[MasterLich]

At the moment, the problem is that most games, except the really new ones, are not designed to use dual/quad cores to their full potential. The real advantage with a quad core processor would come when running several applications at the same time.

In the future, it would make sense to use one core for example for calculating physics in game, but the physics cards are dropping in price as well and they do this much more efficiently. Also, some of the physics calculations can already be given to the graphics card/GPU. Only time will tell.

 

[JemyM]

Just in time for this thread AMD announces its Quad-Core chips

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,137003-c,amd/article.html

Appears to be a real Quad-Core. They have a chip to regulate memory manage,ent and apparently all 4 processors can find themselves at different speeds depending on the application using them. There's was also a distinct move to to bring down power consumption.

The processors run between 1.7ghz to 2.0ghz and run from $209 to >$1000 per 1000 units. Already reports say AMD is getting lots and lots of orders for them. They plan to launch a 2.3ghz by Nov/Dec.

Awww. Now you broke my plans.

 

[gaboru93]

what do you mean? how did they break ur plans?

 

[JemyM]

what do you mean? how did they break ur plans?

Now I must wait for this new CPU instead of buying my planned Intel. Im an irrational AMD fan.

 

[Corwin]

You mean someone other than AMD makes boards and chips??!!

 

[KazikluBey]

Supporting AMD in one's computer purchases isn't irrational, but the smart thing to do. AMD has been in some dire straits, and when Intel launched their Core 2s AMD's positive trend was broken - if AMD stops making processors all computer consumers will suffer for it. Besides, unless you're going to overclock, there's been no advantage in buying a Core 2 instead of Athlon 64, as the price/performance ratios are equal (they used to be in AMD's favor before the Core 2 IIRC).

JemyM: The Phenom lineup (the replacement for the Athlon 64 consumer chips, as opposed to the Barcelona Opteron server chips talked about in that article) should be launched in Q4.

 

[Lucky Day]

You mean someone other than AMD makes boards and chips??!!

I might have a Cyrex lieing around here for you.

 

[Corwin]

That sounds like something you'd put in an oven!!

 

[JemyM]

JemyM: The Phenom lineup (the replacement for the Athlon 64 consumer chips, as opposed to the Barcelona Opteron server chips talked about in that article) should be launched in Q4.

This might be too late for me though. My girlfriend is really pushy since she want my old stuff. >_<

 

[Lucky Day]

AMD has announced they will release a triple core processor. I'll get a link with more details this afternoon.

 

[Prime Junta]

The triple core is especially interesting IMO since all else being equal you could get away with a higher clock speed. And since most apps benefit more from higher clock speeds than even more cores, the triple-core chip could actually perform better in real-life than a comparable quad-core chip.

All speculation at this point of course...

 

[Stanza]

3 is not a power of 2. Does this really have only 3 cores, or does it have 4 cores with one turned off?

 

[KazikluBey]

The press release doesn't say whether it is triple or quad-with-one-disabled-core, but there is nothing special about powers of 2 for processor cores - the IBM PowerPC processor in XBOX 360 is a triple core, and the IBM Cell processor in the PS3 has seven cores.

 

[KasperFauerby]

The press release doesn't say whether it is triple or quad-with-one-disabled-core, but there is nothing special about powers of 2 for processor cores - the IBM PowerPC processor in XBOX 360 is a triple core, and the IBM Cell processor in the PS3 has seven cores.

Actually the Cell have 8 cores, but they only expose 7. They do this because there is a fairly high failure rate when producing the Cell chip, so by doing it this way they can keep and sell those where just one of the cores turns out to be faulty from the factory

 

[Lucky Day]

For some reason I thought the 360 was a multiprocessor board not a single multicore chip.

ZDNet is reporting that Suzy Pruitt an AMD Spokeswoman has confirmed that the Triple Core is a Quad Core with a core disabled.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6334

They have a die cast shot of it showing it clearly has four cores.

The article states this greatly decreases AMD's manufacturing cost which makes sense. This way they don't have to trash a number of failed processors.

In my experience if the demand for triple core processors suddenly gets high the company would likely pull quad cores off the line and sell them as that. That's what Intel did with their 100mhz Pentiums when 75mhz were popular.

 

[Prime Junta]

In my experience if the demand for triple core processors suddenly gets high the company would likely pull quad cores off the line and sell them as that. That's what Intel did with their 100mhz Pentiums when 75mhz were popular.

They could certainly do that. What's more, they could again trade a core for clock speed -- just disable the core that croaks first when they bump it up.