EDIT: For the sake of context, my idea is only in reference to games, not OS's or other apps.

Hello all,

One of the things that has bothered me about mult-core cpu's is the all important question of whether or not the application you will be using will take advantage of all the cores that your cpu has.

For example, dual core cpu's are the norm right now. However, if one whishes, they could go out and buy a quad core. If you were to buy a game, unless you did in-depth research on the game, you wouldn't know how many cores it supports. Geeks like myself would look into this and see if I could find out if the game supports 'x' number of cores. But the average joe user is likely going to equate that four cores are superior to two cores (which is technically true), therefore I would get better performance out of the four core cpu.

But we know that is not necessarily the case... it all depends on how many threads a game is programmed to take advantage of. I'm sure there are very few games out there that support (take advantage of) quad cores. In comparison, dual core support will be much greater and the joe user who bought the quad proc isn't, in most cases, isn't going to be taking advantage of all four cores, which brings me to my point.

There should be something on a game box that clearly identifies how many cores that game will use. Something simple. Two solid green circles means dual cores are taken advantage of. Four solid green circles would indicate that qaud cores are used. I'm sure you get the idea. There should be something on the game box, as well as on the websites, that indicates how many cores are used by a particular game. In today's world of mult-core cpu's and people wanting to get the best value for their $$$, something like this should be put into place.

I believe there would be much less confusion and questions if something like this were in place.

What do you guys think?

I think why? 4 cores ARE better. Even if your game only uses 2 cores, windows and backround tasks can be assigned to the other cores. Assuming equal clock speeds, there is no (or negligable) difference between the performance of a quad and a dual core.

atm, quad's are only good for multi-threaded apps. at the most, a game wont even take advantage of a dual core, much less a quad core. It may seem faster because background tasks are pushed to a different core. Right now, if you really wanted to play game, AMD/Intel should release a single core processor that operates > 4+ GHz, and have a backup core for background tasks. (Yes, essentially an OC'd dual core.) But since Intel is now making 3+ GHz quad's, they should see how fast they can push a single/dual core.

B-Unit,

Yes, I know 4 cores are better as noted in my original post. In answer to your question, why - it's so people don't go out and pay more money for a 4 core cpu that doesn't have much support in games. Why pay for features that aren't likely to be used? If all 4 cores aren't used, you aren't going to see that much difference at all vs. one with fewer cores. If you pay hundreds of dollars more for a four core and don't get to use all four in a game, wouldn't that irritate you? You would be spending more money for a proc that wouldn't give you the money's worth - because the extra cores you paid for aren't being used.

the last resort,

Exactly. Well said.

if you have a quad and a dual core system, and you both use them on a daily basis, you would see the difference between the two. i use both a dual core and quad core system...my q9450 which i am on most of the time, and a secondary system running a E8200 both OC-ed to 3.2 (modest OC i know ). i do agree that gaming now rely mostly on clock speed which is why dual cores are efficient for them, but the overall performance in MY opinion and experience is that the quad core is so much smoother in everything else (other applications, windows, multi-tasking etc). i can take my dual core to a very high % CPU usage, while my quad with the programs i use, i can barely get it passed 20% mark. just my experience though, the only time i can max my Q9450 is on prime95. so i feel that a quad is great for everything. i honestly don't think gaming will be a bottleneck if you have a CPU at the 3.2ghz+ range (i could be wrong) but i never noticed any apparently bottlenecking affects. in my opinion, within the next few years, multi-threaded games will be of common place and that is when the multi-core will ultimately shine. hell, when i downloaded the devil may cry 4 demo, the start up screen had a intel icon and it said (runs great on intel Core2 QUADS) i was gleeing with happiness. the future is not too far off my friends.

New games do/will have multi-thread capability. What would irritate me more is buying a dual core only to not have the best performance in 6 months when I get all the new quad enabled games.

That sounds great on paper, but are there any such games coming down the pike? None that I am aware of. But I certainly could be wrong. But that takes us back to the main point of this thread: perhaps if there were a standard convention for indicating the number of cores used, we would know how many cores a game would use ahead of time.

I am relatively confident that if I bought a dual core e8400 today, there are likely no games that it could NOT be capable of playing over the next two years (no game developer will repeat Crytek's mistake of making a game that isn't playable until long after the game has hit the bargain bins). The vast, critical mass of gamers are still using dual core, and game developers will continue to cater to this population for the foreseeable future.

It would be nice to know right on the box, or at least be able to look it up on the game makers website.
Biggest problem i see though, is that you can say a game uses 4 cores, but may use one core at 100% and 5% - 10% on the other cores. Perhaps this would be a good idea for a new website. Review software and rate its multi threadedness in # of cores / efficiency. <shrug> Interesting idea though.

I hear you. I just think it would be a good idea to have an industry standard that is used by developers to clearly show the buyer how many cores are taken advantage of by their games. It would be cool to pick up a game and look at the box (or look at the description on a website) and know how many cores will be used. It would better inform the buyer and might affect their decision on whether or not to buy the brand new 'x' core cpu that just came out and costs big bucks.

FHDeluxe,

Good point. Let's just hope that the developers in general don't release games with that kind of discrepancy between cores.

Heh...

Well.. let me tell ya about my Vista64 bit experience. The CPU usage is quite different. For example, running Super PI (single thread CPU bench) on my old E4400 / XP 32bit, it basically uses one core at 100 percent.

On my Q6600 / Vista 64bit, it actually alternates the loads on the cores. So its not only the game that matters, but what OS your using.

Now I can set the affinity to use just one core, when running Super PI, but the difference is very small (.602 ms on a difference I just ran).

I agree that a quad can make things smoother then a dual. I really haven't ran my E4400 on Vista, but there's not really a reason to.

So I'm just trying to say, don't say that a quad is useless to have if you actually believe it really isn't utilized very much. It's being used pretty well on my Vista system.

And on a side note, my Quad uses 10W more then my E4400 at idle. So the newer 45nm should be less power hungry then my 65nm. Now it will use more power at load (more the 2 cores), but that's a given, since it's 4 cores.

If you ask me, I'm actually surprised how well the cpu usage is not on just one core, but all of them. Game wise, it may not hold benchmark numbers, but hey.. I can play just about anything without it being sluggish on a 8800GTS 512MB (G92).

But hey... if your impressed by benchmark numbers, then go for the dual cores.... It really doesn't matter to me.

Newsflash, games these days are far more GPU intensive than CPU.

Dual vs. Quad makes a hell of a lot less difference than 8800GTS vs 8600GTS.

Should game manufactuers post benchmarks of how their game runs on common video cards as well?

Where does it end?

Dual Core vs Quad Core makes no difference in 95% of games currently. Also, I'm pretty sure nobody is going to be frustrated that their processor is "too" fast for a game. If you're spending $300 on a CPU, do some research, don't expect Blizzard to do it for you.

Agreed. I was going to mention that.. but got side tracked.

Yea I agree with FHDelux, itll be a while before these programmers smell the Starbucks and program things the correct way so a program doesn't use 100% of 1 core like an idiot and barely use other cores.

Plus ppl have been talking about Windows using other cores for background tasks...does it even do that? is this confirmed?