Warp wrote:
>   I'm wondering: What do people do with so many cores? And I'm talking about
> average people, not people who use POV-Ray 3.7 (who are a rather small
> minority).

You could argue that it makes the system more responsive... but that's a 
scheduling problem.  More cores won't solve scheduling problems, they 
just mask them for a while.

>   About the only usage for multiple cores for the masses (rather than for
> very small niche markets) is computer games which support multithreading.
> 
>   However, I wonder if anyone has actually benchmarked how well current
> multithreading-supporting games scale up with increased amount of cores
> (and processors).

Yes, several times.

An extremely well optimized game will gain about 70% from a second core. 
  A third core might get you another 30% (of the baseline), and I don't 
know of any games that actually show a benefit from a fourth core.

>   So what do people need so many cores for? Not everyone uses them for
> multithreaded rendering or video editing.

Heat dissipation and power usage.

Running four cores at 25% each means you can underclock the CPU, with 
all the benefits that entails.

Plus, heat generation is spread in four parts of the die, rather than 
being concentrated in one locale.

So most users run the CPU at a fraction of its potential, and then, when 
it's (admittedly rarely) needed, it's appreciated :)

...Chambers

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