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Forums => Computers - Technology => Topic started by: texasboy on April 05, 2007, 03:36:30 am

Title: 8 core?
Post by: texasboy on April 05, 2007, 03:36:30 am
 ;D Any thoughts?

http://www.virginmedia.com/digital/news/gadget/gadget-story.php?storyid=5692162

Should be right up NWM`s street to help with his editing.lol
cheers
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: Quantum on April 05, 2007, 04:37:25 am
Non-native scale up is poor, about 40-60% compared to dual, clock for clock. Same goes for double dual core AMD solutions. Intel don't have the same bandwidth to play with, so their double quad cores are going to be 40-60% better than quad, clock for clock or even less.

Unless all you do is encode media files, or run multiple CPU intensive programs, like GIMPS (but not folding at home, because you're better just getting a GPU to do that), it's all just over priced non-sense. Second generation quad and oct core systems are going to be awesome, when AMD bring out barcelona and later when Intel bring out Nehalem and software is built from the ground up to take advantage of multi-core (playing around on a dual core is fun even without optiumization, but I highly doubt benefits from increasing cores to 4 and even worse to 8, without actually running 4 - 8 heavy programs at once).

But oh wells, always the case with 1st generation hardware, 90% of the time its out performed by the currently exisiting matured hardware.
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: TheNightWatchman on April 05, 2007, 04:21:08 pm
I'll take it as long you pay for it  ;)
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: MinLo on April 05, 2007, 05:04:20 pm
I'll take it as long you pay for it  ;)

Same here......heck I'll pay the first $50 dollars to top EB aka NW offer !!! :D :D
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: TheNightWatchman on April 06, 2007, 01:15:59 am
Damn. Well I'm going for a job interview tomorrow so if I get it I'll raise ya $200 :P
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: Synbios on April 28, 2007, 03:54:40 am
My friend who worked for intel got laid off last week and he got to take his workstation home with him.

Dual quad-core xeons for 8 cores total. :p!

8 gigs ram, among other amazing things...
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: texasboy on April 28, 2007, 09:03:12 am
 ;D The very average family PC doesnt need any of this "latest" up to date technology. Unless you are gaming or editing to the extreme, why do you need to spend 100`s to keep up with the market. We are always finding people who say you are not with it unless you have this and that.. Most recent graphics cards will play games to an acceptable level. Family PC`s are there for everyday use ,photo`s/documents/games and most over the counter units are more than adequate.
I am presently on an old HP710  1.3ghz 512mb which downloads files at 250-300kbps. It is kept up to date,cleaned.etc still has 61% free space on a 40gbHD. The graphics are excellent even with a Radeon 9550 card.
Admittedly I have another PC upstairs running an SLI mobo with 2GB mem and p4 extreme edition . But I am not a dedicated gamer. This PC is great for downloads and doesnt need help.
cheers
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: Quantum on April 29, 2007, 08:34:09 am
While I agree, having a fast PC today makes a huge difference in how nice the PC 'feels', when things just open seemingly instantly. I know I've got lots of average home users hooked on fast dual cores just because they can open and do things without waiting around for the PC to load stuff.

Fast graphics cards on the other hand are for either gamers or video designers, well for now at least.
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: TheNightWatchman on April 29, 2007, 11:33:52 pm
mmm playing around in After Effects (post production tool... CGI and green screen, that type of thing) at Uni... the core2duo 2.4ghz with 2GB of RAM struggles. Although these are only first year editing suites, the advanced ones should cope (no idea what they'll have)
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: Quantum on April 30, 2007, 03:28:19 am
mmm playing around in After Effects (post production tool... CGI and green screen, that type of thing) at Uni... the core2duo 2.4ghz with 2GB of RAM struggles. Although these are only first year editing suites, the advanced ones should cope (no idea what they'll have)

CGI always needs better specs. 2GBs of RAM was normal for that kind of thing 2 - 3 years ago (on a home PC), now if you put a home PC together to do that kind of thing you'd seriously consider 8GBs of RAM and a Core 2 Quad 2.93+ GHz.
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: texasboy on April 30, 2007, 07:43:08 am
mmm playing around in After Effects (post production tool... CGI and green screen, that type of thing) at Uni... the core2duo 2.4ghz with 2GB of RAM struggles. Although these are only first year editing suites, the advanced ones should cope (no idea what they'll have)

CGI always needs better specs. 2GBs of RAM was normal for that kind of thing 2 - 3 years ago (on a home PC), now if you put a home PC together to do that kind of thing you'd seriously consider 8GBs of RAM and a Core 2 Quad 2.93+ GHz.

My Nividea SLI mobo  will handle 8GB`s but I dont really need that much at present. Maybe when I retire and become a couch gamer.lol
cheers
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: TheNightWatchman on April 30, 2007, 09:25:40 pm
Win XP doesn't support 8GB of RAM anyway. You'd need Vista or Linux or something
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: Quantum on May 01, 2007, 03:34:10 am
Win XP doesn't support 8GB of RAM anyway. You'd need Vista or Linux or something

Well XP doesn't obviously (it's a 32 bit OS). But doesn't XP x64?
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: TheNightWatchman on May 01, 2007, 09:01:52 pm
...I have no idea what the relation is between the bit of the OS and the amount of RAM it can handle.

Besides standard Vista is a 32 bit OS isn't it?
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: Quantum on May 01, 2007, 10:17:00 pm
...I have no idea what the relation is between the bit of the OS and the amount of RAM it can handle.

Besides standard Vista is a 32 bit OS isn't it?

If it's a 32bit OS that means it can only make 2^32 address in the ram, which is the same as 4GBs.

If it's a 64bit OS you can make 2^64 address in the ram, which is the same as 17'179'869'184GBs (though in practise due to both hardware and software constraints this is a lot lower, but will increase over time).

Vista 32bit OS can not have more than 4GBs of ram, just as a 32bit CPU can not have more than 4GBs or ram, thus the push in to 64bits.
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: azngosu on May 06, 2007, 02:55:14 pm
omg ! my 1 core feells so lonely with all this 2 core .. 4 core and now OMG 8 CORE .. =[
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: Synbios on May 07, 2007, 12:52:45 pm
...I have no idea what the relation is between the bit of the OS and the amount of RAM it can handle.

Besides standard Vista is a 32 bit OS isn't it?


If it's a 32bit OS that means it can only make 2^32 address in the ram, which is the same as 4GBs.

If it's a 64bit OS you can make 2^64 address in the ram, which is the same as 17'179'869'184GBs (though in practise due to both hardware and software constraints this is a lot lower, but will increase over time).

Vista 32bit OS can not have more than 4GBs of ram, just as a 32bit CPU can not have more than 4GBs or ram, thus the push in to 64bits.


Although 32-bit OS'es should in theory support 4 GB of ram, if you've ever installed 4 Gigs to 32-bit windows XP pro you'll find that only 3 gigs will be useable.

Other 32-bit OSes such as Windows 2003 Servers, and Vista 32-bit can use all 4 gigs though.

Right now the 975X chipset by intel only supports up to 8 Gigs. But the limitation for 64-bit, as quantum has mentioned, is basically infinite for what we have now.
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: TheNightWatchman on May 08, 2007, 09:25:03 pm
yes I use 2.5GB with XP and don't really see any point of increasing that.

Interesting to see that 64 bit makes the RAM more available... i really don't want to shift to vista  :(
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: Quantum on May 08, 2007, 09:36:44 pm
yes I use 2.5GB with XP and don't really see any point of increasing that.

Interesting to see that 64 bit makes the RAM more available... i really don't want to shift to vista  :(

I've been using XP x64 on my computer for some time now. I use programs like mathematica which take advantage of 64 bits. Planning to upgrade my computer towards the end of the year (will probabily be look at 4GBs of RAM), unless Vista SP1 has come out at that point and I feel enough programs have migrated, I think I'll stick with my current OS.

XP x64 was a pain for drives and stuff to start off with, but it's pretty easy to use now. You have to be a bit more conisderate when buying stuff (especially webcams and worth checking out printers as well), but all in all for my uses it coverts everything I need.
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: Synbios on May 09, 2007, 08:07:44 am
As time goes on more and more things will become 64bit and multithreaded. The technology we have now is not even close to it's full potential.
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: texasboy on May 09, 2007, 09:42:26 am
 ;D Although vista has somewhat better security features. Win XP is much faster. Maybe things will change,lol.
cheers
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: Quantum on May 09, 2007, 10:53:42 am
;D Although vista has somewhat better security features. Win XP is much faster. Maybe things will change,lol.
cheers

Things won't change, OS take more resources each generation, that's not going to change. Hell, the latest version of Ubuntu has a system requirement of 256 MB of RAM, I remember when many Linux Distributions proudly proclaimed that 64 MB of RAM was more than enough. But time moves on and you want your OS to do more and more and deal with more and more things. The real question is, given what Vista can do that XP can't, is it worth those extra resources? And given at the moment there is very little that Vista does that XP doesn't, applications aren't devloped for, drivers aren't well supported and a lot of legacy hardware support has been lost for Vista. XP is clearly a superior choice over Vista at the moment.

But Windows 98 SE was a suprior choice over XP for at least the first year of XP, but when SP1 and eventually SP2 came out and things started heavily supporting XP and lower end hardware became more than capable of smoothly running XP, things were a lot better.
Title: Re: 8 core?
Post by: Synbios on May 09, 2007, 01:19:06 pm
As I said in an earlier topic, windows OSes are always poorly supported and crappy when they first come out. But you're going to have to get it eventually, as soon it will become the norm.

yes XP is faster than vista but windows 2000 was faster than XP. If you put a brand new OS on a brand new system it will be faster than an old OS on an old System. If you put a brand new OS on an old system you're shit out of luck.

Obviously, new system on old OS would be the fastest, but is that really the best choice?

I was trying to choose between vista 64bit and XP 64bit, I decided to chose Vista although I know my new system would kick a lot more butt if I was running XP 64bit.