Ummmmm.....whats with the multicores??? O.o

I was just wondering why back when I had my first P4 and it was a 3.0ghz, and that was like 3 or so years ago (can't remember exactly) that was fine and I was just hoping for like a p5 with like 4.5 ghz. But instead of making super fast single cores, they just keep adding god-damn cores, why is this? I mean I don't do more than on thing on my PC, I don't have to lol. So why do we need so many cores.......I'd just be happy with more clock speed......anyone clear this up for me?

Higher clocked single cores would actually perform better because of multiple cores are not fully optimized with the softwares . So yeah , higher single cores would be better . But hey! that takes some effort from Intel/AMD and they don't want that , so just pile up on lower rate cores and let the software developers work .dannenissan2

Finally someone who understands *hug* So added :D

Heh yeah thats pretty much what it comes down to. Putting cores they allready have developed together isnt quite as expensive for them as to develop new, faster ones.JasperTech

Thats so lame >.> I want a new super core, 8ghz or something >;-] Who do they think we all are? Media designers? Not all of us make 10 movies, browse the web, and use our CD tray as a coffee cup holder at the same time while trying to paint >.> Gahhh!!!!

Actually, it is because we have reached the limit of how fast our current cores can go. Now, by tweaking voltages and such can they go faster which is unacceptable as the average consumer does not want blazing hot CPU's and such.

So to bypass this unfortunate conclusion to clock speeds, Intel instead adds on more cores, focusing on efficiency. But even then, that would still not be enough as we are expected to plataeu in our current CPU technology in less than 20 years according to Moore himself and Intel is guessing a plataeu at around the 16 nanometer process.

In the long run, its much better the way it is as the burden of performance is spread among multiple parties. The lng term scalability is considerably better.

They hit a bit of a wall so going multi-core was they way of the future.

Actually, it is because we have reached the limit of how fast our current cores can go. Now, by tweaking voltages and such can they go faster which is unacceptable as the average consumer does not want blazing hot CPU's and such.

So to bypass this unfortunate conclusion to clock speeds, Intel instead adds on more cores, focusing on efficiency. But even then, that would still not be enough as we are expected to plataeu in our current CPU technology in less than 20 years according to Moore himself and Intel is guessing a plataeu at around the 16 nanometer process.

k0r3aN_pR1d3

Oh well that makes sense...kinda sucks, cause ya know, it would be nice to have cores that are like in the 5ghz range and don't need liquid cooling systems *sad face* And every time they make a family with more cores I feel like I should upgrade, but then I see the Ghz are like the same and I'm like "screw it >.>"

They might have decided that people might not want to have to dip their PCs into liquid nitrogen as a cooling solution when you have your 8GHz single-core. Which is an amazing idea and would look awesome so it should be done.AnObscureName

See! He gets what I was thinking, we could like dedicate our shoe closets to large vats of nitrogen and have tubes and stuff running round the house. It would please this one very much......then again I'm not normal am I?

They might have decided that people might not want to have to dip their PCs into liquid nitrogen as a cooling solution when you have your 8GHz single-core. Which is an amazing idea and would look awesome so it should be done.AnObscureName

[QUOTE="AnObscureName"]They might have decided that people might not want to have to dip their PCs into liquid nitrogen as a cooling solution when you have your 8GHz single-core. Which is an amazing idea and would look awesome so it should be done.JasperTech

Why not just dedicate a single room as the pc room and have it in the low Kelvins all the time ^.^ Just run a heat-loss-gain proof DVI cord out to your monitor and the same with the rest of the I/O, could even make the room have glowy aesthetic fans and tubes and just say its a real FULL ATX Case :D

Quick and easy answer........diminishing returns.

But the thing is you can in no way compare current CPU's to the likes of the Netburst era P4's. You could get the slowest Core 2 you can find, 1.86 GHz I think, and disable one of the cores. That thing would still kick a P4 @ 3.0, and higher with ease.

Speed is not everything, it is one way of measurement, but just one.

[QUOTE="JasperTech"][QUOTE="AnObscureName"]They might have decided that people might not want to have to dip their PCs into liquid nitrogen as a cooling solution when you have your 8GHz single-core. Which is an amazing idea and would look awesome so it should be done.Electro057

Why not just dedicate a single room as the pc room and have it in the low Kelvins all the time ^.^ Just run a heat-loss-gain proof DVI cord out to your monitor and the same with the rest of the I/O, could even make the room have glowy aesthetic fans and tubes and just say its a real FULL ATX Case :D

The millions of transistors that make up CPUs are made of silicon. Silicon transistors have a limit as to how much electricity they can conduct before the electrical current spazzes out and becomes unstable, mainly due to heat. We're coming close to this limit, so AMD and Intel planned ahead and developed multi-core processors, essentially dividing the number of transistors amongst multiple cores, allowing further development. In the future, transistors will be made up of graphene and carbon nanotubes, both of which allow up to gigahertz in the hundreds right off the bat on a single core and with far less heat output due to the less electrical resistance of these materials.

The millions of transistors that make up CPUs are made of silicon. Silicon transistors have a limit as to how much electricity they can conduct before the electrical current spazzes out and becomes unstable, mainly due to heat. We're coming close to this limit, so AMD and Intel planned ahead and developed multi-core processors, essentially dividing the number of transistors amongst multiple cores, allowing further development. In the future, transistors will be made up of graphene and carbon nanotubes, both of which allow up to gigahertz in the hundreds right off the bat on a single core and with far less heat output due to the less electrical resistance of these materials.

HavocEbonlore

The millions of transistors that make up CPUs are made of silicon. Silicon transistors have a limit as to how much electricity they can conduct before the electrical current spazzes out and becomes unstable, mainly due to heat.

HavocEbonlore

The millions of transistors that make up CPUs are made of silicon. Silicon transistors have a limit as to how much electricity they can conduct before the electrical current spazzes out and becomes unstable, mainly due to heat.

The millions of transistors that make up CPUs are made of silicon. Silicon transistors have a limit as to how much electricity they can conduct before the electrical current spazzes out and becomes unstable, mainly due to heat.

[QUOTE="Marfoo"][QUOTE="jtschmitz"] Exactly. I read an article a couple years(5+) back talking about how CPU's where going to reach their limit at around 3GHz as far as raw clock speed goes, because of heat. Think about it, would you run a processor with no heat/sink or fan? Does anybody remember when a heat sink was more than enough or even before that? There is a lot of cool new ideas floating around out their about the future of computers.... Do you know that they know how to create a computer that doesn't run on binary? They have for years (think before computers as we know them existed)... cookie to the first person who can tell me why we are not running hex or base10 computers today :) jtschmitz

It's easier to make more cores rather than a fast single core, also I rather have more cores btw, I don't just play games...JigglyWiggly_

because they are made different, just like old singlecore amd with a clock about 2.4 outperformed a 3.6 P4, its all it how its made

Even with advanced cooling solutions, you get diminishing returns with higher voltages.

The millions of transistors that make up CPUs are made of silicon. Silicon transistors have a limit as to how much electricity they can conduct before the electrical current spazzes out and becomes unstable, mainly due to heat.

Higher clocked single cores would actually perform better because of multiple cores are not fully optimized with the softwares . So yeah , higher single cores would be better . But hey! that takes some effort from Intel/AMD and they don't want that , so just pile up on lower rate cores and let the software developers work .dannenissan2

Clearly you have no idea what you're talking about. Look into parallelism.

CPUs may be going to plateau at the current rate but given that scientists have managed to carry out an experiment where they stored a jpg file on a group of protons and retrieved it losslessly who knows what the future will bring to computing technology.thekodaman

[QUOTE="JasperTech"]Heh yeah thats pretty much what it comes down to. Putting cores they allready have developed together isnt quite as expensive for them as to develop new, faster ones.Electro057

Thats so lame >.> I want a new super core, 8ghz or something >;-] Who do they think we all are? Media designers? Not all of us make 10 movies, browse the web, and use our CD tray as a coffee cup holder at the same time while trying to paint >.> Gahhh!!!!

Unless they figure out a way to bypass the speed of light as a restriction, look for more cores over clock speed. As other people have been saying, CPUs require a certain amount of voltage to power them. 4.5ghz requires A LOT of power, which makes it hot.

Its a shame for programmers that more cores are coming out rather than clock speeds as the programmer will have to start threading applications (one core focuses on AI, second core is Geometry Loading, etc) which makes the job A LOT HARDER! That's why you see more unoptimized games in this time period. Programmers used to have to only program for one core