cores vs. clockspeed
 

Given the smp support in linux, would you tend to more processor cores, or more clockspeed per cpu? Specifcally, how do specific applications you use take advantage of threading?

I would take the 8 cores just so I could brag about it.

hehe same here

That's what I'm leaning towards. Imagine doing an /cat/cpuinfo and watching it scroll.

8 Cores sounds cooler. I look forward to app that can take advantage of this.

How about the AMD options? I've worked on a Tyan S4882 with 4x Dual core 800-series CPUs. Now, that's a nice work horse...

i go with the 3 rd options 4 cores at 2.4 ghz cause its kinda in the middle of the spectrum

Just out of curiosity: as a desktop user with no large calculations or compilations to do, what's the point in having more than 2 cores? Or high clockspeed for that matter? I understand faster is better but it doesn't happen that often that I'm waiting on an application which doesn't involve lots of disc activity and I believe faster also means more power & cooling needed, in that I'd gain the most from having lots of fast RAM, I think.
So, what can I use more cores for?

Share it around!
 

One core for the O.S. to play with and page (if necessary), and the other for the application you are using.

If you're not doing any major grunt work (games / photo manipulation / video copying), then 2x cores of the slowest you can find would be fine.

Have a look at the new AMD BE series. The BE2300 or BE2350 consume no more than 45W (compared to 69-85) and don't need to spin fans as fast, so they're quieter too.

HTH,

L.B.

also generally the more cores you have teh greater the cache on the processor allowoing for faster memory retrieval.. but if you have high speed ram and a high speed memory bus on your bored then there isnt much point other then for bragging rights

Yep, give me the octo core with 256MB of RAM and a single hard drive. Do you get what I mean? Most people will find that other components are the bottleneck .

I have too little technical background to fully understand the issues around multi-core. With a bit of googling it's easy to find some information but it usually focuses on 2 angles:
- multi-core processing works great for applications that have been designed/programmed with multiple threads/processes (whatever's more appropriate here) in mind,
- the Linux SMP kernel with scheduler performs load balancing, distributing threads/processes over the cores available.

What I'm missing here is how much effect a desktop user will experience by running several apps that haven't been developed specifically for parallel processing ('enough' apps to put an interesting load on the system, whatever that may be). Or a different view: what's the role of the window manager on a multi-core system? Is the WM simply unaware of the amount of CPUs and has it have the kernel sorting things out or do I need a multi-core WM in order to see all cores being used effectively?

A recent entry on the Coding Horror blog has something about clockspeed vs 2 - 4 cores. It's Windows centric and raises more questions than it answers (see comments) but it's on topic here:
in short: a 3.0GHz 2-core often gives better performance than a 2.4GHz 4-core. YMMV, of course.

Well, it may be important that current quad cores are not "pure" quad core yet afaik. Just like Pentium D, they simply stitch two CPUs together rather than integrating them into a proper unit.

Higher counts on cores allow you to do more at once. But there is a catch, packing too many cores on a single die does diminish the entire CPU's efficiency when it comes to getting data from memory. You're effectively dividing your FSB by the number of cores.

But then again, Tillera has a 64 Core chip already out, with plans to roll out a 128 core chip before 2010.

8 cores the way to go.