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Ask HN: Why are modern Intel CPUs not getting a lot more cores?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are modern Intel CPUs not getting a lot more cores?

#11

Post by BatFastard »

valarauca1 wrote: post #9

1) Nobody writes multi-threaded code For user applications multi-threading is overkill. It's hard to write, and there are very little benefits the average user will see. Good concurrency isn't even that important on servers. You can trash your cache and interrupt tables but you'll still handle 10million clients per node so nobody cares. Great concurrency is really only practiced in HFT and HPC. 2) Modern hardware/OS'…

Game engines really benefit from more processors if designed appropriately. And I think a lot of people play games. This will be even more true when VR/AR spreads to the masses.

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern Intel CPUs not getting a lot more cores?

#12

Post by melling »

detaro wrote: post #5
melling wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many applications are actively running on a modern desktop? The kernel and GUI... The modern browser with Javascript engine? An always listening Cortana or Siri would be nice for many people. What's the current threading on modern games? I'd think at least 8 cores could be utilized.

But could they be better utilized than 4 cores with the same energy budget and cost? Most of the time, most applications use barely any CPU at all. What you really feel is the moments when a single application suddenly needs a lot of CPU, and when it isn't parallelized it wants a single fast one, not several slower ones. I almost never see my system under 100 % load, but I regularly see processes maxing a single core…

You'd think most apps could be built to utilize at least 2 cores, instead of pinning just 1 core.

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern Intel CPUs not getting a lot more cores?

#13

Post by gpderetta »

All the answers about more cores not being that useful for desktops are true, but there is also the fact that Intel doesn't want to cannibalize its high margin Xeon business by selling high core count cheap desktop CPUs.

Finally for desktops, and especially for mobile, the die real estate is probably put to better use by incorporating a larger integrated GPU.

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern Intel CPUs not getting a lot more cores?

#14

Post by countryqt30 »

valarauca1 wrote: post #9

1) Nobody writes multi-threaded code For user applications multi-threading is overkill. It's hard to write, and there are very little benefits the average user will see. Good concurrency isn't even that important on servers. You can trash your cache and interrupt tables but you'll still handle 10million clients per node so nobody cares. Great concurrency is really only practiced in HFT and HPC. 2) Modern hardware/OS'…

1) I think this argument is plain wrong. It is incorrect that EVERY APP should use ALL CPUS. Rather, different apps use different cpus --> less interrupts --> speed up.

2) I think they are actually very good at what can be done by now. How do you think they are so bad?

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern Intel CPUs not getting a lot more cores?

#15

Post by difftest »

valarauca1 wrote: post #9

1) Nobody writes multi-threaded code For user applications multi-threading is overkill. It's hard to write, and there are very little benefits the average user will see. Good concurrency isn't even that important on servers. You can trash your cache and interrupt tables but you'll still handle 10million clients per node so nobody cares. Great concurrency is really only practiced in HFT and HPC. 2) Modern hardware/OS'…

3: Amdahl's law says that partially parallelizable applications don't see much improvement.

50% parallelizable program will run 33% faster on 2 cores (not 100%) 60% faster on 4 (not 300%).

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern Intel CPUs not getting a lot more cores?

#16

Post by melling »

valarauca1 wrote: post #9

1) Nobody writes multi-threaded code For user applications multi-threading is overkill. It's hard to write, and there are very little benefits the average user will see. Good concurrency isn't even that important on servers. You can trash your cache and interrupt tables but you'll still handle 10million clients per node so nobody cares. Great concurrency is really only practiced in HFT and HPC. 2) Modern hardware/OS'…

Silicon is cheap, my time isn't. i'd rather the task finish in under 2 seconds.

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern Intel CPUs not getting a lot more cores?

#17

Post by elcct »

You can put Xeon in desktop motherboard like with X99 chipset. I myself recently got 22 (44 threads) core one, but for day to day tasks it doesn't make a difference and it is quite expensive. If there was a larger demand then perhaps we could see more of these.

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern Intel CPUs not getting a lot more cores?

#18

Post by valarauca1 »

BatFastard wrote: post #11
valarauca1 wrote: post #9

1) Nobody writes multi-threaded code For user applications multi-threading is overkill. It's hard to write, and there are very little benefits the average user will see. Good concurrency isn't even that important on servers. You can trash your cache and interrupt tables but you'll still handle 10million clients per node so nobody cares. Great concurrency is really only practiced in HFT and HPC. 2) Modern hardware/OS'…

Game engines really benefit from more processors if designed appropriately. And I think a lot of people play games. This will be even more true when VR/AR spreads to the masses.

Yes/No.

Only game engines made in DX12, and Vulkan. And still there is the major road block that Nvidia (>70% market share) only offers 1 compute thread in async-compute mode, and no parallel rendering/compute work so using DX12/Vulkan means your game will work WORSE for 70% of your consumers.

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern Intel CPUs not getting a lot more cores?

#19

Post by gpderetta »

BatFastard wrote: post #8

I agree with the "less core but faster processors are what is most useful on desktops". But I ask, has anyone one or any language made the number of processors/hyperthreads transparent? Ideally I would just create a thread and some load balancing system would distribute it to the correct processor. Am I just behind the times?

scratches head isn't that how the scheduler of any semi-modern operating system work?

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern Intel CPUs not getting a lot more cores?

#20

Post by akavel »

virmundi wrote: post #10
BatFastard wrote: post #8

I agree with the "less core but faster processors are what is most useful on desktops". But I ask, has anyone one or any language made the number of processors/hyperthreads transparent? Ideally I would just create a thread and some load balancing system would distribute it to the correct processor. Am I just behind the times?

On a small number of cores Erlang does this. That's why actors can be in the thousands and still performant.

Also Go language.
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