Difference between CPU and processor

[river-wind]

Did you see where he metions heat and clock speed?

I did, he says that with a single-core, you get more speed by increasing the clock rate; this has a downside of increasing heat output as well. To avoid this, you add more cores without increasing clock rate.

I don't agree with that reasoning, but as far as the logic of the article goes, heat is a problem for single, fast cores, rather than for multi-core systems.


By increasing clock speed, you are making the existing functional units work harder, it's a narrow and deep approach to the problem. By adding more functional units, you get more work by increasing resources; a shallow and wide approach.

It's like making your existing workers work double shifts vs hiring more employees. Both methods have their benefits, but the first method hits a brick wall much faster as workload increases.

 

[Xelios]

Multi-cores are the future, if only for the fact that we're running up against the physical limits of semiconductors and air cooling now. The only options are to put more processors on a chip or switch over to a new technology like photon based computing. There's a few other options I suppose, but all of them would mean a major software re-write to see any kind of real benefit. But eventually we're going to reach a point where backwards compatibility won't be possible anyway.

 

[John99]

Thats waht i benn trying to tell phlog.

 

[phlogistician]

Thats waht i benn trying to tell phlog.

No, that's the exact opposite of what you've been telling me.

I said multiple cores were better, and you disagreed, saying single cores were better. You were wrong, John.

 

[John99]

pholistician, the gist of the article specifically states that clock speed is better. however, being that it is not presently pheasable (appearantly) then the decision was made to go the multi-core route.

 

[John99]

fin

 

[phlogistician]

pholistician, the gist of the article specifically states that clock speed is better. however, being that it is not presently pheasable (appearantly) then the decision was made to go the multi-core route.

A four year old article. History has proven you wrong, John. Heat is not an Issue. Multiple cores handle the multiple processes in use in Modern OS's really well, resource bottlenecks are rare, and some applications work better on multiple cores.

 

[Muslim]

Your confusing cores, a CPU can have more then one core, the more cores the faster the processing power of the CPU.

 

[leopold]

you're confusing speed with throughput.
multi core can increase throughput but it can't increase the speed at with the cores execute instructions.

 

[John99]

i admit know that i was wrong afa the cores go.

 

[John99]

i just read that macs work bettet the windows so i assume this is true for linux as well. then for linux you need programs to take advantage of the extra coors.

 

[John99]

do you have any information on dual cores in real world situations?

 

[Ophiolite]

do you have any information on dual cores in real world situations?

Out of boredom I am forced to remark that our world, which seems real to me, has an inner core and an outer core.

Translating the above: this is on the verge of getting boring.

 

[phlogistician]

do you have any information on dual cores in real world situations?

I'm using one now, in the real world. Well, a quad, but let's not split hairs.

Right now, I have 66 processes running across 4 processors, one being busier then the rest as it's recording a DVB stream. That one process can have up to one 2.4Ghz processor all to itself, and being a synchronous event, that means it will not stutter or thrash, and I will get a perfect recording.

When I rip DVD's the software runs multiple processes in parallel, and the action completes really quickly, like I threw a 9.6Ghz processor at it, assuming one was to be had.

Here's the thing, computers do iteration, repetitive tasks, and that's where parallelisation pays off. Cracking a DVD is a perfect example of this, the problem can be cut into chunks, and handled at the same time on different processors. Most of us are used to flow charts with a single path described by yes/no choices, and it can be hard to think of solutions that deal with multiple streams at the same time, if you gre up with flow charts. The same pain many of us went through when we started object oriented programming, in fact.

 

[Xelios]

Well phlog, for someone who does as much DVD ripping and video encoding as you do a quad core is definitely the best option. But for the average PC user it's way overkill. A dual core is more than enough for web browsing or playing games, and I don't expect that to change for another few years at least. Especially considering how few programs actually use 100% of the CPU continuously rather than just in very short bursts.

The biggest obstacle to multi-core efficiency is the need to write software in a new way, and this is something that's going to take time to change. Like you said it's a whole different way of thinking, and it can get very confusing for people who didn't grow up with it (which is, basically, just about everyone).

 

[John99]

Pretty interesting. One issue i see with multiple cores is the complicated process but quad cores must rock for multitasking.

 

[leopold]

Well phlog, for someone who does as much DVD ripping and video encoding as you do a quad core is definitely the best option. But for the average PC user it's way overkill. A dual core is more than enough for web browsing or playing games, and I don't expect that to change for another few years at least.

even on my $400 sempron i can watch my power DVD while posting on the forums and websurfing in general.