Quote:
Originally Posted by Mookster 
it'll likely take years more for the gaming industry to start wanting to make use of 8+ cores, unless this iteration of consoles are x86 Bulldozers, or something.
it'll likely take years more for the gaming industry to start wanting to make use of 8+ cores, unless this iteration of consoles are x86 Bulldozers, or something.
It's a question of the type of assembly tools that are available to write programs, nothing else. Assembly tools always lag a few years behind CPU technology--sometimes as much as five to seven years. That's one of the reasons why Netburst processors became more competitive with the Athlon XP as time went on. It's also why, back in the day, a K6 processor on the old Socket 7 platform could hold its own with a Pentium II or III, but if you run modern software on a K6 and a P3 of the same clock speed today, the P3 is going to be a lot snappier. Modern software is written with tools that leverage the more advanced features of the P3 to the max.
The trend in writing software for Windows platforms today is toward multi-core processors, which means that software needs to be written to take advantage of multiple threads in parallel. Right now, most assembly tools are set to target processors that do no more than two threads simultaneously. Hence, you see crappy Core i3 processors with two cores and no HT running some software faster than an 8-core FX-8150. It's not that the people who develop games don't want to use the extra cores--they're happy to use any technological advance that is available to them--it's just a matter of them not being able to do so yet.
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Upgraded Toshiba A105-S2131
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| CPU | Graphics | RAM | Hard Drive |
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My PC
(15 items) |
Upgraded Toshiba A105-S2131
(7 items) |
| CPU | Graphics | RAM | Hard Drive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Core2 Duo T7200 | Mobility Radeon XPress 200 | 2GB Micron DDR2 | Seagate Momentus XT 500GB |
| Optical Drive | OS | Audio | |
| stock DVD/CDR | Windows XP Pro x64 Edition | Realtek HD Audio | |
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