I was reading the Jeff Atwood post on this topic and was wondering how much of that is still true today. His post is from Sept. 2007. This question stems from another question I asked recently which sent me to another question on the topic. So my question really is: As of late July 2009, what is the point of diminishing returns when it comes to CPU Cores?
I am looking to build me a development workstation for home. But I also want to play games (FPS, RTS) and do some work with Photoshop.
Answer
Ultimately software needs to be written multi-threaded to use the cores and get the full performance out of the machine. The applications you mention, Photoshop and most 3D games are already written to use the hardware and have been for years.
Just don't expect notepad or ms-paint to be any quicker :-)
Multi-cores are going to be ubiquitous in the future, (if they aren't already), and Microsoft and Apple are working very hard to make using all the cores as easy as possible for developers.
I personally don't look at the number of cores, but I look for the sweet price / performance spot when it comes to processors.
Normally Intel have their high end processor with their highest clock speed, and number of cores that is really expensive. I then look at the lower clock speed versions of that processor and find that there is a reasonably priced high end processor. Not the highest end processor, but still a really good one for a good price.
I then take the money I would have spent on the processor and use it to put as much memory in the machine as it will take / I can afford.
I think that gives the best performance for price, aka bang for your buck.
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