AMD Dual Core CPU's

[Billy Verreynne (JW)]

Sasha Tsykin

>> Desktop software are usually designed and written as single
threaded
>> processes. Increasing CPU capacity does not really help. A faster
CPU
>> is needed to make them go faster.
>>    
>
> not necessarily, eg. video conversion, image conversion, encoding,
> compiling, etc. will always benefit from more cpu's or more cpu
cores.

Only if the processing is multi-threaded. I thought I made that point
pretty clear.


>> IMO for normal desktop use a dual-core CPU has no obvious benefits.

>> If you are a gamer.. well, more and more games are making use of a
>> multi-threaded design. Also on Windows, any DirectX game will by
>> default be creating and using several DirectX threads (doing
>> graphics, sounds, etc). In this case a dual-core CPU can increase
>> game performance (the CPU is usually the bottleneck and not the
VPU).
>>    
> this is just wrong. If you want your games to work faster, then you
> should by a motherboard with pci express,

Incorrect. The major limiting factor on many games are the CPU. Not
the VPU. Fact and not speculation.

The majority of the work done in games are still CPU-bound.


> While it is true that here the cpu is usually the bottleneck, it's
> not going to help to run a multi threaded cpu because games are
> almost always single threaded and very few take advantage of
multiple
> threading.

What did you not understand Sasha? I clearly stated that even single
threaded games are using a multi-threaded model when running on
DirectX.

When a game for example created a DirectSound channel (usually 24+
channels), these are handled under the hood by async threads by the
DirectSound sub-system.

Which is why when you add more sound to a game, it goes slower - CPU
requirements goes up. Thus more CPU capacity can be used to address
the increase in CPU requirements.

And yes, a lot of new game designs are designed around a
multi-threaded model in the core game engine. Look at Flight Simulator
and X-Plane for example.

> Also, a faster CPU will make very little difference for gaming.
> Ultimately, it's the graphics card that's important there.

So you're now saying that your previous statement "While it is true
that here the cpu is usually the bottleneck" is in fact incorrect..?

You are very confusing.. or just plain confused yourself.

--
Billy

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