Quad Core -Believe it.

Well, I found this article interesting, and with lots of AMD vs Intel, and Singles vs Dual core discussions, I thought you might find it interesting also.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1899373,00.asp

Sort of extreme, and game companies won't even start making games that support Dual core for a year or so, I think AMD and Intel rushed into this.

dual core,does nothing to your gaming,it doesnt process twice as faster,it doesnt do anything to your gaming...i just hope noobies,w/ lots of money dont go out buying x2's expecting to get twice as much power,then getting it normal...

What makes everyone think that only n00bs want multicore CPU's?

I tend surf and game at the same time. Even a single IE window starts putting some performance lag on GW. I'd also transcode DVD's if it didn't eat up so many CPU cycles and slow GW to a crawl.

Multicore CPU's lets your PC do more than just sit there and run 1 processor-intensive app at a time. I plan on investing in a quad-core when they become available. EDIT: Quake2 and beyond has been multi-processor aware for some time.

dual-core is good for multi-tasking CPU-heavy stuff, but i would never buy it for a gaming-only rig (i don't think i actually have the money to ever buy it for any rig :P)


PS : you shouldn't use IE in the first place :P

On the bright side, if you need multi-core/multi-processor hardware, typically you know.

I would... why settle for just 1 CPU when tomorrow's games may require 2+?


I don't have a choice... many secure/SSL sites I support require IE as the primary browser.

Agreed... already there today.

Back to the topic, what do you think about Quad core? Wont they take longer to program for? Double what it takes for Dual core?

It really depends on what the application is doing and how it is breaking down its routines into threads. Older multi-CPU systems performed symmetric multi-processing by having each CPU grab a process thread off a stack as they became available. This provided both speed and fault-tolerance.

Newer operating systems like NT Server 2000+ are multi-processor aware. They don't need specifically coded apps to start taking advantage of the new hardware since the operating system takes care of this. However, you won't see benefits at the single application level... you'll see it more when multiple apps fire off without lagging the whole PC. Even basic operations like virus scanners and disk defrags can take place without a big hit to your GW frame rate.