Milking the Multithreaded Beasts

[UberGerbil]

So [H] has a bunch of slides from an Intel presentation on apps that are multi-threaded enough to actually make use of most or all of the 12 hardware threads available in the i7-980X (though "make use of" and "fully utilize" are two different things, and there's no actual data, not even CPU graphs, to back it up: this is a marketing slide deck that should probably be titled "Buy an Extreme processor, please!")

For the most part the list consists of the usual suspects of audio and video editing / encoding / rendering, plus some Photoshop filters and games / game middleware. But I had to laugh when I got to the second bullet point in the slide on Ubisoft's R.U.S.E:

Keep in mind this is a WWII RTS, not Farmville.

Now that's a justification for a $1K CPU.

[Skrying]

Whoa. The horses and cows are animated. Where can I spend my $1000? This is also why I'm a PC gamer, right?

[DancinJack]

Those cows better be animated. I won't play it if not.

[scare]

At first glance, I read an extra letter in the title making this out to be a very NSFW thread.

Animated horses and cows though? I'm not so interested now.

[axeman]

Well, it looks to me like they're reaching.

6 cores on the desktop is probably not much use to most of us yet.

But if they can invent some reasons, then they can sell more. As if they needed to - moar numbers is teh bettar.

[Krogoth]

ROFL, you know marketing is desperate when they begin to drop off outlandish claims like clockwork.

Silly marketers, Extreme Edition chips are "halo" products. Don't market them as necessities, rather as proof that Intel platforms are superior. Besides, your real bread and butter are Clarkdales and soon Sandy Bridges.

IMO, I don't see mainstream application using anything more than 4 threads. The cost/benefits aren't there. It is hard enough for coders to make a program efficient with two threads nevermind utilizing three or four threads.

[morphine]

Wasn't it the Pentium 4 that made the Internet go faster because it had Netburst(tm)?

[derFunkenstein]

Those cows better be animated. I won't play it if not.

The only way I want an inanimate cow is if it's on my plate.

Or maybe they mean the re-animated cows. The zombie cowpocalypse?

[bhtooefr]

Or maybe they mean the re-animated cows. The zombie cowpocalypse?

But you don't need a Core i7 for that - you just need a Pentium I and a copy of the sanitized version of Carmageddon II.

[bdwilcox]

Or maybe they mean the re-animated cows. The zombie cowpocalypse?

But you don't need a Core i7 for that - you just need a Pentium I and a copy of the sanitized version of Carmageddon II.

Didn't Diablo II have a secret level with zombie cows that you got to by using Wert's leg?

[cphite]

I can't tell you how many games I have stopped playing and thrown away in disgust due to the presence of nonanimated horses and cows.

[bdwilcox]

I can't tell you how many games I have stopped playing and thrown away in disgust due to the presence of nonanimated horses and cows.

It's udderly disgusting, isn't it? I preach the importance of equine and bovine animation until I'm horse, but does anyone listen? No. I guess the point is just moo-t. Then Intel trots out their "revolutionary" advancement like it was their idea... Totally behoofs me to point out such hypocrisy.

[morphine]

It's udderly disgusting, isn't it? I preach the importance of equine and bovine animation until I'm horse, but does anyone listen? No. I guess the point is just moo-t. Then Intel trots out their "revolutionary" advancement like it was their idea... Totally behoofs me to point out such hypocrisy.

this just made my day.

[Flying Fox]

Or maybe they mean the re-animated cows. The zombie cowpocalypse?

But you don't need a Core i7 for that - you just need a Pentium I and a copy of the sanitized version of Carmageddon II.

Didn't Diablo II have a secret level with zombie cows that you got to by using Wert's leg?

Ah ha the Cow Level! Countless hours (including getting sick after an all-nighter session) levelling up with the hoards of cows.

I wonder if Diablo III will include Intel's hardware acceleration so the new Cow Level will be so much better!

[l33t-g4m3r]

But can it run Crysis Physx? Probably not.

[Darkmage]

IMO, I don't see mainstream application using anything more than 4 threads. The cost/benefits aren't there. It is hard enough for coders to make a program efficient with two threads nevermind utilizing three or four threads.

The only thing I'm aware of currently is some video editors. I use Cyberlink's PowerDirector and it will peg all four cores/eight threads when rendering. Not bad for a $90 program, but it's the only program I have that even comes close.