This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Multi-core processor article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This
level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
Could we perhaps make some new entries listing applications that can run on different amounts of cores? Example: list all modern apps that can run on 4 cores... list apps that can utilize 8 cores... etc. Jacobhaines ( talk) 20:21, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Technically, all programs can use more then one processing unit, provided they use more then one thread at any one point in time. A lot depends on how (or if) the OS assigns programs across multiple processing units. For that reason, answering you question is nigh impossible, although a few examples of good threaded programs do exist [Prime95 and other number-crunching programs are prime examples] -- Gamerk2 ( talk) 18:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Does the AMD FX-8150 really count as 8-core? It has 4 Bulldozer modules that share parts of the core with each other, so it has not got 8 'cores' in the normal sense. GinjaNinja32 ( talk) 10:56, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
They are I/O intensive and as such, do not benefit from a multicore CPU. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.70.95.214 ( talk) 19:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
From the "Advantages" section:
The largest boost in performance will likely be noticed in improved response time while running CPU-intensive processes, like antivirus scans, ripping/burning media (requiring file conversion), or searching for folders.
Aren't anti-virus scans and searching for folders usually IO-bound not processor-bound? Perhaps audio & video processing and 3D rendering would be better examples. Burning media would be IO-bound too, so the conversion stage of ripping media is the only CPU-bound example left (and it counts as "audio & video processing"). — tedp ( talk) 21:35, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Would someone explain in the article how external memory (non-cache) memory is treated and used by the processors. I realize this is operating system dependent, but someone familiar with this in a Windows, Linux envrionment please explain. If there is another wiki that describes this could someone put a link to it?
Put simply, this means that signals between different CPUs travel shorter distances, and therefore those signals degrade less
I do not think signal degradation is the limiting factor based on distance, but rather propagation delay. Signal degradation, as far as I can tell, is only an issue over much larger distances. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.41.255.4 ( talk) 17:21, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
The article lists "file searching" as an advantage. But wouldn't file searching almost certainly be limited by the hard drive speed (or whatever it is on)? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Intel's approach (2 dies in a package) is mentioned. AMD's approach to yield problems, by binning and converting quadcores with a single failed core to triple cores could be mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.6.232.208 ( talk) 09:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
This may be a non-issue, but it seems that multicore is becoming the more popular spelling for multi-core/CMP machines. 68.34.101.214 ( talk) 15:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
From: Manasa Rokobari —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.7.2.119 ( talk) 21:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Given that this is supposed to be an encyclopedia for non-initiates to find info on various topics, is possible to keep the jargon to a minimum? I was interested in knowing precisely what dual core processors were, but I found little that was comprehensible on this particular page. A one-paragraph, jargon-free definition could perhaps be added at the top of this article. Thanks! Episteme1972 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Episteme1972 ( talk • contribs) 17:54, April 3, 2008
I agree ... The author isn't really trying to communicate - it is all just posing. Using 'utilizing' sic)for plain 'using' gives it away, and they don't even mean the same thing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.59.93 ( talk) 21:20, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
You mention the xbox, doesn't the ps3 have more?
The cell has seven cores, and they are actually SPEs, not cores. It would be more accurately to remove the playstation 3 as an example of multi-core because it is atypical. -- Colostomyexplosion ( talk) 14:01, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
The Cell has 8 SPEs (or cores if you like), not nine. One is disabled, and one is used for the OS, that makes seven SPEs or which 6 are accessible to commercial and homebrew applications. Colostomyexplosion ( talk) 13:50, 22 September 2008 (UTC) From: Manasa Rokobari Samuraki —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.7.2.119 ( talk) 21:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to attempt to clean up the commercial examples section, but there are a lot of dubious entries in there. Firstly, is a general purpose microprocessor and a DSP on the same die a multicore processor? I don't believe so, and I will remove them if there are no objections. Secondly, do we need to list every single embedded multicore processor in existence? Since they are more common than hydrogen atoms, I suggest that only those with proven notability (eg. novel design - hundreds of cores, significant market presence, exceptional application) should be included, since a lot of the entries sound like advertisements to me. Thirdly, I think there should be some brief info for each entry on why the processor is notable. What do you think? Rilak ( talk) 05:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I have added picoChip to the listing. I think it is legitmate on two grounds: a) It is described in the text earlier, so should be in the list b) With 200-300 cores per chip, it would pass Rilak's criteria above("novel design - hundreds of cores")
Trust that is acceptable. Rupert baines ( talk) 11:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
"encyclopaedia style"? Dear reader, you may be surprised to learn that "passive voice" and other common style features of previous encyclopedias are discouraged at Wikipedia ( Wikipedia:AWW). We Wikipedians think we can do things better :-). I agree that alphabetical order is neutral and non-judgmental, and therefore should be used unless there is something better. However, I was surprised to learn that none of the example lists in the current version of the relevant Wikipedia style guideline -- Wikipedia:Embedded list -- are in alphabetical order.
Other Wikipedia articles where editors have decided that biggest-number-first is "more suited to an encyclopedia" than alphabetical include (in no particular order) continent, high jump, list of highest mountains, list of tallest buildings and structures in the world, shortwave, slow-scan television#Frequencies, miniaturized satellite, additionally guyed tower, partially guyed tower, and list of catastrophic collapses of radio masts and towers.
Sorting by number of cores has the advantage of making it easier (than alphabetical) for our readers to find the most cores on one chip, the most 32-bit cores on one chip, which number-of-cores are particularly popular ("is 16 cores more popular than 10 cores?"), etc. The number of cores on a particular chip is an objective, verifiable fact that everyone agrees on and is therefore neutral. Except for the "number of cores in a Cell" controversy :-). -- 68.0.124.33 ( talk) 04:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
The problem with the other examples you cite is that the units are consistent and there is no ambiguity on what is "more". In contract, "core" is quite an elastic term: this list encompasses everything from 8 bit cores to 64 bit . As such, I'm not sure that on its own it can answer the questions you raise. Ideally we'd have a table with some dynamic code so you can sort as you need to, but... Maybe some text, describing trends and the notable highlights? Rupert baines ( talk) 13:41, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
I cleaned up the Intel Polaris timeframe from the original relative "5 years" to the absolute announced time of 2011, shout this chip be removed from commercial to a new PROTOTYPE section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.180.31.159 ( talk) 14:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
What is a core? The fist mentioning of the word "core" is on the first line in this article and it points to a disambiguation page, core. This is not good. There should be an article describing a processor core, and it should not redirect to this article. -- Henriok ( talk) 13:31, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
How about we just add this as a discussion? We could have a section on (say), "Definition" and cover this there. I think that Chuck Moore & Anant Agarwal are important enough to reference there different opinions, and it does provide a sensible place for discussion on heterogenous / homegenous. Rupert baines ( talk) 13:33, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
I made this discussion an entry with in 'Architecture' and included the EE Times discussion: Moore & Agarwal are notable enough to be included as commentary. Rupert baines ( talk) 12:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I have a NeXT machine with both 68040 and 56001 on board. As there was very little software to run on the 56001, it was pretty much ignored. Still, it seems to me that in counting cores that a DSP counts just as well as any other CPU. As with clock speed, one shouldn't compare chips on core count alone. Do we need separate pages for heterogeneous multicore processor, and homogeneous multicore processor? Gah4 ( talk) 22:00, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Of note, this article references both the chief engineer at AMD named Chuck Moore, and the designer of the Forth language and the Intellasys SEAforth multicore chip, Chuck Moore. The EE Times discussion section of this article incorrectly links to the latter on Wikipedia when it's about the former. -- 64.58.22.201 ( talk) 20:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
the page isn't objective and isn't platform neutral, and it gives almost no technical insight besides being a advertisement for users how great multi-core is, and then pointing out negatives which aren't actually negative for multi-core systems. Markthemac ( talk) 20:35, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
point:1 In order to continue delivering regular performance improvements for general-purpose processors, manufacturers such as Intel and AMD have turned to multi-core designs, sacrificing lower manufacturing costs for higher performance in some applications and systems. 2
and i think u can read more yourself, games etc are really only interesting for gamers and not developers or anyone really interested in multi-core development and reasons behind certain processes. Markthemac ( talk)
I 'promoted' the section on Embedded to make this distinction clearer (it was a subhead of software which is not the whole part of thing). I also added a section there discussing the differnce in development as a significant impact on markets (eg less need to support legacy code or ISVs) Rupert baines ( talk) 11:44, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
At some point many multi-cored cpus will include cores of various functions... floating point... sound... etc... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnk119 ( talk • contribs) 17:09, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I suggest merging " manycore processing unit" into "multi-core". They look like the same thing to me. -- 68.0.124.33 ( talk) 22:38, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
completely agree. "many-core" is a useful distinction in that it describes a subset of multicore, but the two are closely related and most of the discussion here actually does address many-core.
How best to do this? many-core redirects here? We retitle the page "multicore (and manycore)" ? Rupert baines ( talk) 08:38, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Many-core should be a section of the multi-core page. Cocoaguy ここがいい contribs talk Review Me! 22:03, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I added this as a para in 'Definition'. Most of the body does discuss many-core as it is. Rupert baines ( talk) 12:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I Charles Elliot Keisler Agree with ths dicision the many-core article is small and contains no where near the amount of data that coloud be explaind by merging with the Multi-core Page -- Koman90 ( talk) 19:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I would have thought ManyCore deserves a separate page: Multi Core and Many Core devices are qualitatively different. The former is usually an SMP CPU. The latter is usually a separate accelerator.(network on a chip, scratchpads, non-coherent caches - e.g. adapteva,kalray; throughput oriented, GPUS). Intels MIC is a qualitatively different device to a multicore CPU - designed for throughput over latency. We could keep the divergent issues in their history and current trends separated out. A many-core page could be fleshed out in more detail. Fmadd ( talk) 00:26, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
The first paragraph of the article is a bit long and could ease a little clean up. Perhaps we should break it into two or more paragraphs? Either way, I found one sentence particularly confusing. Can anyone decipher this:
The most commercially significant (or at least the most 'obvious') multi-core processors are those used in personal computers (primarily from Intel and AMD) and game consoles (e.g., the eight-core Cell processor in the PS3 and the three-core Xenon processor in the Xbox 360).
76.22.72.163 ( talk) 09:22, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree the intro was pretty choppy. I re-wrote it and there haven't been any complaints (yet) so I removed the "intro-rewrite" template. MBbjv ( talk) 02:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
The current organization of example chips with the major heading "Commercial examples" seems non-optimal to me since there are few non-commercial chip examples and they probably don't deserve their own major section. Any objections to organizing "Hardware" and "Software" as major headings with "Commercial" and "Research" as sub-headings? BTW, the Univ of Maryland ref does not appear to belong here in my opinion. MBbjv ( talk) 04:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
so we have dual and quad core cpus these days, but not sexa-cores. all of a sudden we jump from latin to greek naming and we have hexa-cores instead. so why didnt we have di- and tetra-cores then instead in the first place? is this some means to avoid the sex(a)- prefix in the english realm? too many people and too many closeminded folks all over this planet? also read: http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/8/25/intel-to-demonstrate-a-32nm-core-i9-cpu-in-september.aspx —Preceding unsigned comment added by Suggestednickname ( talk • contribs) 06:49, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
The result of the move request was page moved. ukexpat ( talk) 03:27, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Multi-core → Multi-core processor — WP:NAME says to use nouns and noun phrases rather than adjectives. Nurg ( talk) 22:02, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Unless Ian Foster is the author of this Wiki article, at least some portions have been plagiarized. Under Software Impact, the section about Partitioning, Communication, etc. were extracted word for word from here: http://www.mcs.anl.gov/~itf/dbpp/text/node16.html Jif101 ( talk) 20:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
The thing that no one seems to want to tell me is this: If a dual- or quad-core CPU is listed, they'll say it's 3.6Ghz. Now, does that mean that the effective speed of the whole thing is two or four times that? So if I buy a dual-core 1.8Ghz, am I really getting 3.6 overall? I mean, obviously there's threading issues that would prevent this, but I'm sure you know what I'm asking. Is the listed speed the overall speed or speed per core? Is there no real speed increase for multiple cores, and really just an efficiency increase? I'm very confused. -- Buddy13 ( talk) 19:04, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
No. If you have a Quad running at 2.5GHz, you have four processing units, each running at a speed of 2.5GHz. While you have a total of 10GHz of processing power (assuming 100% scaling across CPUs), no individual unit can go faster then 2.5GHz. If you have a non-threaded program that runs on a single core, running on a 2.5GHz single core will provide the same exact speed as a 2.5GHz dual-core and a 2.5GHz Quad, because the extra cores are not used. -- Gamerk2 ( talk) 19:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Sorry -- I'm not a "top expert" on this by a long shot but the following line hit me as a bit off-the-mark.
The distinction between 'multi' and 'many' is the same as 'some' and 'a lot'. It's just more cores with no really clear line defining a break point -- I've yet to see one stated. Having something about many vs multi (parent to child style) is good but not as the start of the sentence it is in.
Outside of some SoC attempts, many-core systems are being implemented as multiple multi-core processors -- as in successors to single-core processors by multi-core in multi-processor systems. Outside of the old single CPU to multi-CPU "competition", I see none with respect to these two architectures. They are complementary in nature versus some kind of "replacement" due to limits.
Each CPU in a system has a socket in the board. This grants "off-chip" IO paths of a limited nature irrespective of the number of cores - 1 socket has a path to the rest of the system. So if operations require more off-chip access, multiple CPU's, each with their own bus, will outperform a single CPU with multiple cores. If, on the other hand, you have more "on-chip" processing/communications required, avoiding the CPU's communicate across the bus speeds up that communication plus "on-chip" functions will tend to be faster.
So it's comparing "on-chip" vs "off-chip" and a shuffle of where traffic jams can/will occur. With multiple-cores, they will hit a limit at the shared bus as the cores each require different "off-chip" resources so, at some point, how many cores can be stacked on a single slot/bus will be hit. Diminishing returns style. When? Like I said, it's not my main field and even if it were, I doubt it can be predicted beyond generalization versus exacting -- especially in the generic "computer" market that spans scientific through arts around to 'fun'.
For those looking for a higher performance single CPU slot solution, the multi-core systems tend to be far more cost effective than going with multi-CPU systems and this is how they are positioned in the market across platforms -- multiple-cores > 1 core. As such, this technology is flat out replacing single-cores across most systems that use them but not so with systems that use multiple CPU's -- they are moving (or have moved) to adopt this enhancement as part of their existing architecture.
Last; the NoC comment is also not needed in this area. That's a distraction that really adds nothing to defining multi-core processors in this "introduction" area. SoC if you like but NoC is more a separate "sub-system" commentary than dealing with a CPU's architecture. (sorry "network on a chip" = NoC)
-- Eleazaros ( talk) 05:36, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
There is a new Stanford video on programming many-core computers at How to Program the Many Cores for Inconsistency Robustness with slides available at [1]. It argues for using the Actor model together with "Organizational Programming" 24.180.11.235 ( talk) 04:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
I think the author, or some writer, should edit to say, first, what the advantages are before saying the advantages of multi-core may be lost when the processor is many-core. It would be more structurally sound that way, I think. BriEnBest ( talk) 22:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
This article has been tagged with the following:
yet no one has indicated what the specific needs of this tag are. The tag says, It needs additional references or sources for verification. Tagged since June 2009. Now this article currently has twelve sources. Which part of the article needs sourcing? It's possible that when it was tagged two years ago it had little to no sources, but the problem is when people wantonly tag articles without explanations on the talk page (which is the minimal expectation I have for a tagger) that these articles can sit tagged for years without anything changing. If the lazy buffoons who had tagged this in 2009 had come here and given some indication of what their concerns were, this could have been resolved long ago.
I will remove the tag until such time as the tagger(s) give(s) us some guidance here. HuskyHuskie ( talk) 08:45, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
improvements in CPU manufacturing techniqes have led to another solution:dual-core CPUs(or Chip level Multiprocessing[CMP]). A Dual core CPU is essentially two processors combined on the same die. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.167.196.153 ( talk) 10:16, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
Do you think we should make a new article that's a list instead of including the list in this article? -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 07:56, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I've read quite a few articles that refer to singlecore as 1 core, multicore as 2 to 8 cores and many-cores as 8+ cores. I think the main distinction is running multiple single threaded applications vs running one/several multithreaded applications. In the early days of the Athlon X2, most applications were single threaded, but we are slowly approaching this multi-threaded (many-threaded) era. Is it worth have a separate multi/many core distinction? I do think both should be in the same article regardless. WinampLlama ( talk) 07:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
"The challenge of writing parallel code clearly offsets this benefit.[5]"
Links to: http://www.futurechips.org/chip-design-for-all/a-multicore-save-energy.html
A blog post, which is not clear at all. You might also see from the blog comments that the author ignored voltage, periphericals, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.54.144.229 ( talk) 12:48, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
"Typically,[according to whom?] proprietary enterprise-server software is licensed "per processor"." Is this really true? What is if your PC/server has 2 sockets, do you need 2 licenses then? -- Laber□ T 04:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
It isn't just server software anymore. Read the license on your Windows 7, 8, 10, or even back to NT. It specifies the number of cores (processors) it is licensed for. For NT, I believe it was NT Server that could run on multiple processor systems. Now it should be in non-server versions. Gah4 ( talk) 20:39, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
OpenHMPP Website: http://www.openhmpp.org/ looks very unrelated: "Should You Take Menopause Supplements? ...". Has the website moved? 141.3.44.17 ( talk) 15:24, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
What do you think about limiting the examples to 8 cores or more and only to ones with wikilinks? Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 13:00, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
In order comply with the MOS:JARGON guideline, I changed the Greek and Latin numeral prefix terms "hex-", "hexa-", and "octo-" currently used in this article without definition to "6-" and "8-".
A previous edit [2] commented that 'These names are not "common" '.
Do we need a table in this article like the one deleted by that edit, or can we assume that people looking up " octo-Core" will recognize that it means the same thing as what this article now calls "8-core"? -- DavidCary ( talk) 17:09, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
what is the exact or frequently used name for 8-core? I saw "Octo-core" and "Oct-core" in the article but Octa-core is used for many articles on the web (you can google it). Moreover, the term "Oct-care" cannot be searched by google, is it a typo?-- Terry0201 ( talk) 03:31, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Also, adding more cache suffers from diminishing returns.[citation needed] Since this is pretty much the first rule in cache design, and unless there is more discussion on the citation needed, I am removing the CN. There are many questions related to cache in multi-core processors, but this doesn't seem to be asking them. Gah4 ( talk) 20:42, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Multi-core processor. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
{{
dead link}}
tag to
http://www.futurechips.org/tips-for-power-coders/parallel-programming.htmlWhen you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 05:47, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Multi-core processor. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 01:57, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Most applications, however, are not accelerated so much unless programmers invest a prohibitive amount of effort in re-factoring the whole problem.
The word "prohibitive" is not encyclopedic to begin with, but I concede that it was common currency in this space for some while. It was largely applying to legacy codebases written before most developers had the first clue about concurrency.
Secondly, as a broad brush, this simply isn't true. Just about any application that depends upon linear algebra can be accelerated by replacing the linear algebra library with a library that's highly threaded.
On the other hand, if your core data structure to represent a document in a word-processing application is not inherently thread safe, multicore isn't going to buy you much without first biting a prohibitive bullet.
What the original author probably meant by "most" is most user-facing applications, viewed through a consumerist lens of availability bias (everyone's favourite availability bias as determined by most people's availability bias concerning common sentiment). Bad rabbit hole. Shun, eschew, avoid. — MaxEnt 15:04, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
In section Heterogeneous systems, should OpenAMP be OpenMP? -- Mortense ( talk) 14:01, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Multi-core processor article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This
level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
Could we perhaps make some new entries listing applications that can run on different amounts of cores? Example: list all modern apps that can run on 4 cores... list apps that can utilize 8 cores... etc. Jacobhaines ( talk) 20:21, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Technically, all programs can use more then one processing unit, provided they use more then one thread at any one point in time. A lot depends on how (or if) the OS assigns programs across multiple processing units. For that reason, answering you question is nigh impossible, although a few examples of good threaded programs do exist [Prime95 and other number-crunching programs are prime examples] -- Gamerk2 ( talk) 18:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Does the AMD FX-8150 really count as 8-core? It has 4 Bulldozer modules that share parts of the core with each other, so it has not got 8 'cores' in the normal sense. GinjaNinja32 ( talk) 10:56, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
They are I/O intensive and as such, do not benefit from a multicore CPU. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.70.95.214 ( talk) 19:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
From the "Advantages" section:
The largest boost in performance will likely be noticed in improved response time while running CPU-intensive processes, like antivirus scans, ripping/burning media (requiring file conversion), or searching for folders.
Aren't anti-virus scans and searching for folders usually IO-bound not processor-bound? Perhaps audio & video processing and 3D rendering would be better examples. Burning media would be IO-bound too, so the conversion stage of ripping media is the only CPU-bound example left (and it counts as "audio & video processing"). — tedp ( talk) 21:35, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Would someone explain in the article how external memory (non-cache) memory is treated and used by the processors. I realize this is operating system dependent, but someone familiar with this in a Windows, Linux envrionment please explain. If there is another wiki that describes this could someone put a link to it?
Put simply, this means that signals between different CPUs travel shorter distances, and therefore those signals degrade less
I do not think signal degradation is the limiting factor based on distance, but rather propagation delay. Signal degradation, as far as I can tell, is only an issue over much larger distances. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.41.255.4 ( talk) 17:21, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
The article lists "file searching" as an advantage. But wouldn't file searching almost certainly be limited by the hard drive speed (or whatever it is on)? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Intel's approach (2 dies in a package) is mentioned. AMD's approach to yield problems, by binning and converting quadcores with a single failed core to triple cores could be mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.6.232.208 ( talk) 09:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
This may be a non-issue, but it seems that multicore is becoming the more popular spelling for multi-core/CMP machines. 68.34.101.214 ( talk) 15:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
From: Manasa Rokobari —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.7.2.119 ( talk) 21:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Given that this is supposed to be an encyclopedia for non-initiates to find info on various topics, is possible to keep the jargon to a minimum? I was interested in knowing precisely what dual core processors were, but I found little that was comprehensible on this particular page. A one-paragraph, jargon-free definition could perhaps be added at the top of this article. Thanks! Episteme1972 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Episteme1972 ( talk • contribs) 17:54, April 3, 2008
I agree ... The author isn't really trying to communicate - it is all just posing. Using 'utilizing' sic)for plain 'using' gives it away, and they don't even mean the same thing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.59.93 ( talk) 21:20, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
You mention the xbox, doesn't the ps3 have more?
The cell has seven cores, and they are actually SPEs, not cores. It would be more accurately to remove the playstation 3 as an example of multi-core because it is atypical. -- Colostomyexplosion ( talk) 14:01, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
The Cell has 8 SPEs (or cores if you like), not nine. One is disabled, and one is used for the OS, that makes seven SPEs or which 6 are accessible to commercial and homebrew applications. Colostomyexplosion ( talk) 13:50, 22 September 2008 (UTC) From: Manasa Rokobari Samuraki —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.7.2.119 ( talk) 21:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to attempt to clean up the commercial examples section, but there are a lot of dubious entries in there. Firstly, is a general purpose microprocessor and a DSP on the same die a multicore processor? I don't believe so, and I will remove them if there are no objections. Secondly, do we need to list every single embedded multicore processor in existence? Since they are more common than hydrogen atoms, I suggest that only those with proven notability (eg. novel design - hundreds of cores, significant market presence, exceptional application) should be included, since a lot of the entries sound like advertisements to me. Thirdly, I think there should be some brief info for each entry on why the processor is notable. What do you think? Rilak ( talk) 05:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I have added picoChip to the listing. I think it is legitmate on two grounds: a) It is described in the text earlier, so should be in the list b) With 200-300 cores per chip, it would pass Rilak's criteria above("novel design - hundreds of cores")
Trust that is acceptable. Rupert baines ( talk) 11:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
"encyclopaedia style"? Dear reader, you may be surprised to learn that "passive voice" and other common style features of previous encyclopedias are discouraged at Wikipedia ( Wikipedia:AWW). We Wikipedians think we can do things better :-). I agree that alphabetical order is neutral and non-judgmental, and therefore should be used unless there is something better. However, I was surprised to learn that none of the example lists in the current version of the relevant Wikipedia style guideline -- Wikipedia:Embedded list -- are in alphabetical order.
Other Wikipedia articles where editors have decided that biggest-number-first is "more suited to an encyclopedia" than alphabetical include (in no particular order) continent, high jump, list of highest mountains, list of tallest buildings and structures in the world, shortwave, slow-scan television#Frequencies, miniaturized satellite, additionally guyed tower, partially guyed tower, and list of catastrophic collapses of radio masts and towers.
Sorting by number of cores has the advantage of making it easier (than alphabetical) for our readers to find the most cores on one chip, the most 32-bit cores on one chip, which number-of-cores are particularly popular ("is 16 cores more popular than 10 cores?"), etc. The number of cores on a particular chip is an objective, verifiable fact that everyone agrees on and is therefore neutral. Except for the "number of cores in a Cell" controversy :-). -- 68.0.124.33 ( talk) 04:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
The problem with the other examples you cite is that the units are consistent and there is no ambiguity on what is "more". In contract, "core" is quite an elastic term: this list encompasses everything from 8 bit cores to 64 bit . As such, I'm not sure that on its own it can answer the questions you raise. Ideally we'd have a table with some dynamic code so you can sort as you need to, but... Maybe some text, describing trends and the notable highlights? Rupert baines ( talk) 13:41, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
I cleaned up the Intel Polaris timeframe from the original relative "5 years" to the absolute announced time of 2011, shout this chip be removed from commercial to a new PROTOTYPE section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.180.31.159 ( talk) 14:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
What is a core? The fist mentioning of the word "core" is on the first line in this article and it points to a disambiguation page, core. This is not good. There should be an article describing a processor core, and it should not redirect to this article. -- Henriok ( talk) 13:31, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
How about we just add this as a discussion? We could have a section on (say), "Definition" and cover this there. I think that Chuck Moore & Anant Agarwal are important enough to reference there different opinions, and it does provide a sensible place for discussion on heterogenous / homegenous. Rupert baines ( talk) 13:33, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
I made this discussion an entry with in 'Architecture' and included the EE Times discussion: Moore & Agarwal are notable enough to be included as commentary. Rupert baines ( talk) 12:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I have a NeXT machine with both 68040 and 56001 on board. As there was very little software to run on the 56001, it was pretty much ignored. Still, it seems to me that in counting cores that a DSP counts just as well as any other CPU. As with clock speed, one shouldn't compare chips on core count alone. Do we need separate pages for heterogeneous multicore processor, and homogeneous multicore processor? Gah4 ( talk) 22:00, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Of note, this article references both the chief engineer at AMD named Chuck Moore, and the designer of the Forth language and the Intellasys SEAforth multicore chip, Chuck Moore. The EE Times discussion section of this article incorrectly links to the latter on Wikipedia when it's about the former. -- 64.58.22.201 ( talk) 20:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
the page isn't objective and isn't platform neutral, and it gives almost no technical insight besides being a advertisement for users how great multi-core is, and then pointing out negatives which aren't actually negative for multi-core systems. Markthemac ( talk) 20:35, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
point:1 In order to continue delivering regular performance improvements for general-purpose processors, manufacturers such as Intel and AMD have turned to multi-core designs, sacrificing lower manufacturing costs for higher performance in some applications and systems. 2
and i think u can read more yourself, games etc are really only interesting for gamers and not developers or anyone really interested in multi-core development and reasons behind certain processes. Markthemac ( talk)
I 'promoted' the section on Embedded to make this distinction clearer (it was a subhead of software which is not the whole part of thing). I also added a section there discussing the differnce in development as a significant impact on markets (eg less need to support legacy code or ISVs) Rupert baines ( talk) 11:44, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
At some point many multi-cored cpus will include cores of various functions... floating point... sound... etc... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnk119 ( talk • contribs) 17:09, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I suggest merging " manycore processing unit" into "multi-core". They look like the same thing to me. -- 68.0.124.33 ( talk) 22:38, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
completely agree. "many-core" is a useful distinction in that it describes a subset of multicore, but the two are closely related and most of the discussion here actually does address many-core.
How best to do this? many-core redirects here? We retitle the page "multicore (and manycore)" ? Rupert baines ( talk) 08:38, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Many-core should be a section of the multi-core page. Cocoaguy ここがいい contribs talk Review Me! 22:03, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I added this as a para in 'Definition'. Most of the body does discuss many-core as it is. Rupert baines ( talk) 12:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
I Charles Elliot Keisler Agree with ths dicision the many-core article is small and contains no where near the amount of data that coloud be explaind by merging with the Multi-core Page -- Koman90 ( talk) 19:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I would have thought ManyCore deserves a separate page: Multi Core and Many Core devices are qualitatively different. The former is usually an SMP CPU. The latter is usually a separate accelerator.(network on a chip, scratchpads, non-coherent caches - e.g. adapteva,kalray; throughput oriented, GPUS). Intels MIC is a qualitatively different device to a multicore CPU - designed for throughput over latency. We could keep the divergent issues in their history and current trends separated out. A many-core page could be fleshed out in more detail. Fmadd ( talk) 00:26, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
The first paragraph of the article is a bit long and could ease a little clean up. Perhaps we should break it into two or more paragraphs? Either way, I found one sentence particularly confusing. Can anyone decipher this:
The most commercially significant (or at least the most 'obvious') multi-core processors are those used in personal computers (primarily from Intel and AMD) and game consoles (e.g., the eight-core Cell processor in the PS3 and the three-core Xenon processor in the Xbox 360).
76.22.72.163 ( talk) 09:22, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree the intro was pretty choppy. I re-wrote it and there haven't been any complaints (yet) so I removed the "intro-rewrite" template. MBbjv ( talk) 02:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
The current organization of example chips with the major heading "Commercial examples" seems non-optimal to me since there are few non-commercial chip examples and they probably don't deserve their own major section. Any objections to organizing "Hardware" and "Software" as major headings with "Commercial" and "Research" as sub-headings? BTW, the Univ of Maryland ref does not appear to belong here in my opinion. MBbjv ( talk) 04:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
so we have dual and quad core cpus these days, but not sexa-cores. all of a sudden we jump from latin to greek naming and we have hexa-cores instead. so why didnt we have di- and tetra-cores then instead in the first place? is this some means to avoid the sex(a)- prefix in the english realm? too many people and too many closeminded folks all over this planet? also read: http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/8/25/intel-to-demonstrate-a-32nm-core-i9-cpu-in-september.aspx —Preceding unsigned comment added by Suggestednickname ( talk • contribs) 06:49, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
The result of the move request was page moved. ukexpat ( talk) 03:27, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Multi-core → Multi-core processor — WP:NAME says to use nouns and noun phrases rather than adjectives. Nurg ( talk) 22:02, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Unless Ian Foster is the author of this Wiki article, at least some portions have been plagiarized. Under Software Impact, the section about Partitioning, Communication, etc. were extracted word for word from here: http://www.mcs.anl.gov/~itf/dbpp/text/node16.html Jif101 ( talk) 20:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
The thing that no one seems to want to tell me is this: If a dual- or quad-core CPU is listed, they'll say it's 3.6Ghz. Now, does that mean that the effective speed of the whole thing is two or four times that? So if I buy a dual-core 1.8Ghz, am I really getting 3.6 overall? I mean, obviously there's threading issues that would prevent this, but I'm sure you know what I'm asking. Is the listed speed the overall speed or speed per core? Is there no real speed increase for multiple cores, and really just an efficiency increase? I'm very confused. -- Buddy13 ( talk) 19:04, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
No. If you have a Quad running at 2.5GHz, you have four processing units, each running at a speed of 2.5GHz. While you have a total of 10GHz of processing power (assuming 100% scaling across CPUs), no individual unit can go faster then 2.5GHz. If you have a non-threaded program that runs on a single core, running on a 2.5GHz single core will provide the same exact speed as a 2.5GHz dual-core and a 2.5GHz Quad, because the extra cores are not used. -- Gamerk2 ( talk) 19:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Sorry -- I'm not a "top expert" on this by a long shot but the following line hit me as a bit off-the-mark.
The distinction between 'multi' and 'many' is the same as 'some' and 'a lot'. It's just more cores with no really clear line defining a break point -- I've yet to see one stated. Having something about many vs multi (parent to child style) is good but not as the start of the sentence it is in.
Outside of some SoC attempts, many-core systems are being implemented as multiple multi-core processors -- as in successors to single-core processors by multi-core in multi-processor systems. Outside of the old single CPU to multi-CPU "competition", I see none with respect to these two architectures. They are complementary in nature versus some kind of "replacement" due to limits.
Each CPU in a system has a socket in the board. This grants "off-chip" IO paths of a limited nature irrespective of the number of cores - 1 socket has a path to the rest of the system. So if operations require more off-chip access, multiple CPU's, each with their own bus, will outperform a single CPU with multiple cores. If, on the other hand, you have more "on-chip" processing/communications required, avoiding the CPU's communicate across the bus speeds up that communication plus "on-chip" functions will tend to be faster.
So it's comparing "on-chip" vs "off-chip" and a shuffle of where traffic jams can/will occur. With multiple-cores, they will hit a limit at the shared bus as the cores each require different "off-chip" resources so, at some point, how many cores can be stacked on a single slot/bus will be hit. Diminishing returns style. When? Like I said, it's not my main field and even if it were, I doubt it can be predicted beyond generalization versus exacting -- especially in the generic "computer" market that spans scientific through arts around to 'fun'.
For those looking for a higher performance single CPU slot solution, the multi-core systems tend to be far more cost effective than going with multi-CPU systems and this is how they are positioned in the market across platforms -- multiple-cores > 1 core. As such, this technology is flat out replacing single-cores across most systems that use them but not so with systems that use multiple CPU's -- they are moving (or have moved) to adopt this enhancement as part of their existing architecture.
Last; the NoC comment is also not needed in this area. That's a distraction that really adds nothing to defining multi-core processors in this "introduction" area. SoC if you like but NoC is more a separate "sub-system" commentary than dealing with a CPU's architecture. (sorry "network on a chip" = NoC)
-- Eleazaros ( talk) 05:36, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
There is a new Stanford video on programming many-core computers at How to Program the Many Cores for Inconsistency Robustness with slides available at [1]. It argues for using the Actor model together with "Organizational Programming" 24.180.11.235 ( talk) 04:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
I think the author, or some writer, should edit to say, first, what the advantages are before saying the advantages of multi-core may be lost when the processor is many-core. It would be more structurally sound that way, I think. BriEnBest ( talk) 22:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
This article has been tagged with the following:
yet no one has indicated what the specific needs of this tag are. The tag says, It needs additional references or sources for verification. Tagged since June 2009. Now this article currently has twelve sources. Which part of the article needs sourcing? It's possible that when it was tagged two years ago it had little to no sources, but the problem is when people wantonly tag articles without explanations on the talk page (which is the minimal expectation I have for a tagger) that these articles can sit tagged for years without anything changing. If the lazy buffoons who had tagged this in 2009 had come here and given some indication of what their concerns were, this could have been resolved long ago.
I will remove the tag until such time as the tagger(s) give(s) us some guidance here. HuskyHuskie ( talk) 08:45, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
improvements in CPU manufacturing techniqes have led to another solution:dual-core CPUs(or Chip level Multiprocessing[CMP]). A Dual core CPU is essentially two processors combined on the same die. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.167.196.153 ( talk) 10:16, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
Do you think we should make a new article that's a list instead of including the list in this article? -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 07:56, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I've read quite a few articles that refer to singlecore as 1 core, multicore as 2 to 8 cores and many-cores as 8+ cores. I think the main distinction is running multiple single threaded applications vs running one/several multithreaded applications. In the early days of the Athlon X2, most applications were single threaded, but we are slowly approaching this multi-threaded (many-threaded) era. Is it worth have a separate multi/many core distinction? I do think both should be in the same article regardless. WinampLlama ( talk) 07:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
"The challenge of writing parallel code clearly offsets this benefit.[5]"
Links to: http://www.futurechips.org/chip-design-for-all/a-multicore-save-energy.html
A blog post, which is not clear at all. You might also see from the blog comments that the author ignored voltage, periphericals, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.54.144.229 ( talk) 12:48, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
"Typically,[according to whom?] proprietary enterprise-server software is licensed "per processor"." Is this really true? What is if your PC/server has 2 sockets, do you need 2 licenses then? -- Laber□ T 04:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
It isn't just server software anymore. Read the license on your Windows 7, 8, 10, or even back to NT. It specifies the number of cores (processors) it is licensed for. For NT, I believe it was NT Server that could run on multiple processor systems. Now it should be in non-server versions. Gah4 ( talk) 20:39, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
OpenHMPP Website: http://www.openhmpp.org/ looks very unrelated: "Should You Take Menopause Supplements? ...". Has the website moved? 141.3.44.17 ( talk) 15:24, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
What do you think about limiting the examples to 8 cores or more and only to ones with wikilinks? Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 13:00, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
In order comply with the MOS:JARGON guideline, I changed the Greek and Latin numeral prefix terms "hex-", "hexa-", and "octo-" currently used in this article without definition to "6-" and "8-".
A previous edit [2] commented that 'These names are not "common" '.
Do we need a table in this article like the one deleted by that edit, or can we assume that people looking up " octo-Core" will recognize that it means the same thing as what this article now calls "8-core"? -- DavidCary ( talk) 17:09, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
what is the exact or frequently used name for 8-core? I saw "Octo-core" and "Oct-core" in the article but Octa-core is used for many articles on the web (you can google it). Moreover, the term "Oct-care" cannot be searched by google, is it a typo?-- Terry0201 ( talk) 03:31, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Also, adding more cache suffers from diminishing returns.[citation needed] Since this is pretty much the first rule in cache design, and unless there is more discussion on the citation needed, I am removing the CN. There are many questions related to cache in multi-core processors, but this doesn't seem to be asking them. Gah4 ( talk) 20:42, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Multi-core processor. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
{{
dead link}}
tag to
http://www.futurechips.org/tips-for-power-coders/parallel-programming.htmlWhen you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 05:47, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Multi-core processor. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 01:57, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Most applications, however, are not accelerated so much unless programmers invest a prohibitive amount of effort in re-factoring the whole problem.
The word "prohibitive" is not encyclopedic to begin with, but I concede that it was common currency in this space for some while. It was largely applying to legacy codebases written before most developers had the first clue about concurrency.
Secondly, as a broad brush, this simply isn't true. Just about any application that depends upon linear algebra can be accelerated by replacing the linear algebra library with a library that's highly threaded.
On the other hand, if your core data structure to represent a document in a word-processing application is not inherently thread safe, multicore isn't going to buy you much without first biting a prohibitive bullet.
What the original author probably meant by "most" is most user-facing applications, viewed through a consumerist lens of availability bias (everyone's favourite availability bias as determined by most people's availability bias concerning common sentiment). Bad rabbit hole. Shun, eschew, avoid. — MaxEnt 15:04, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
In section Heterogeneous systems, should OpenAMP be OpenMP? -- Mortense ( talk) 14:01, 13 February 2021 (UTC)