[Gllug] Duo Core processor 4Gb Ram laptop

[j.roberts]

Tethys wrote:
> --------
> 
> Richard Jones writes:
> 
>> Ain't gonna happen ...
> 
> Agreed. Nor is it desireable, as far as I can see. There are a few
> niche markets (HPC being one of them) that benefit from such things.
> But for the rest of us, multi core and NUMA is probably more beneficial
> anyway. A quick ps shows me to have 150 odd processes running on my
> mostly idle machine, and multiple CPUs can certainly help there...

I run an application that can make use of all the cores it can get, and 
that is not very esoteric: this is Cubase 4. It's a Digital Audio 
Workstation (DAW) that does real-time synthesis and audio modification, 
and is the only app I have that really loads the cores. This is (I 
speculate at least) because each of the synthesizer core process is 
small enough to fit several into a CPU level 1 cache while the waveform 
tables in use fit into the level 2 cache. In any case, there is a just 
about linear relation between number of cores and the number of 
instruments and effects I can synthesize in (near) real time:

- about 30 instruments together with audio track playback, some 20 audio 
processors and overall < 15ms latency with a Q6600.

Other DAW apps also benefit.

However this benefit does not scale with the Intel architecture to 
multiple CPU sockets (according to testing I have seen), probably 
because of the Intel architecture. This should improve with the new 
Wolfdale designs, and should also be better on the new AMD's - which I 
will test when I get an opportunity. I'd like the upcoming 6-core design 
I think.

Sorry to go on, but it's just that this (Digital Audio Workstation) is 
the only non-server app I personally know where multi-core scales really 
well - probably because of the discrete nature of the processes involved.

I know that there are also benefits in video applications, but the 
scaling is I believe less linear.

MeJ
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