> The CPU does have a huge flops number, but nothing "desktop" can saturate that many cores, especially when the system comes with a GPU. I've seen this blend

> The CPU does have a huge flops number, but nothing "desktop" can saturate that many cores, especially when the system comes with a GPU. I've seen this blend of argument being made towards multicore CPUs when AMD and Intel started selling them. Critics started claiming these new chips were being designed like Gilette razors, and there was no way desktop applications, not even AAA games, could ever saturate so many cores. It took Supreme Commander to be released to get these critics to finally shut up. The moral of the story is that today's software was designed targeting yesterday's hardware. Nevertheless, even today you'd be hard-pressed to find a single application that doesn't run multiple threads, and on top of that you'd be hard-pressed to find a single desktop user that only runs a single application when working on a computer. Even smartphones today are packing CPUs with 8 cores. And finally, HN being a tech-related forum, most of the people here work on software. Your typical run-of-the-mill build process is embarrassingly parallel. This means that all it takes to saturate that many cores is for anyone to hit "build". And I won't even go into ML.