4 ms·

Since the article does refer to these as desktop CPUs, I'm curious what kind of desktop workloads people are running that could benefit from / justify them?

castratikron 9y ago
This could make a good build machine.
IanCutress 9y ago
Intel likes to market these CPUs to people who 'mega-task'. Video Editing while Gaming while Streaming while Hosting a server while Dealing with encrypted data while Multi-monitor while Contributing to science while while while etc AMD hasn't really declared which market they are after yet. It's likely going to be a big part of the launch event.
- Theodores 9y ago
  Mega task - as in have a hundred tabs open, a dozen Excel spreadsheets plus Outlook. Maybe there will be lots of cores since there is no more Moore's law, 32 core computing will be the new core i5 with 64 core computing being the new i7. Some software might run albeit slowly on older computers that only have 16 cores. In this future the choice of 64 core computing is one of those things like car choice. Obviously we need cars electronically restricted to 155, we would not consider a car that only did 120 or so. There is a theoretical scenario where that vital power is needed but it is not a rational decision based on cost benefit analysis. Therefore you can expect a change over time to where core total becomes marketing.
- floatboth 9y ago
  Heh, IIRC the "mega-task" thing is very very recent, likely in direct response to AMD upping the core counts with Ryzen. (well, technically FX was 8 core but let's not go there)
IntelMiner 9y ago
I've been debating moving to one for a Gentoo build box Beyond that, I could see highly scaled workloads like video editing that could take advantage of that much raw CPU power
- Qantourisc 9y ago
  BTW I had to move to tmpfs to keep this CPU busy when building Gentoo stuff.
subb 9y ago
Gamedev is a good candidate. Compiling in parallel, running different processes that transform resources, running a not yet optimized game engine in debug build, etc.
phkahler 9y ago
I used to dabble in real-time ray tracing. My box is from 2005 though so it was never really great. These chips should easily do moderate complexity scenes at 720p and 60fps, and that's just an 8 core. Figure 1080p 60fps with 16 cores. But then we'll go 4K and turn on a lot more features and slow it down to a crawl again...
- floatboth 9y ago
  Wow, real-time raytracing at 60fps? Define "moderate complexity" :) I've tried the Real Time Path-traced Quake 2 that's implemented with GPU shaders https://amietia.com/q2pt.html https://amietia.com/q2pt.html and it's… not fast and grainy.
  - phkahler 9y ago
    Path tracing uses a lot of rays per pixel. I do a single eye-ray and a few to the light sources for the surface intersected, and of course reflections. I do have a scheme for handling large numbers of light sources to some extent. I would say moderate complexity definitely includes a near-full-screen object of arbitrary polygon count. It may also include environments like anything from the quake series - including light sources. Of course I need to buy one of these things and try out the old code to see if we're really there yet. Until then I'm still speculating.
stusmall 9y ago
I've got a lot of slow build in my life. Large compiled projects are CPU heavy, easily parallelized workloads that offer a great ROI on speeding up. The cost of a new CPU is very little compared to wasted engineer time and broken concentration.
blattimwind 9y ago
I thought "Hacker News" is mainly composed of developers?
zmarty 9y ago
I do a lot of video editing, color grading, and video encoding.
clarry 9y ago
It's fun being able to start a bunch of brute force number crunching jobs that peg cores for hours and still be able to use the computer as if nothing's going on. Browse, code, listen to music, watch video, everything runs smoothly.
- floatboth 9y ago
  Speaking of brute force, fuzzing!
floatboth 9y ago
make -j32 :)
icelancer 9y ago
If they iron out the AVX issues, then ffmpeg is what I am most looking forward to switching to Ryzen for.

castratikron 9y ago

This could make a good build machine.

IanCutress 9y ago

Intel likes to market these CPUs to people who 'mega-task'. Video Editing while Gaming while Streaming while Hosting a server while Dealing with encrypted data while Multi-monitor while Contributing to science while while while etc AMD hasn't really declared which market they are after yet. It's likely going to be a big part of the launch event.

Theodores 9y ago
Mega task - as in have a hundred tabs open, a dozen Excel spreadsheets plus Outlook. Maybe there will be lots of cores since there is no more Moore's law, 32 core computing will be the new core i5 with 64 core computing being the new i7. Some software might run albeit slowly on older computers that only have 16 cores. In this future the choice of 64 core computing is one of those things like car choice. Obviously we need cars electronically restricted to 155, we would not consider a car that only did 120 or so. There is a theoretical scenario where that vital power is needed but it is not a rational decision based on cost benefit analysis. Therefore you can expect a change over time to where core total becomes marketing.
floatboth 9y ago
Heh, IIRC the "mega-task" thing is very very recent, likely in direct response to AMD upping the core counts with Ryzen. (well, technically FX was 8 core but let's not go there)

IntelMiner 9y ago

I've been debating moving to one for a Gentoo build box Beyond that, I could see highly scaled workloads like video editing that could take advantage of that much raw CPU power

Qantourisc 9y ago
BTW I had to move to tmpfs to keep this CPU busy when building Gentoo stuff.

subb 9y ago

Gamedev is a good candidate. Compiling in parallel, running different processes that transform resources, running a not yet optimized game engine in debug build, etc.

phkahler 9y ago

I used to dabble in real-time ray tracing. My box is from 2005 though so it was never really great. These chips should easily do moderate complexity scenes at 720p and 60fps, and that's just an 8 core. Figure 1080p 60fps with 16 cores. But then we'll go 4K and turn on a lot more features and slow it down to a crawl again...

floatboth 9y ago
Wow, real-time raytracing at 60fps? Define "moderate complexity" :) I've tried the Real Time Path-traced Quake 2 that's implemented with GPU shaders https://amietia.com/q2pt.html https://amietia.com/q2pt.html and it's… not fast and grainy.
- phkahler 9y ago
  Path tracing uses a lot of rays per pixel. I do a single eye-ray and a few to the light sources for the surface intersected, and of course reflections. I do have a scheme for handling large numbers of light sources to some extent. I would say moderate complexity definitely includes a near-full-screen object of arbitrary polygon count. It may also include environments like anything from the quake series - including light sources. Of course I need to buy one of these things and try out the old code to see if we're really there yet. Until then I'm still speculating.

stusmall 9y ago

I've got a lot of slow build in my life. Large compiled projects are CPU heavy, easily parallelized workloads that offer a great ROI on speeding up. The cost of a new CPU is very little compared to wasted engineer time and broken concentration.

blattimwind 9y ago

I thought "Hacker News" is mainly composed of developers?

zmarty 9y ago

I do a lot of video editing, color grading, and video encoding.

clarry 9y ago

It's fun being able to start a bunch of brute force number crunching jobs that peg cores for hours and still be able to use the computer as if nothing's going on. Browse, code, listen to music, watch video, everything runs smoothly.

floatboth 9y ago
Speaking of brute force, fuzzing!

floatboth 9y ago

make -j32 :)

icelancer 9y ago

If they iron out the AVX issues, then ffmpeg is what I am most looking forward to switching to Ryzen for.