Windows Phone + Octa-Core processors... I laughed when I read that.
The problem with digital journalism is that practically anyone can say virtually anything they like. As a result, the vast majority of the content on the internet is mind numbingly idiotic. So while I'm not surprised to find an article like this, I really can't stop myself from commenting.
Yes! I get it, Android OEM's are rushing to support them. But the article amusingly points out that the author admits that the benefits from a 8 core processor aren't yet apparent on mobile platforms. This is where I laughed the loudest. The benefits of 8 core processors are largely not realized on ANY platform.
They have existed for some time on desktops and are popping up in gaming consoles. But the reality is that even on these systems, it is still rare to see more than 1 or 2 cores actually being made use of. I'll guarantee that some smarter people can name tasks that parallel by nature and would make use of any number of cores. But, by and large these are not common functions that the typical user will actually ever need. Certain types of encoding and complex parallel computations can absolutely make use of 8 course, and heck, in some cases get some pretty awesome performance gains over a single threaded approach. I'm a developer. I've done multithreaded development before. I've analysed application performance before. I know this stuff.
And, even where a task could be broken into multiple parallel chunks, it still rarely happens in practice. Writing multi-threaded code is more complicated than single threaded code, much more prone to bugs and other issues like timing. And frankly, the hobby-like nature of mobile development has attracted a crowd of largely under educated, under performing developers who couldn't write a multi-threaded app to save their bacon.
But for what most of use do, day in and day out on our devices, it isn't really all that conducive to have anything more than a 2-4 core processor. It isn't because we don't need more power. We do. The problem is most tasks (in general, but especially when it comes to consumer applications) don't contain large numbers of disparate tasks that can be run in parallel.
This means that in some cases, more cores is actually worse. The get more cores on a single processor die means more heat that needs to be dissipated. Which in turn means that for each core you add to the die, you need to sacrifice from the top speed or each core. You will still see benefits if the OS is doing load balancing. But the returns are diminishing. In most cases (including laptops and desktops) with modern OS's and applications the sweet spot is a quad-core processor.
But, may gamers will still swear by a dual core for most situations. You get the most pronounced benefit from load balancing with the least clock speed nerfing. As long as you don't have an app or game that relies heavily on there being 3 or more cores (which is exceedingly rare) you actually get the best performance here. Albeit you are probably sacrificing battery life.
And this is why I say 4 cores is generally the sweet spot. There are the rare occurrences where a game will benefit from more than 2 cores and there are apps that can make good use of virtually any number of additional cores, so this makes sure you have what you need should you dabble in those areas. The load balancing benefits roughly halve every time you double the number of cores. In other words, the extra benefit from going from 4 to 8 cores in terms of load balancing is just an extra 1/4 of what was gained from 1 to 2 cores. Not worth it in my opinion just to save a bit of battery life, especially when it means impacting performance. And, the battery gains are only achieved as long as the extra cores mean the average CPU utilization can remain lower. If you start making use of all that extra CPU time to extra cores theoretically make available, you'll actually drain the battery faster.
If I were an OEM or a mobile CPU manufacturer, instead of increasing the number of cores, I would simply increase the clock speed and add more power states to the CPU core. Could see the same sort of battery life gains this way combined with greater performance.
The reality is, we aren't in a world where the average consumer NEEDS more than 2 cores in any device, or noticeably benefits from more than 4. Anyone pushing for more than a quad core is just trying to win a numbers battle and sell you based on that.
Yes! I get it, Android OEM's are rushing to support them. But the article amusingly points out that the author admits that the benefits from a 8 core processor aren't yet apparent on mobile platforms. This is where I laughed the loudest. The benefits of 8 core processors are largely not realized on ANY platform.
They have existed for some time on desktops and are popping up in gaming consoles. But the reality is that even on these systems, it is still rare to see more than 1 or 2 cores actually being made use of. I'll guarantee that some smarter people can name tasks that parallel by nature and would make use of any number of cores. But, by and large these are not common functions that the typical user will actually ever need. Certain types of encoding and complex parallel computations can absolutely make use of 8 course, and heck, in some cases get some pretty awesome performance gains over a single threaded approach. I'm a developer. I've done multithreaded development before. I've analysed application performance before. I know this stuff.
And, even where a task could be broken into multiple parallel chunks, it still rarely happens in practice. Writing multi-threaded code is more complicated than single threaded code, much more prone to bugs and other issues like timing. And frankly, the hobby-like nature of mobile development has attracted a crowd of largely under educated, under performing developers who couldn't write a multi-threaded app to save their bacon.
But for what most of use do, day in and day out on our devices, it isn't really all that conducive to have anything more than a 2-4 core processor. It isn't because we don't need more power. We do. The problem is most tasks (in general, but especially when it comes to consumer applications) don't contain large numbers of disparate tasks that can be run in parallel.
This means that in some cases, more cores is actually worse. The get more cores on a single processor die means more heat that needs to be dissipated. Which in turn means that for each core you add to the die, you need to sacrifice from the top speed or each core. You will still see benefits if the OS is doing load balancing. But the returns are diminishing. In most cases (including laptops and desktops) with modern OS's and applications the sweet spot is a quad-core processor.
But, may gamers will still swear by a dual core for most situations. You get the most pronounced benefit from load balancing with the least clock speed nerfing. As long as you don't have an app or game that relies heavily on there being 3 or more cores (which is exceedingly rare) you actually get the best performance here. Albeit you are probably sacrificing battery life.
And this is why I say 4 cores is generally the sweet spot. There are the rare occurrences where a game will benefit from more than 2 cores and there are apps that can make good use of virtually any number of additional cores, so this makes sure you have what you need should you dabble in those areas. The load balancing benefits roughly halve every time you double the number of cores. In other words, the extra benefit from going from 4 to 8 cores in terms of load balancing is just an extra 1/4 of what was gained from 1 to 2 cores. Not worth it in my opinion just to save a bit of battery life, especially when it means impacting performance. And, the battery gains are only achieved as long as the extra cores mean the average CPU utilization can remain lower. If you start making use of all that extra CPU time to extra cores theoretically make available, you'll actually drain the battery faster.
If I were an OEM or a mobile CPU manufacturer, instead of increasing the number of cores, I would simply increase the clock speed and add more power states to the CPU core. Could see the same sort of battery life gains this way combined with greater performance.
The reality is, we aren't in a world where the average consumer NEEDS more than 2 cores in any device, or noticeably benefits from more than 4. Anyone pushing for more than a quad core is just trying to win a numbers battle and sell you based on that.
Comments
Post a Comment