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#1
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Dual Core chips??
Hello,
I am seeing a lot of marketing of Dual Core systems. As you have guessed, I am not a hardware geek. What is the big advantage of dual core systems? I know it is like having 2 processors. Will each core perform at the high GigaHertz speeds that the marketers used in the past? I plan to buy a new PC sometime early next year. Does the current software technology take advantage of the dual core hardware? Is there significant performance speed on the system? Thank you in advance for any information. Regards, NJ |
#2
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Dual Core chips??
"Neil Jones" wrote in message
... Hello, I am seeing a lot of marketing of Dual Core systems. As you have guessed, I am not a hardware geek. What is the big advantage of dual core systems? I know it is like having 2 processors. Will each core perform at the high GigaHertz speeds that the marketers used in the past? I plan to buy a new PC sometime early next year. Does the current software technology take advantage of the dual core hardware? Is there significant performance speed on the system? Thank you in advance for any information. Regards, NJ Each core runs at the speed they were designed, 2GHz, 2.2GHz etc... If an application is not written to take advantage of dual core tech then a P4-3.2GHz will run that application faster than a dual core 2.4GHz given equal archs. However if the application is written to be dual core friendly then the 2.4GHz will beat the 3.2GHz single core machine. Gamers are typically the ones who adopt speed tech faster than the general public. Traditionaly games were single threaded but they are being converted over to take advantage of multi core systems. Getting more speed out of a single cpu by going multi core is easier at the moment for cpu makers because of the speed wall they have just hit. Eventually that speed wall will be overcome but until then putting more and more cores in a cpu is an easier way to make them faster and faster. There is another problem of scaling. Some system designs scale better than others. When you add more and more cpu's/cores to a system they all have to communicate together to get stuff done. That communication takes time and resources which slows the system down. A one cpu system works at X but a two cpu(core) system does not work at 2X, it is more like 1.8X. You loose a little in the communication. So a system with 80 cores in one cpu is not 80 times faster than a single core cpu. "They" say that we will have 80 core systems in just a few years. The Linux world has been multicore friendly for some time. The Windows world is just catching up. Some apps like rendering and ai and matrix math take full advantage of multicore while others like transaction processing systems not so much. Mainframes have being multicpu/multi core for decades. PeeCees are just catching up. Now your next question will/should be what is virtualization? That's another discussion. If you don't want to be obsoleted for a while the current system to purchase would be a dual cpu, dual core. hyperthreading, 64 bit system with virtualization. So far one can get that in x86-64, Itanium, Sparc and Power. x86-64 seams to be winning for the moment because of price. later, charles..... |
#3
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Dual Core chips??
Neil Jones wrote:
I am seeing a lot of marketing of Dual Core systems. As you have guessed, I am not a hardware geek. What is the big advantage of dual core systems? I know it is like having 2 processors. Will each core perform at the high GigaHertz speeds that the marketers used in the past? Hello Neil, Your assumption is basically correct. There are two identical cores put in one silicon chip. Intel (nd AMD) gave up the Gigahertz race, because the high frequencies caused an over-proportional increase of electrical power required to run them. This was a slight problem for desktop PC's, because of cooling and noise issues and a huge problem for notebooks, because of battery drain. Therefore, Intel has revisited the lower frequency Pentium III core, giving it some bigger caches and updated it's architecture a little. Based on this architecture, the could put two CPU's on one die, without causing excessive power requirements. Shrinking the structures to 65nm process also helped here. The result is a chip that is more powerful than the last Pentium 4, whilst more energy efficient. I plan to buy a new PC sometime early next year. Does the current software technology take advantage of the dual core hardware? Is there significant performance speed on the system? Core 2 is well supported by Linux, since already the kernel 2.0 was SMP ready. Linux kernel will distribute the tasks over the available CPU's automatically. Please be aware that ONE SINGLE application running on Linux might not benefit from the two cores, as the kernel can only distribute tasks if there is more than one thing to do at a time. Your personal performance benefit from a Dual Core PC might therefore disappoint you. Anyway, the latest architectures, may it be Core 2 or AMD Athlon 64x2 give the average user more power than he usually needs. I hope this cleared it up a little... With regards, Hendric -- Hendric Stattmann, Guntramsdorf, Austria. Registered Linux User #178879 |
#4
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Dual Core chips??
On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 07:45:20 -0500, Neil Jones wrote:
Hello, I am seeing a lot of marketing of Dual Core systems. As you have guessed, I am not a hardware geek. What is the big advantage of dual core systems? I know it is like having 2 processors. Will each core perform at the high GigaHertz speeds that the marketers used in the past? I plan to buy a new PC sometime early next year. Does the current software technology take advantage of the dual core hardware? Is there significant performance speed on the system? Thank you in advance for any information. Regards, NJ The others have done a good job of covering the technical aspects. Just let me add that whether you will see any gain or not depends a lot on what you do. I've read that a dual core processor does not real run as fast as a two cpu system - it gives the equivalent of about 1.6 processors. If you run a bunch of small jobs at the same time - you'd see an improvement. If you typically run one cpu hungry job at a time and it is not written to be multithreaded, then a dual core system will run no faster than a single core of the same speed. Most processes are not written to be multithreaded. Optimization for multiple processors is a very difficult task. |
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Dual Core chips??
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#6
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Dual Core chips??
work at 2X, it is more like 1.8X. You loose a little in the communication. So a system with 80 cores in one cpu is not 80 times faster than a single core cpu. "They" say that we will have 80 core systems in just a few years. 80X core would be a huge win for graphics on Linux since there is no sight of open sourcing of ATI and Nvidia graphics. It won't put high end gfx cards on the shelf, but it will probably blow the low end and midrange out of the water. How affordable that performance would be in the long run remains to be seen. Nvidia and ATI are way ahead of Intel and it's probably way cheaper to produce a chip with 96 or 128 specialized lean and trim cores than fat x86 cores. Maybe they can make X4000 based on their sucky ia64 :-] Intel does not seem to be cutting corners and adding any questionable code in their 2d/3d drivers to get a lead on the competitors. Hence X3000 being 2x slower than 6200 that is ancient news in itself. But I think in a long run Intel *will* put ATI and Nvidia out of business if SGI lawyers won't. |
#7
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Dual Core chips??
On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 07:45:20 -0500, Neil Jones
wrote: Hello, I am seeing a lot of marketing of Dual Core systems. As you have guessed, I am not a hardware geek. What is the big advantage of dual core systems? I know it is like having 2 processors. Will each core perform at the high GigaHertz speeds that the marketers used in the past? The umm, big advantage of dual core is that it gives CPU mfrs something to do with the additional chip real-estate as they go to smaller and smaller IC geometries:-)... a bit cynical but there's nowhere else to go at present. The clock speed ramp is tapped out until some potential fundamental material science breakthrough - it'll likely climb a bit but more slowly than historically. There are differences between Intel & AMD's approach but it *is* like have two processors... but since they're on the same chip, they share the same memory bus. In the worst case, if you had two tasks with very high memory bandwidth requirements, they'd probably run in shorter time if run consecutively than if run concurrently. In the best case you can run two fairly compute/memory intensive tasks efficiently or have one moderately intensive task and also have the system still respond to user inputs for another less intensive task. Current dual core chips are backed off on clock speed slightly from what can be done with a single core but not by much... and not enough where you'd regret getting the dual vs. the "faster" single-core. I have a single core system at home and a dual-core of the same clock speed and memory bandwidth at work and the difference in response is noticeable - with dual cores you see much less of the hour glass when trying to do two things at once. I plan to buy a new PC sometime early next year. Does the current software technology take advantage of the dual core hardware? Is there significant performance speed on the system? I think the best one can say at the moment for the software is that "it's getting there". Ideally we'd have tasks with multiple threads of execution which could run entirely simultaneously for a tangible benefit but that'd be rare for most common tasks and then if we had err, quad-cores we could run two dual-threaded tasks simultaneously without suspending one task while the other runs. I have my doubts that anyone's going to realize any real benefits of quad-core CPUs for a while... at least on the desktop. Game makers are curently working on multi-threading their CPU work-load - they have to for the most recent game consoles anyway so there's some fallout there for the PC desktop. I'm not a gamer so don't follow it closely but maybe someone else can comment. The bottom line is that yes, it's worth getting the dual-core system even now, especially given the price-point vs. single core. If you assume some reasonable gain in software redesign and coding you come out ahead vs. single core. My crystal ball says that a CPU bought now could have a relatively long life-cycle before you'd even be tempted to look for something better... but I've never been much good at reading crystal balls. -- Rgds, George Macdonald |
#8
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Dual Core chips??
On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 07:45:20 -0500, Neil Jones
wrote: Hello, I am seeing a lot of marketing of Dual Core systems. As you have guessed, I am not a hardware geek. What is the big advantage of dual core systems? I know it is like having 2 processors. It's not just "like" having 2 processos, it IS having two processors. Those two processors just happen to be on the same piece of silicon (or two pieces of silicon packaged in one processor as in the case of some Intel chips). The difference between having 2 processors on the same silicon vs. two processors on the same physical processor chip but on two separate silicon dies vs. two fully separate processors is largely academic. Other than for determining how much money companies like Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, etc. will charge for their software, there really isn't much difference. Will each core perform at the high GigaHertz speeds that the marketers used in the past? Err, mostly yes. If you look around now you will see that modern processors are no longer sold according to the clock speed (ie GigaHertz). Intel and AMD have both found that clock speed alone is not a very accurate way of describing the performance of a processor. As such they have both switched to a model name and number scheme for their processors. For example, Intel's current chips are sold as something like "Intel Core 2 Duo 6600" or "Intel Pentium D 950", while AMD has their "AMD Athlon64 X2 4600+" or "AMD Opteron 2212". The different model names and numbers combined will tell you the clock speed, the type of processor core, the amount of cache as well as whether they are single core, dual core or quad-core processors. Occasionally other things get factored in as well, like bus speeds, memory used or power consumption (power use has become rather important in processors because it has skyrocketed in recent years. Some of Intel's server chips consume more than 150 Watts in an area not much bigger than a dime). I plan to buy a new PC sometime early next year. Does the current software technology take advantage of the dual core hardware? Is there significant performance speed on the system? Given that there are well over a million pieces of software out there, that's a pretty broad question! There are really two parts to that question. First is whether or not the Operating System takes advantage of dual-core. The answer to that is usually yes. Win2K, WinXP and Vista all do on the Microsoft side of things, as do Linux and most of the BSDs. Windows 95, 98 and WinMe do not and nor do a few of the obscure operating systems. Now, OS support is important because all modern OSes are multitasking systems. This means that OS can assign one task to one processor and then stick another task on the second processor. This really is the biggest and most immediate improvement from dual-core processors. The computer is much better able to handle multiple tasks, and perhaps most importantly, dual-core chips will give you a much more responsive system. Now, the second part of the question is the application side, and here it's a bit trickier. You will often here the phrase "multithreaded" thrown around here. This refers to an application that can split up the work it's doing into 2 or more subtasks, or "threads". The operating system can then send one thread to the first processor and the second thread to the second processor, allowing both subtasks to complete their work at the same time. Theoretically this could result in an application doing things twice as fast if it can split the work it does evenly between the two processors. Unfortunately though, reality has to set in at some point. Splitting tasks effectively between two workers is almost never 100% effective, and sometimes isn't effective at all (just ask anyone who's tried to manage two or more employees!). Some applications aren't written with this in mind at all and others make only limited use of it. Others still though do see HUGE improvements in dual-core systems. As such, it's pretty much impossible to give a definitive answer to this. In general, dual-core (and quad-core) chips are here to stay. They are already the norm for servers, workstations and high-end desktops and they are quickly moving down to the mid-range desktops and laptops. They offer a BIG advantage right now in terms of multitasking and responsiveness, while their impact on single-application performance is growing. The retail price of AMD's Athlon64 X2 line of dual-core processors now starts at about $150 for the processor, which is pretty cheap. Full systems using this chip start at about $600 and should be down under the $500 mark in about 6 months time. Long story short: if you are buying a new computer, definitely get a dual-core processor unless you absolutely can not afford one or have some very specific need/reason not to. ---------------------------- Tony Hill hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca |
#9
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Dual Core chips??
On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 14:07:34 GMT, "***** charles"
wrote: If you don't want to be obsoleted for a while the current system to purchase would be a dual cpu, dual core. hyperthreading, 64 bit system with virtualization. So far one can get that in x86-64, Itanium, Sparc and Power. Just drop the hyperthreading idea - the current top performers, Core 2 Duo and Athlon64 X2, do not have it. -- Rgds, George Macdonald |
#10
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Dual Core chips??
On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 12:56:27 -0500, krw wrote:
In article , says... On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 07:45:20 -0500, Neil Jones wrote: Hello, I am seeing a lot of marketing of Dual Core systems. As you have guessed, I am not a hardware geek. What is the big advantage of dual core systems? I know it is like having 2 processors. Will each core perform at the high GigaHertz speeds that the marketers used in the past? I plan to buy a new PC sometime early next year. Does the current software technology take advantage of the dual core hardware? Is there significant performance speed on the system? Thank you in advance for any information. Regards, NJ The others have done a good job of covering the technical aspects. Just let me add that whether you will see any gain or not depends a lot on what you do. I've read that a dual core processor does not real run as fast as a two cpu system - it gives the equivalent of about 1.6 processors. A dual core system *IS* a two CPU system. It is and it ain't. It is still not as efficient as two cpus on two different chips - there are some shared resources that slow things down. If you run a bunch of small jobs at the same time - you'd see an improvement. If you typically run one cpu hungry job at a time and it is not written to be multithreaded, then a dual core system will run no faster than a single core of the same speed. Most processes are not written to be multithreaded. Optimization for multiple processors is a very difficult task. Windows (and Linux) run many threads at a time. Dual cores will help some in any case. With a dual processor/core system if one CPU hog is running the system will still be responsive. A single CPU system may be brought to its knees. However, to get any benefit out of a dual core system, make sure it has enough memory and fast disks (plural, preferable). If they get in the way, the second processor is going to do nothing for performance. |
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