Core 2 Duo vs Core 2 Quad

[Gna]

Originally Posted by ohenry

I can't beat it, but I can come close ... one of my jobs was sorting the paper punch cards for the big computers. Are we old, or what? LOL

We're dinos...

[zetachi]

LOL 1st computer course in College we used punch cards to write our programs, my roommate had a trash 80

Quad cores do nice when using F@H 2xSMP clients and a GPU client running on a GTX260. Also Adobe lightroom supports quad core and 64bit OS

[Gna]

OK, back to the subject:

For Macs (OSX) this is the software that (officially) can handle multi-threading:
OS X itself (kernel, AppKit)
Anything using Cocoa networking is automatically multi-threaded.
Mail
Safari
iChat
iTunes
VmWare
XCode
Photoshop
Finder

An embarrassingly short list, imo.

But it gets worse, because although Mail, Safari, iChat, and iTunes can handle multi-threading, there is no beneficial reason why they should! So the capability to handle multi-threading is actually useless IRL for these apps. And my VMware Fusion running Win7 RC was slow as molasses! So I strongly suspect it used just one core (didn't check core temperatures). A pretty safe bet, imo.
That, BTW, also points to the fact that Micro$haft's Win7 Release Candidate – their 'latest and greatest operating system' that's supposed to be the state-of-the-art is/was only coded for single-threading.... Hardly believable M$ would launch a 2009 operating system Release Candidate that runs on only one core, but that's what everything points to!

So, can anyone of you Windows users list what applications under Windows are coded for multi-threading?

[zetachi]

Found this list online

THE LIST:
Real-World Applications
3D Studio MAX using Mental Ray Renderer
Adobe Premiere Elements
AutoGK
Nero Vision
Cinema 4d Rendering
DVDShrink v3.2
Lightwave 3D
Nero Suite
Noise Ninja
Sony Vegas
TMPG XPress
Winrar
x264 v0.55.663
AVG Anti Virus
Convert X to DVD
GNU Compiler
Bzip2
Navier-Stokes 3D Fluid Flow Simulator
Xilisoft HD Video Converter
Adobe: After Effects CS4
Windows Media Encoder
x264 HD benchmark
AutoDesk 3ds Max 9
Photoshop CS4
Easy Media Creator 10
Cyberlink Power Director 6 Plus
ProShow Gold 3.2
Pinnacle Studio 12
Core DVD Movie Factory 7
Cyberlink Power Producer 5
Corel® Video Studio X2
Microsoft Office Excel 2007
FineReader v9.0
DivX Codec v6.8
Sobey Edit Max 7
Newtek Lightwave v9.5
DVD Flick
Videora IPod Converter
Benchmark/Distributed Computing Applications
BOINC Clients
Folding@home SMP client
Muon1 DPAD
OCCT
Prime95
wprime
Valve Source Engine Particle Simulation
POV-Ray 3.7
CINEBENCH R10
3DMark 06
3D Vantage
PassMark Performance Test
POV-Ray 3.7
Games
Supreme Commander
Grand Theft Auto 4
Unreal Tournament 3
Flight Simulator X
10tacle: Elevon
Activision/Lionhead: The Movies
Lost Planet
The Last Remnant
Left 4 Dead
ArmA 2
World in Conflict
Crysis
Far Cry 2
Alan Wake
Kingsoft Mission Against Terror
Rybka
Anno 1404: dawn of Discovery
Red Faction: Guerrilla
Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising
Left For Dead 2
Prototype
Resident Evil 5
Tomb Raider Underworld
Prince of Persia 2008

[Gna]

That's quite a list, zetachi! And which ones of those actually benefit from multi-threading IRL? I would assume that's the graphics apps, no?

[zemlin]

in case there's any question, that list is certainly not all-inclusive. I have a number of programs (some of them small-time) that will max out a quad core that aren't on that list.

[Paul Shields]

I think concentrating on CPU for multi-threading is misplaced. The future for us digital photographers will be OpenCL . I'm waiting patiently for some real world examples of this (having just upgraded to Snow Leopard), but I think off-loading all of that repetitive number-crunching to the GPU should see significant gains.

[Gna]

Originally Posted by Paul Shields

I think off-loading all of that repetitive number-crunching to the GPU should see significant gains.

Agreed. But I'm not holding my breath: I remember thinking exactly the same in 1978 about solid state memory, and that's what I thought in 1970 about nuclear fusion... And today, in 2009, the 21st century, neither technology is anywhere near mainstream use yet!