How fast does technology change?

J

Jamin43

banned
I'm planning on doing my 1st build toward end of this year - early next year with Windows 7. and will probably keep whatever computer I build for a good 5 years.

I'm looking at Dual Core - and Quad core processors. How much will processor speed - MOBO / and feature - funcitonality change or expand of Quad Core processors / price come down / over the next 7-12 months.

Right now - it looks like the quad core architecture is ahead of Software that will be able to utilize it. How long til software starts to be designed to really need quad core arch in order to function as designed? Or in other words - how long til dual core is dated?
 
It is nearly impossible to give hard numbers for this, but so far Moore's law has held true. That being said, I speculate that within a year the current hardware on the market will comedown in price by half, the new, high-end CPUs out will be nearly twice as fast and the majority of software will still be lagging behind the capabilities of the hardware.

Dual-core is dated now depending on how you look at it. If you keep waiting to purchase the latest and greatest, you will be forever waiting. Purchase what you can afford now to meet your current needs. Upgrade in the future when your needs change.
 
What do you need the computer for? If you only do browsing, music, movies, msn, word processing/schoolwork and the likes, a dual-core will be fine. For "everyday usage" dual-cores seem to be the norm now, even though a single-core would usually do the job just as well. However, in enthusiast/high-performance scenarios dual-cores are obsolete, but if you planned a computer for such usage, you wouldn't even dream of it lasting for 5 years.
 
i thought high speed dual cores where real good too?? Kuma @ 3.4?? i do pretty well in benches.

But yeah quad cores are the new normal as of right now. The new trend that is coming in is 2 socket motherboard supporting 2 quad processors, but obviously thats going to take awhile to move into mainstream.. Intel tried to make a single eight core processor but with the cache limits and fsb limit, it didnt work out.

i wonder how long it would take for a 2 socket motherboard to come down in price.. epic
 
Moore's Law states that the number of transistors on a CPU doubles every 18 months meaning that processor power will increase (something to that extent).
 
I wouldn't call dual core CPUs obsolete yet. Dated yes, but only now are quad-core chips catching up to dual-core chips in clock speed.

Quads are only faster if your software can use all those extra cores. A single threaded application will always run faster on the higher-clocked (comparable) single-core vs multiple-core CPU. You just get to run more of them concurrently on the multi-core chip.
 
I don't think that dual cores are obsolete or even struggling just yet, i am still on an old dual core conroe (thats the 65nm, not 45nm to those that don't know) technology and manage to run everything very quickly on full settings if it has options for settings, and my processor isn't really that powerful at all by todays standards.

As for them being outdated, i am thinking you are trying to say then that quad cores are now standard, which clearly isn't true because software has only just been able to make use of 2 core capabilities, 4 cores, the majority have no chance at the moment and i can't see it being of use any time soon either unless you plan on running a load of seperate pieces of software simultaneously, and the only scenario a normal user would have for that, and to cause strain, would be to be running a game, music, the internet, MSN and maybe if they want to record, some kind of recording software or xfire or something. Any dual core system can do that no problems.

However i will agree that if you are on a graphics or video editing system, then dual core is outdated. Because the software used there needs to do so much at once it can harbor the power of all cores and is pretty much necessary today, but as that isn't the general, every day user, that doesn't make the dual cores outdated.

As for the 2 processor boards, you can get some pretty cheap ones now, so cheap infact that one of my friends got given one for free by his college, they were going to sell it on, saw the prces they could get and this came up in conversation between him and one of his teachers and he ended up getting a free board out of it.

For those that don't understand what we are on about with dual processor boards (though it is pretty self explanitory:P) do a google of eatx (extended atx) and it will come up with quite a bit.

After doing that just then i found this:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/506/1030506/4s-eatx-opteron-board--showed-by--tyan

Is that 4 processor board real :eek:?
 
Aastii said:
...
After doing that just then i found this:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/506/1030506/4s-eatx-opteron-board--showed-by--tyan

Is that 4 processor board real :eek:?
Click to expand...


Yes, that board is quite real. :)

Actually...I'll have to see if I can dig up an ancient 12-socket board from the mid 90's I have in storage (an old mainframe blade). I can't remember what it's from. I also have a mid-late 90's multi CPU PowerPC tower around somewhere. Things like this have been around for some time now.

I agree with what you are saying in regards to software making use of the multi-core systems. Software tends to lag behind the hardware. I do believe that dual-core systems are viable. Two of my machines still are duals for the sole reason that the quad-core variants are not fast enough yet (for those machine's purposes anyway).

While we are heading towards many-core being the defacto standard, I would actually say that dual-core CPUs are standard now. Core count will go up and up, and once programmers get more and more comfortable with multi-threaded programming, we will begin to see more of the benefits of these multi-core systems.


Edit:
StrangleHold said:
By the time you read this your computer is outdated:D
Click to expand...

Ha ha! Well put. That's the fun part about discussing technology. :P
 
Last edited:
Yes, that board is quite real.

Actually...I'll have to see if I can dig up an ancient 12-socket board from the mid 90's I have in storage (an old mainframe blade). I can't remember what it's from. I also have a mid-late 90's multi CPU PowerPC tower around somewhere. Things like this have been around for some time now.
Click to expand...

I understand that multi CPU systems have been around for yonks now, my main thing of how can that be a real thing is that it is so small. The site said about how it would fit into a normal sized case, and to have 4 processors, crap loads of memory and all the chips for each and for that to be able to fit into your ordinary bog standard case is ridiculous
 
While technology is always changing, there are certain times when it's wise and certain times when it's not wise to buy new hardware. For instance, the Core i7's are great processors and haven't been around for too long, if you purchase a quad-core i7 now you are pretty much guaranteed that there won't be a better series of CPU's for quite some time (meaning several months to a year). However you don't want to invest in a new system when you know something state of the art is arriving within the next 1-2 months, for instance purchasing a brand new computer with a Pentium D when the Core 2 Duo's were coming out a month later.

Sure higher clocked processors come out almost every few months, and new video cards as well. However as of recently all the new stuff has just been a slight improvement over the current equipment. Just read up online to see whats due in the next few months before buying.
 
Good info on this thread.

I tend to keep computers longer than most ( 5 years ) so I don't want to buy the lagger - so I'm leaning toward quad core for my build late this year. I did notice that the processor speed was lagging the dual core processors - and they look to run a little hotter. But in a year or so - the price should come down and processor speed sounds like it'll be up on par with dual cores in my price range. Maybe DDR3 memory will come down in price too.

I'm still working on a Pentium 4 - that slows up whenver I need to do any kindof scan - and occasionally gets the frozen blue screen. I've got a secondary computer I can use when one computer is more or less tied up.
 
Aastii said:
I understand that multi CPU systems have been around for yonks now, my main thing of how can that be a real thing is that it is so small. The site said about how it would fit into a normal sized case, and to have 4 processors, crap loads of memory and all the chips for each and for that to be able to fit into your ordinary bog standard case is ridiculous
Click to expand...

Ah...I understand and agree. That is a ridiculous amount of power to put in a standard ATX case. :)


Jamin43 said:
Good info on this thread.

I tend to keep computers longer than most ( 5 years ) so I don't want to buy the lagger - so I'm leaning toward quad core for my build late this year. I did notice that the processor speed was lagging the dual core processors - and they look to run a little hotter. But in a year or so - the price should come down and processor speed sounds like it'll be up on par with dual cores in my price range. Maybe DDR3 memory will come down in price too.

I'm still working on a Pentium 4 - that slows up whenver I need to do any kindof scan - and occasionally gets the frozen blue screen. I've got a secondary computer I can use when one computer is more or less tied up.
Click to expand...

An i7 is on the leading edge right now. AMD may be rolling out more PhenomII's by year end. And, even a Core 2 Quad or one of the current AMD Phenom would be a decent upgrade for you right now...but you may be considdering those the laggers.

There will always be something new on the horizon. Evaluate the market again when the time approaches for the actual purchase. The computer playing field can change quickly.
 
DDR3 will come down in price? It's already dirt cheap at $79 for 6GB!

In a year though we very well may have octo-core processors, so there's really no point in planning for a build now that won't happen for a year.
 
[-0MEGA-];1222962 said:
DDR3 will come down in price? It's already dirt cheap at $79 for 6GB!

In a year though we very well may have octo-core processors, so there's really no point in planning for a build now that won't happen for a year.
Click to expand...

I guess I'm in the learning phase - I'll chose parts closer to build date. Up until a week ago - I didn't know anything but the buzz words of RAM - Dual Core - and a couple other non-techie computer words. I got a ways to go til I can select parts. Reading this site and others is slowly briding the gaps.
 
[-0MEGA-];1222962 said:
...In a year though we very well may have octo-core processors, so there's really no point in planning for a build now that won't happen for a year.
Click to expand...

The Cell processor came out a few years ago...but yeah, that's a special case. ;)

Has Intel given any clearer time line for their 8-core beasts?


Jamin43 said:
I guess I'm in the learning phase - I'll chose parts closer to build date. Up until a week ago - I didn't know anything but the buzz words of RAM - Dual Core - and a couple other non-techie computer words. I got a ways to go til I can select parts. Reading this site and others is slowly briding the gaps.
Click to expand...

Learning is a good thing. Starting from scratch and jumping into a build can be daunting, but the information is out there. I'm glad we could help you in the process. Let us know if you have any further questions. We can help de-mystify buzz words.
 
Zatharus said:
Learning is a good thing. Starting from scratch and jumping into a build can be daunting, but the information is out there. I'm glad we could help you in the process. Let us know if you have any further questions. We can help de-mystify buzz words.
Click to expand...

I basically read

* this site

&

* http://techreport.com/

every day to educate myself on technology and search for answers to specific questions I have via google and / or here as an interactive forum.

Are there any other sites you'd recommend as a good resource worthy of daily reading?

Thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top