Need a new CPU.
<div class="IPBDescription">Dual or quad? What kind?</div>The title combine with the title description should make my following questions obvious:
I wan't a new CPU, I'm stuck on an aging single core one. Which one should I get? Which one has the best price/performance ratio?
Should I pick a dual core one or go quad?
I have a LGA755 socket on my motherboard, I think. Just saying.
I was looking at this one: <a href="http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAPL" target="_blank">Core 2 Duo E8400 6 MB</a>
Oh and I looked at a Core 2 Quad Q6600 8 MB if I should choose to go for quad.
I wan't a new CPU, I'm stuck on an aging single core one. Which one should I get? Which one has the best price/performance ratio?
Should I pick a dual core one or go quad?
I have a LGA755 socket on my motherboard, I think. Just saying.
I was looking at this one: <a href="http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAPL" target="_blank">Core 2 Duo E8400 6 MB</a>
Oh and I looked at a Core 2 Quad Q6600 8 MB if I should choose to go for quad.
Comments
(Citation: <a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000942.html)" target="_blank">http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000942.html)</a>
That's pretty much the extent of my knowledge.
AMD's new multi-core is an unknown quantity.
--Scythe--
For lots of rendering/encoding quad core has a better performance.
I had the same question to answer when I got my CPU.
I went for the Dual core because I knew that I would be playing games and using things that can't take advantage of the extra 2 cores, so a slightly higher clock speed is more beneficial.
Also, bummer you didn't make this thread last week. Tigerdirect had the core i7 920 on sale for $150.
By the nature of game programming, it is very difficult to make good use of multiple cores. We just haven't figured out how to effectively split up game logic into multiple threads yet. It's not just about using threads. If lots of threads are being used but they need to wait to synch up you lose a lot of the benefit you would otherwise get.
Even HL2, which I believe spawns a whole ton of threads, does better on a Dual Core than a Quad Core...
Note: I am a game programmer (college), and I learned about this stuff last year but I am having a difficult time remembering and explaining *why* it's so hard to make good use of multiple threads... I just know it is, and that it is a mostly unsolved problem.
Even HL2, which I believe spawns a whole ton of threads, does better on a Dual Core than a Quad Core...
Note: I am a game programmer (college), and I learned about this stuff last year but I am having a difficult time remembering and explaining *why* it's so hard to make good use of multiple threads... I just know it is, and that it is a mostly unsolved problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's not just game programming, it's any problem where each its sub-problems depend on the sub-problem that came before it. So, you can't get to C from A without going through B. You'll see the word "pipeline" a lot in games especially, graphics pipeline, logic pipeline, etc. First you draw the vectored polygons, then you rasterize them, then you clip/cull, ... The input to each is the output from the last. That's not to say a completely new way of doing it that doesn't rely on pipelines wouldn't fix the "problem."
As far as the CPU and buying one for the future... The revolutionary wave of new programming paradigms that use concurrency has been a long time coming, but it's always been "just around the corner." I wouldn't recommend buying one over another in anticipation of this new style; I'd buy what makes sense for what I'm doing now.
I'd take the 3 ghz core2duo over the core2quad any day of the week.
So a 3 GHz core2duo it is.
Now to look at prices...
ninjaedit: sorry doublepost
Anotheredit: There is like a 135.53$US difference between the E8400 and the E8600. The difference I see is the E8600 is .33 Ghz "better".
--Scythe--
As far as the CPU and buying one for the future... The revolutionary wave of new programming paradigms that use concurrency has been a long time coming, but it's always been "just around the corner." I wouldn't recommend buying one over another in anticipation of this new style; I'd buy what makes sense for what I'm doing now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Very well said.
I realize it's not just a problem with games, but that's what JediYoshi was referring to (saying that its a problem that will be solved soon), and what I was disagreeing with (because of the reasons you mentioned).
I definitely agree with your last point as well. Life of a processor is about 2 years, give or take. Even if a whole new way of programming games is figured out, it's not going to happen before you are in the market for a new CPU.
That's not really fair, though. That generation of CPU was riding the high of the times, just before we ran into a brick wall on clock speed vs heat. The whole market slowed down at that time, and things like chemical processors were to be the new savior of the industry. I'm still hopeful about nanotech for CPUs, but it's a lot further off than multicore programming, I think.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It seems the current design of multi-core processors is not good for the design of supercomputers. According to IEEE: 'Engineers at Sandia National Laboratories, in New Mexico, have simulated future high-performance computers containing the 8-core, 16-core, and 32-core microprocessors that chip makers say are the future of the industry. The results are distressing. Because of limited memory bandwidth and memory-management schemes that are poorly suited to supercomputers, the performance of these machines would level off or even decline with more cores.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Means nothing. All they're saying is that there's a bottleneck between the CPU(s) and the memory. This'll likely become redundant with some clever tech, either adding more buses or further increasing the FSB clock speed.
--Scythe--
As far as value gaming is concerned yeah it's <a href="http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/11/11/intel-core-i7-cpu-value/2" target="_blank">overkill</a>, but you'll still be hard pressed to find <a href="http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/11/06/overclocking-intel-core-i7-920/6" target="_blank">benchmarks</a> not showing the natural increase in performance they give.
As for me, the less technologically inclined, my purchase decision was quad core- I figured even if I didn't get a performance boost in games I could in other apps I'd be using like Photoshop. I don't regret my purchase, the thing is steady as a rock and it's never been the limiting factor. Runs at nice low temps too <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> not like ye olde P4 3.2 HT!
as a consumer I just don't invest myself in the large ramifications of technologies. All these arguments, which mean nothing to me, don't dissuade me from knowing that what I have works well. meh.
You ain't seen nothin' yet boyo.
###### happens, creditcard man awaaaay!
New motherboard! Suggestions? (oh please just tell me: BUY THIS:) nothing over 1200Danish Kroners please. 190 usd max.
###### BEANS
Basically pick a good mobo from a well-known company (ASUS, MSI, etc.) and make sure it has the stuff you want (correct PCI slots, form factor, FSB, RAM slots, etc.)
I recommend a newegg.com search, even if it's just to see customer comments.
Good suggestion! Newsegg. I might not be able to purchase from there, but the rating of the cards and comments could prove useful in choosing one.
Good suggestion! Newsegg. I might not be able to purchase from there, but the rating of the cards and comments could prove useful in choosing one.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
BIOS update could fix it... assuming the BIOS update exists
My mobo recently died this week, and I bought a Gigabyte ep45-ud3p (~130 USD). You could probably find something a little cheaper, though. Gigabyte seems to be the highest rated on newegg for mobos under $200
So go and buy cor7, it has socket 1366. SO find a modecard which support this. XFX is cheap and damn good modecard.
gta 4 barely runs on a dual core, but sings on a quad - and id imagine it only gets better with more cores from there.
also windows 7 will have the ability to run graphics from the cpu - so 2 - 5 years down the track when we are all running 86 core cpu's we might not need video cards <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> edit - especially once ray tracing takes off.
You know, something tells me it will be a while.
I'm not sure what's meant by ray tracing taking off. Can someone elaborate? As I understand it, ray tracing is an established method, it's just that the math is expensive on cpu time. By taking off, do you mean, finding a better math?