Intel processor comparison question

Factual Questions
1

I’m looking at getting a new computer soon (to be used primarily for gaming). I haven’t kept up with the relative speeds of Intel’s multi-core processors. Can someone enlighten me about the basics? I was good with single-core processors (higher speed = faster processor), but I’m not clear on whether a 2.4 GHz quad core is faster than a 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo.

Add to that the fact that with true dual-processor units, there isn’t (or wasn’t) a performance increase unless the software was written to take advantage of multiple processors and I end up thoroughly confused.

Can anyone help shed some light on this?

2

I too wasn’t sure if my quad core 2.4 is faster than a Dual core 2.8.

I do know that even if none of your programs are designed to take advantage of multiple cores, they are still used by Windows. Basically programs are divided up.

So for example media player could be using core 1, outlook core 2, windows defender core 3, and (if you are being ambitious) COD4 core 4.

3

My understanding is that most games are not very-well (if at all) multi-threaded, and you would be better off with a faster processor and high-end video card.

4

[QUOTE=beowulff]
My understanding is that most games are not very-well (if at all) multi-threaded, and you would be better off with a faster processor and high-end video card.
[/QUOTE]

I was leaning towards a 3 GHz Core 2 Duo, with much that same line of reasoning, but then it occurred to me that I don’t know how the two processor types stack up.

(and I’ve already decided on an 8800 for video, though I’m not sure I can afford top-end).

5

[QUOTE=Lobsang]
I do know that even if none of your programs are designed to take advantage of multiple cores, they are still used by Windows.
[/QUOTE]

Which versions of Windows uses multiple cores? XP? XP 64-bit? Vista?

6

This page should be of great use to you.

BTW, I believe XP and Vista both support multiple cores, but Vista Ultimate is the only one that supports multi-processor setups (I could be wrong).

7

I would be dumbfounded to hear that any complex game written in the last ten years wasn’t multi-threaded, and thus able to take some advantage of multiple processor cores. And, even on the remote chance that such a game existed, having multiple cores would still improve its performance, because it wouldn’t be contending with the OS for processing resources.

8

[QUOTE=Flander]
BTW, I believe XP and Vista both support multiple cores, but Vista Ultimate is the only one that supports multi-processor setups (I could be wrong).
[/QUOTE]
Windows NT 3.1 supported multi-processor setups in 1993. Desktop versions of NT4, 2000 and XP generally only supported two processors, although there were licensing options for more.

9

How much cache is on these things? I’d say that a faster two core processor is better than a slower 4 core one for gaming, but if the new one has lot’s of cache that might make up for it.

10

[QUOTE=Cerowyn]
I would be dumbfounded to hear that any complex game written in the last ten years wasn’t multi-threaded, and thus able to take some advantage of multiple processor cores. And, even on the remote chance that such a game existed, having multiple cores would still improve its performance, because it wouldn’t be contending with the OS for processing resources.
[/QUOTE]

Be dumbfounded: http://wiki.extremeoverclocking.com/wiki/Multi-Threaded_Games
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=415743

11

[QUOTE=Cerowyn]
Windows NT 3.1 supported multi-processor setups in 1993. Desktop versions of NT4, 2000 and XP generally only supported two processors, although there were licensing options for more.
[/QUOTE]

Ignorance fought. Thanks.

12

[QUOTE=bauble]
I’m looking at getting a new computer soon (to be used primarily for gaming). I haven’t kept up with the relative speeds of Intel’s multi-core processors. Can someone enlighten me about the basics? I was good with single-core processors (higher speed = faster processor), but I’m not clear on whether a 2.4 GHz quad core is faster than a 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo.

Add to that the fact that with true dual-processor units, there isn’t (or wasn’t) a performance increase unless the software was written to take advantage of multiple processors and I end up thoroughly confused.

Can anyone help shed some light on this?
[/QUOTE]

It’s a tough time to answer this question.

First of all, an issue of terminology. You talk about “true” dual-processor systems as if multicore chips are not as good, or compromised in some way, and this is inaccurate. The situation is the reverse. An old-fashioned dual processor system is markedly inferior to a multicore chip. An Intel Core 2 Duo has two fully-featured processors on a single chip - a Core 4 (or whatever they call it) has 4. Because these processors are in such close physical proximity, they can deliver far better performance than an equivalent system with two discrete physical processors spaced a few inches apart. An old dual-processor system might have a bandwidth of 1 GB/s between processors, and a latency of 100ns or so - on a multicore chip, you’re talking 100 GB/s, and approximately 5ns latency (these numbers are approximate).

With that out of the way - multi-core processing is the future. The number of cores that fit on a chip will increase roughly as fast as the clock speed did over the past two decades. It is widely expected that we will have 1024-core chips by 2016 - that’s only eight years away. A professor of mine likes to say that the processor core will be the logic gate of the 21st century.

Future gains in the performance of computers will come from the ability to exploit the parallel processing capability that multicore processors provide. Clock speed is no longer going to be the driving force. However, it’s still mostly unknown how this will actually be accomplished. The tools, languages and best practices that will form the foundation of all this have not been developed yet, and the stuff we are currently using is very crude and clunky.

Programs have to be specially written to take advantage of multiple cores - there is no way to parallelize a non-parallel program. However, game designers are aware that they need to learn how to write multicore-enabled games, and quickly. The current generation of games does not do a great job of this, but I expect the next generation to.

So, to answer your question - buying a fast, dual-core system is the best bang for your buck for playing current games, and old games. Buying a slower quad-core system will probably be better in the long run. If you want the computer to last for a long time, get the quad-core. If you plan to upgrade a lot, go with the dual.

13

As a long-time advocate of overclocked game machines I must agree with absolut on this one (well, on his final advice, not on the projection that we will have 1024 core processors in 8 years). There isn’t a game released today that takes full advantage of quad-core parallelism. Personally, I would inves the money in a motherboard that supports [ul][li]dual video cards (I favor PCIe myself, and Nvidia cards in SLI configuration, but a lot depends on what price point you want to be at and whether you care more about DirectX 9 or DirectX 10 performance [crossfire currently struggles with DirectX 10, but rocks 9 hard at a very competetive price point])[/li][li]multiple full width PCIe slots[/li][li]strong overclocking support[/li][li]1333 FSB support[/ul][/li]Then I would but a good dual core CPU that I can overclock to my own tolerance level. Personally, I don’t have the patience or temperment to go to the radical extremes of the water-cooled monsters. Intel only let;s you increase the multiplier on their more expensive “extreme” line of processors, but the core 2 duo E6750 is a favorite of many overclockers for being stable at fairly high voltages/overclocked bus speeds and it;s a lot cheaper than the “extreme” models.

But all of that is for today. If I were building a system for the long haul (which I’m about to do, actually) I’d go for a strong intel quad core, dual nVidia cards in SLI (with a third slot available for either a third graphics card or a physics coprocessor), dual boot XP/Vista [64-bit], and a boat load of RAM. But I take these things way too seriously sometimes.

14

[QUOTE=Absolute]

With that out of the way - multi-core processing is the future. The number of cores that fit on a chip will increase roughly as fast as the clock speed did over the past two decades. It is widely expected that we will have 1024-core chips by 2016 - that’s only eight years away. A professor of mine likes to say that the processor core will be the logic gate of the 21st century.

[/QUOTE]

That’s almost happening already. ASICS have been replaced by SoCs (Systems on a chip) which are made of a bunch of cores - processor cores, memory cores, DSP cores, analog cores, I/O cores, and some random logic. There are some companies (the biggest being ARM) which basically just sell processor cores. There is a company, Tensilica, which sells processor cores which can be modified for specific applications. There are 16 core processors already announced. I’ve seen papers about 100 core processors, but I don’t know if they’re commercial products yet. I’m sure there will be 1024 small core processors by 2016 - if we get to 1024 “real” processors depends on how fast we get to sub-10 nm nodes, which is as much economics as it is technology these days.

BTW, hardware cores are part of the open source revolution. opencores.org has a whole bunch, and OpenSparc.org has open source RTL code for a current processor.