Octo core - when? for intel and AMD i mean

[tomos]

isn't intels out 2k9?

 

[tomos]

if the server ones are due later on this year, then hopefully 1st or 2nd Q next year for consumer ones.

a better question might be, when will 8-core cpu's from either company be affordable?
will AMD release 'straight' 8 core chips or will they all have one GPU core?

there is so much info out there that's contradictory, it would be nice to consolidate the info.

 

[tomos]

oh god what's the point !

??

 

[tomos]

A faster CPU won't give much boost in games, as they are more graphics card dependent nowerdays, but in everything else like decoding, etc, we should see some performance gain.

encoding will be the one for me, as well as (assuming enough ram is available) being able to multitask more easily. e.g having megui encode something in the background, download, repair via par files, extract rar files, watch a movie/tv show or play a game.

i cant do that at the mo with a dual core as encoding makes the system slightly sluggish (not a RAM issue), unless i lower the process priority

what i would like to see, is not just the whole 'set affinity' option for 8 cores (which i expect), but to be able to set the priority for cores also. e.g use cores 1-5 exclusively for encoding (process = higher) , but for 6-8, change it to low so it wouldn't interfere with any gameplay or anything else i want to do.

that make sense?

 

[tomos]

in that case, cheap 2nd hand quad core (775) for me at some point to tide me over till 2010 i guess

 

[tomos]

only until software makers realise that multi-core isnt a fad and start writing software that works properly across several cores.

open source software seems to be doing this anyway