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Totally agree with Linus. These >10 cores smarphones etc. look just like marketing trick, not that user would feel any meaningful difference. Same goes for PCs
by kbart 12y ago
Totally agree with Linus. These >10 cores smarphones etc. look just like marketing trick, not that user would feel any meaningful difference. Same goes for PCs -- usually you won't feel any difference between running, let's say, 4 and 8 core CPU (of the same architecture), except synthetic benchmark tests that have not much to do with actual performance. Of course, there are some corner cases where it makes sense (scientific calculations, heavy graphics, simulations, compiling etc.), but a common user does not benefit much.
- sklogic 12y agoCompiling is not such a corner case. Even non-developers, "common users" are often enjoying the source-based Linux distributions, things like Mac Ports and alike.
- kbart 12y agoEven so, I doubt it's an every day task for them. Also, most popular open source projects provide ready binaries of the stable versions for such users. Still, I hardly imagine my grandma compiling some open source projects for her use..
- sklogic 12y agoAlmost every time I install or update something from mac ports, it's ending up compiling, binaries are very rarely cached. I doubt my setup is unusual (the latest OS X and the latest XCode). And I suspect that, for example, JS engines in the browsers are going to be more and more parallel. And that kind of compilation is something that every user does on a daily basis. More cores => smoother web browsing experience. Not that I approve this whole thing that's going on with the JS craze, but it's the fact everyone have to cope with, unfortunately.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dagw 12y agoMore cores => smoother web browsing experience. When going from 1->4 cores, agreed. When going from 4->16->64 cores I'm not convinced. Especially if those 64 cores are slower and have less cache.
- sklogic 12y agoMy point is that because of stagnation of ILP and cache size, the number of cores will increase anyway, so we'd have to find a way to utilise this resource anyway. Of course, trading single core performance for the number of cores is pointless in most of the desktop use cases.