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Technical Help & Discussion => General Tech Discussion, News & Q&A => Topic started by: Clive on March 12, 2010, 14:29

Title: We're doing 6 cores!
Post by: Clive on March 12, 2010, 14:29

The new Core i7-980X Extreme Edition (codenamed "Gulftown") is a six-core CPU that promises a whole new level of performance.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2361144,00.asp

Title: Re: We're doing 6 cores!
Post by: sam on March 12, 2010, 14:50

cool.

We were talking about getting 8 core machines the other day... more and more ram will be needed to take advantage of these chips.

Title: Re: We're doing 6 cores!
Post by: Rik on March 12, 2010, 15:39

Now all we have to wait for is the software to catch up...

Title: Re: We're doing 6 cores!
Post by: Simon on March 12, 2010, 16:24

You wouldn't need central heating with that in the room!  ;D

Title: Re: We're doing 6 cores!
Post by: Rik on March 12, 2010, 16:29

True, but think of the cost of the air con in summer...

Title: Re: We're doing 6 cores!
Post by: Simon on March 12, 2010, 16:32

Summer?  Oh yes, I remember that!  It's too bleedin' hot!  ;D

Title: Re: We're doing 6 cores!
Post by: Rik on March 12, 2010, 16:34

Well, occasionally...

Title: Re: We're doing 6 cores!
Post by: sam on March 13, 2010, 05:43

Quote from: Rik on March 12, 2010, 15:39

Now all we have to wait for is the software to catch up...

ah, wait for what?

all of the current operating systems, even friggin windows, can deal with multiple cores - its just sends jobs to different cores... not many of the software packages will be using them in a parallel threaded manner but they will be dynamically arranging resources so you maximise the usage of them.

Title: Re: We're doing 6 cores!
Post by: Rik on March 13, 2010, 10:36

Though a program like Photoshop would really benefit from being able to use multiple cores.

Title: Re: We're doing 6 cores!
Post by: sam on March 13, 2010, 16:04

im not sure if the newer versions dont... but isn't it more of a memory issue than raw processing speed? Of course a better solution would be for graphical editors to run on the GPU - since surely they are just doing matrix algebra.

Title: Re: We're doing 6 cores!
Post by: Rik on March 13, 2010, 16:05

You certainly can't give PShop too much memory, Sam, though I remember a time when it choked if you had more than 1GB installed. :)