming.

 

And even that is pretty unlikely. You can multitask just fine with one core in almost all cases. In the few cases whee this is slightly less than perfect, two cores is plenty.

 

Multitasking/series vs multitasking/parallel, the first would be opening all your office apps and using one at a time I am not even sure if I would call this multitasking having apps open speed wise is RAM not CPU. Parallel (real), converting a CD to mp3 while watching a video clip and working with Word, now thats multitasking and uses the CPU. Motley wanted to throw that in because some people think having apps open and not using is multitasking and I don't think so anymore. And I do think a single core would more trouble with the last task than a dual core or quad core.

 

Doesn't stating that the application needs to be multithreaded imply that it has to be coded to take advantage of each core? That is, a process must be designed and optimized to handle split or shared data.

From what I have heard, the soon to be released Crysis will benefit from Quad core cpus.

However, I still wouldn't hold out a year for Quad core on a laptop.

 

I think what he meant was that it's not enough to make it multithreaded. There has to be enough threads to keep all cores busy. Many multithreaded apps will gain a good chunk of speed by running on a dualcore system (because they have two independent, cpu-heavy threads), but a quadcore won't be any faster (because they don't have *more* than two such threads)

 

My singlecore system handles that just fine. But you're right in principle. If you run multiple CPU-heavy apps at the same time, then of course you'll need more than one core sooner or later. (But in your example, the only one that uses more than 2% CPU in the first place, is playing video. Word is basically free, and MP3's hardly register as CPU usage either)

Which was my point, really. You need some pretty serious computer habits before one core really becomes insufficient for multitasking.

 

No, it's not enough to just link your program with the multithreaded libraries, you have to write code to split up execution into different threads.
I.E. using createthreadex() etc.

A quick example... When I was learning about threads a bit, I wrote just to test, a simple console application, that uses the high resolution timers in cpus, to execute a function 1billion times, and calculate the time elapsed.
Anyone who knows DOS and console applications know, that you can execute only one function at a time, unlike really windows, that handles multiple messages (although still linearly, ie message 1, then message 2, etc).
Using multithreaded, I executed the SAME function twice, at the same time. Now, my processor at the time had hyperthreading, but was a single core cpu, and I noticed that although it did in fact execute both functions at the same time, it took twice as long to complete both, then if I just did one function at a time.
With a multicore cpu, I could take advantage of that, and split it up more efficiently, one thread per cpu, and it would complete much faster.
But you really have to write the code for it, can't just link your program with the multithreaded libraries, you have to write it yourself.
I don't have the article offhand, but I read an article once, the difference between multicore support in Quake 4, vs. other games, and how Quake4 was much more efficient at it. You could say, instead of executing function "calculate_ai_path_finding" something or other, and waiting for that to finish before moving onto the next, you could also do some physics processing of projectiles at the same time, and that helps to improve performance.
But if you have only two separate threads executing, having a quad core cpu, the other two cores will be very bored as they wont get used. Unless you go back and decided to rewrite some code to take advantage of it.
And as I understand it (remember I just program for fun), you can have multithreaded applications on a single core cpu, but it will never be able to execute them in parallel. It couldn't do, say, function_a and function_b at the same time, it would do a then b, then a then b, then a then b, etc... (why my test program took literally twice as long to execute).
As technology progresses and becomes commonplace, there of course will always be software to use that to it's full potential. So it's only a matter of time.
If you really want to get a quad core pc, go for it. You wont be left in the dark forever.

 

I might of mistated the CD to mp3, let me change to convert WAV to mp3. I just did it and it used about 55% the entire time (drop to 30% between songs) sure it converted 15 songs in a couple of minutes but it does take CPU power. TL-52, and I agree, but that is because people having an application open that is not doing anything "multitasking", not as far as the CPU is concerned. So I agree with you just think when people say multitask they don't mean it or understand it.

 

No, it IS still multitasking as the CPU is concerned, because it still has to process messages, even though the program is just sitting idle doing nothing. Even though no messages are actually being sent to the idle program, it has to still check if there are any being sent to it, and that takes a little CPU time.

 

Understood and don't disagree. But do think, fine then as no CPU is ever doing 1 thing be it processes or OS or whatever so gets rid of some of the point of even referring to it in any special way as it always happens, always has, and always will? Yes/no?

 

Well no, I really don't see it that way, from a programmer's perspective.
Even though nothing is really being done in the given program, it's still constantly checking for messages; i.e. did the user move the mouse in the focus area? did he minimize the window? did he press a button? It uses cpu time, and therefore any active program is still being executed.
Just, processors have gotten sooo fast now, it happens almost instantaneously, so yes, to the human user, it's like nothing is happening at all.
But, try to open (figuratively, not literally) thousands and thousands of open, idle programs, and see what happens. Assuming you had enough memory for that.
You'd start to notice the difference.
But now, in a normal user environment, quad core will make ZERO difference. Even now games don't support it yet.
But to the original point of this thread, there will be a time when quad core, even octo core, and more, will be fully taken advantage of, but in games. Games are always pushing the limits of hard ware.
I'm sure computers in the far future, will probably have hundreds and hundreds of open processes, so it could make a difference then. But not now in this moment.
Really makes me anxious for what awaits us 20 or 30 years from now, would be really cool to see what kind of games we have then.
I'm still waiting for my damn holodeck.

 

Ok. You will be waiting probably 18months or more before you see a quadcore in a 14" or 13" laptop.

If you have to ask about if Quad core is good for you it isn't good for you. If it was you would know and wouldn't need to ask the question.

So quad core is only usefull for you if you are using a dual core at 100% CPU useage and the program your using is coded to support more than 2 cores. The chance of this is very low. The only times this may be the case is Rendering, Database crunching, Movie Encoding, Scientific & Engineering Applications. If your not doing any of those tasks and don;t have a custom program for doing whatever your doing the chance a Quad core will help you is probably 0.

Having said that a Quad core can help if you want to Encode a movie with a program that suppots 2 threads (Coded for 2 cores) and at the same time you want to play a game & rip some songs. Now you might think wow that sounds awesome and yes it is but you will probably do something like that once and never again (Trust me I know). The fact is once your running a fast quad core your not going to have enough data to process to keep it busy sorry thats just the way it is. Think about how often you think hmmm I wish I could encode a movie or solve a 1000 x 1000 matrix while I play this game :s.

Ok so some examples of what I have used my quad cores potential for. If you don;t think you need to be able to do these things you don;t need quad core.

Encode 14 DVD resolution movies (1.5 - 2 hours eachin the slowest (most complex) h.264 compression sheme in a day. (Can you watch 14 movies in a day?)

Encoding an Entire Season of a TV series in a day.

getting good superpi times

Processing lots of Folding@Home units

Room heater (Its very good at heating up a room)

Um yeah thats probably it. Ive solved a few sets of simltanious equations that took a few minutes but seriously I could have waited a few more to get the answers. Doing Rendering in AutoCAD or Photoshop is no faster on my PC than my C2D laptop. So basically for everything I do a dual core would be just as good. Becasue sure I can encode heaps of movies really fast but then the comp sits Idle for the next week.

Also the way things are going it looks like most of the things that require alot of processing power eg. rendering, science and engineering problems. will soon be offloaded to the GPU anyways so the CPU wont have any part in that.

 

God that was long.
But sounds correct!

 

Took the words right out my mouth!