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How long will Quad Cpus last?

WingZero30

WingZero30

WingZero30

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Hi guys

I just recently bought my very first 2nd hand Q6600 and am very happy with it.However that got me thinking. How long will Quad core cpus last before we need Hexa core/Octa core cpus to run games and multi-threaded software programs?

As we know that many games/applications are already making full use of dual cores and these dual cores seem to be reaching their application limit.
 
Theres only so much you can multithread as well though!

Depends in what market as well. More cores in servers is great, but there is a limit to desktop core usage. As you say, duals are now being used well, quads next (or tri or course!)
 
For a ggod time yet. We have been waiting years for software to support dual cores let alone quad cores. They writers are getting there but still have a long way to go yet.
 
Sometimes when im coding there's only so much i can multi-thread, because so many algorithms depend on eachother you cant run them entirely separately.

I guess on games, say for AoE IN THEORY you could have one core per unit on the screen.... so the more cores the merrier, but i cant think of many situations like that.
 
You will need an Octo core CPU when the marketing guys tell you, probably in about five years, assuming we've sorted the deficit out by then.
 
Games wise at least until the next generation of consoles.

Application wise i would say at least 5 years before the majority of programs (that would benefit from it) are properly multi threaded.
 
think about it, dual cores have been around for about 5 years now and are still going pretty strong. Quads have been around for about 3 so far

obviously whilst quads are gonna remain attractive for a fair few years to come, Q6600s wont last anywhere near as long. Again, think about it. Would you even consider a pentium-D in this day and age? (ok, so maybe not the best analogy, but you get the idea)
 
ok but thinking a little more, as software moves towards multi-threaded apps, it might be like opening a floodgate whereby we very quickly move to multi-core architecture.
 
The q6600 CPU will be adequate for some time still. It is a pretty old CPU as processors go but it is still able to provide a reasonable base for most applications. Many games have offloaded the huge burden that was previously only CPU based too the graphic card. Media players are doing that too. So that CPU will be able to cope for some time yet. Multi threaded applications have been a possibility for a number of years now and still there is a very limited buy in by most software houses. For one simple reason there just is not need for it in most applications. Media rendering and such like excluded of course. Currently I think less than 5 % of all new titles can fully utilize more than three cores. That should change but the change will be very very slow and gradual.

So enjoy and save up for the generation after SandyBridge what ever that may be. :D
 
I don't think you will see many games that will use 6 or 8 cores. The main reason some games run much better on a quad over a dual is because the Xbox 360 has 3 cores and doesn't have Windows to run so a PC with 4 cores is needed to pull off some of the games. Simple as that really. I'll probablly get shot down for saying that, but that's how it is. It's probably not that the PC couldn't do the same task with 2 cores, it's more a case that the games are made for consoles first then ported to the PC.
 
it'll get to a point where we have a hundreds of cores like the gfx cards, as they believe they've got as far as they can interms of speed (Ghz), but we shall see, i imagine some breakthroughs eventually!
 
Addicted said:
it'll get to a point where we have a hundreds of cores like the gfx cards, as they believe they've got as far as they can interms of speed (Ghz), but we shall see, i imagine some breakthroughs eventually!
Click to expand...

I might just be spouting rubbish here, but I swear I remember reading earlier this year about some compound being developed with the electroconductive properties of silicon, but way way way less thermal resistance, and its main use would be computing components of course.

Like I said, I dont know how true it was/is, but I cant imagine silicon being used forever
 
It entirely depends on your usage.
For those who browse the web, and email, single core atoms etc will serve them long into the future and a 4 year old quad is just overkill.

However at the other end of the scale, running CFD for example, the more cores the better, these highly parallel programs will max out what ever you give them. The F1 teams run several thousand core clusters at 100% all the time. It is fairly easy to require TBs of RAM in that situation too. In this scenario the latest X7500 series Intel xeon octo-core are still not fast enough, as you can easily max a cluster for days, even with four of the eight core chips on each motherboard, and many motherboards in the cluster.

As people have mentioned, coding for multiple threads in every day apps is a tedious task that many programmers wont bother with, so in that respect a quad is limited by its single core clock for clock performance, and as each new architecture is generally faster than the previous one there will always be a benifit of running a newer chip, regardless of the core count.
 
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