Quad core, 16 cores...

AMD will soon release a quad core processor with scaling possible up
to 16 cores, conceivably you might reason dual processor motherboards,
so effectively 32 cores some day. What will they develop AFTER 32
core systems?

On 28 Jan 2007 20:25:27 -0800, wrote:

AMD will soon release a quad core processor with scaling possible up
to 16 cores, conceivably you might reason dual processor motherboards,
so effectively 32 cores some day. What will they develop AFTER 32
core systems?


Applications that can use 4 cores instead of 2.

On Jan 28, 8:25 pm, wrote:
AMD will soon release a quad core processor with scaling possible up
to 16 cores, conceivably you might reason dual processor motherboards,
so effectively 32 cores some day. What will they develop AFTER 32
core systems?

You really want to know?

http://news.com.com/Intel+pledges+80...in+five+years/
2100-1006_3-6119618.html

Clock speeds have hit a plateau, so they came out with the dual cores
and more efficient architecture, to do more WITH those clock cycles.

At some point they'll hit the limit of what they can do with silicon,
BUT there are better semiconductors out there.


Ram is a big part of the performance game too.

DDr2 is the latest and greatest on PC ram for now, but it's
theoretically to have QDR (QUAD DATA RATE) ram at some time in the
future. It already exists for cache.

I'm betting that for home use, the number of cores will not be more than 8,
unless games or AI can become so complex that they will use that many.
Actually, I'm betting 4 core cpu's will be the standard for a while. A long
while.

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On Jan 28, 9:22 pm, kony wrote:
On 28 Jan 2007 20:25:27 -0800, wrote:

AMD will soon release a quad core processor with scaling possible up
to 16 cores, conceivably you might reason dual processor motherboards,
so effectively 32 cores some day. What will they develop AFTER 32
core systems?

Applications that can use 4 cores instead of 2.


I meant in terms of hardware. Thank you for the 80-core article, I
await the release of that system. Hopefully power requirements will
not increase proportionally. They probably won't stop with 8 cores,
they will not cease finding something faster or better to market.
Unfortunately this means bigger programs that require more processing
power. I would like to see simpler/smaller programs that don't take
up as much memory and get the job done as well as their larger
counterparts.

What is the likelihood of moving storage of data away from hard disks
entirely and to very fast solid state memory? I imagine this has the
possibility of making boot times faster as well as loading programs.
I wouldn't normally think of it but in recent years solid state
storage has dropped in price so much, now they must only make it
faster than standard hdds.

wrote:
On Jan 28, 9:22 pm, kony wrote:
On 28 Jan 2007 20:25:27 -0800, wrote:

AMD will soon release a quad core processor with scaling possible up
to 16 cores, conceivably you might reason dual processor
motherboards, so effectively 32 cores some day. What will they
develop AFTER 32 core systems?

Applications that can use 4 cores instead of 2.


I meant in terms of hardware. Thank you for the 80-core article, I
await the release of that system. Hopefully power requirements will
not increase proportionally. They probably won't stop with 8 cores,
they will not cease finding something faster or better to market.
Unfortunately this means bigger programs that require more processing
power.

I would like to see simpler/smaller programs that don't take up as
much memory and get the job done as well as their larger counterparts.

Unlikely, essentially because memory is cheap,
cheaper than hand crafting code to achieve that.

What is the likelihood of moving storage of data away
from hard disks entirely and to very fast solid state memory?

Rather poor. That has been predicted for decades now and still hasnt
happened, essentially because hard drives keep advancing too.

I imagine this has the possibility of making boot times faster as well as loading programs.

Yes, but that is a pretty minor part of most system use.

I wouldn't normally think of it but in recent years solid state storage has dropped in price so
much,

Its still a hell of a lot more expensive per GB than hard drives.

now they must only make it faster than standard hdds.

Which is clearly going to cost more too.

On Jan 30, 7:02 pm, wrote:
On Jan 28, 9:22 pm, kony wrote:

On 28 Jan 2007 20:25:27 -0800, wrote:

AMD will soon release a quad core processor with scaling possible up
to 16 cores, conceivably you might reason dual processor motherboards,
so effectively 32 cores some day. What will they develop AFTER 32
core systems?

Applications that can use 4 cores instead of 2.

I meant in terms of hardware. Thank you for the 80-core article, I
await the release of that system. Hopefully power requirements will
not increase proportionally. They probably won't stop with 8 cores,
they will not cease finding something faster or better to market.
Unfortunately this means bigger programs that require more processing
power. I would like to see simpler/smaller programs that don't take
up as much memory and get the job done as well as their larger
counterparts.

What is the likelihood of moving storage of data away from hard disks
entirely and to very fast solid state memory?

Unless the cost per gigabyte, and the overall capacity is brought to
something close to what a rotating hard disk is, it won't replace it.

Most consumers aren't going to pay $600 or so for a 32GB solid state
drive, when they can get several terabytes for that price.

Not in the next 5 years anyway. I don't want to predict beyond then.


I imagine this has the
possibility of making boot times faster as well as loading programs.
I wouldn't normally think of it but in recent years solid state
storage has dropped in price so much, now they must only make it
faster than standard hdds.

On 30 Jan 2007 19:02:22 -0800, wrote:

On Jan 28, 9:22 pm, kony wrote:
On 28 Jan 2007 20:25:27 -0800, wrote:

AMD will soon release a quad core processor with scaling possible up
to 16 cores, conceivably you might reason dual processor motherboards,
so effectively 32 cores some day. What will they develop AFTER 32
core systems?

Applications that can use 4 cores instead of 2.


I meant in terms of hardware.


I know, but it is pointless to think about until we have
applications that can take advantage.


Thank you for the 80-core article, I
await the release of that system. Hopefully power requirements will
not increase proportionally. They probably won't stop with 8 cores,
they will not cease finding something faster or better to market.
Unfortunately this means bigger programs that require more processing
power.

No, it just means writing them differently. Programs would
continue to get evermore bloated regardless of how far the
number of cores increase.




I would like to see simpler/smaller programs that don't take
up as much memory and get the job done as well as their larger
counterparts.

Then use them. This is not some future wish, situation,
they exist right now. For example, don't use Vista,
unless/until you have a specific need. Don't use Office
2007, for the same reason. Don't use Office 2003, for same,
etc, etc. It's entirely up to you to choose the app that
suits your needs, and determine what tradeoffs to make.
Most people just make the lazy choice, not bothering to
check application funcitonality and instead use something
that is newer, or more featured, more popular, etc...
putting less thought into choosing.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing, if they don't mind
slower load times, more memory used, more disk space, etc,
since a modern PC can be fitted with more of these latter
two than required in most cases but if you want something
different you will have to spend the time to pick that other
alternative.



What is the likelihood of moving storage of data away from hard disks
entirely and to very fast solid state memory?

It will happen the moment you do it. You could've done it
yesterday, or today, or tomorrow... it is you that is
keeping it from happening, you didn't choose to do it.




I imagine this has the
possibility of making boot times faster as well as loading programs.

Depends entirely on what you're booting, how you boot, what
loads during boot, what programs you run, etc, etc.


I wouldn't normally think of it but in recent years solid state
storage has dropped in price so much, now they must only make it
faster than standard hdds.

They don't have to do anything, do they? If you are the
typical mechanical HDD user, you didn't use the fastest HDDs
& configurations available either, so the question of
performance isn't relevant, rather price.

kony wrote:
On 30 Jan 2007 19:02:22 -0800, wrote:

.... snip ...

I would like to see simpler/smaller programs that don't take
up as much memory and get the job done as well as their larger
counterparts.

Then use them. This is not some future wish, situation,
they exist right now. For example, don't use Vista,
unless/until you have a specific need. Don't use Office
2007, for the same reason. Don't use Office 2003, for same,
etc, etc. It's entirely up to you to choose the app that
suits your needs, and determine what tradeoffs to make.
Most people just make the lazy choice, not bothering to
check application funcitonality and instead use something
that is newer, or more featured, more popular, etc...
putting less thought into choosing.

For example, I have ne on my system. It is just under 32k. Dated
June, 1986. Works fine.

--
Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
http://cbfalconer.home.att.net

I would like to see simpler/smaller programs that don't take
up as much memory and get the job done as well as their larger
counterparts.

Then use them. This is not some future wish, situation,
they exist right now. For example, don't use Vista,
unless/until you have a specific need. Don't use Office
2007, for the same reason. Don't use Office 2003, for same,
etc, etc. It's entirely up to you to choose the app that
suits your needs, and determine what tradeoffs to make.
Most people just make the lazy choice, not bothering to
check application funcitonality and instead use something
that is newer, or more featured, more popular, etc...
putting less thought into choosing.

Here here! My sentiments exactly.. I still run windows 2000 because it's
the most comfortable and practical for me.. I would lose more than I would
gain from upgrading to XP or Vista..

People are just ill-informed.. they want it because it's new and because
everyone else has it.. if everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you
follow ?

Regards,
Chris