n-Core Computing: The Advantages
So the future lies in multiple core CPUs...at least, that's how it looks so far.
Disappointed that clockspeed is stagnating and that current single thread apps won't see a boost with the upcoming computers? Don't be...multiple cores are bringing us into a new era: finally the computer can truly become a digital hub.
The computer will finally be able to stream music to speakers within the house. Not just one stream but multiple streams to different sets of speakers. And at the same time, stream a movie to your TV. All the while, you'll be able to have a 3-way iChat conversation with your work colleagues and encode your kid's video in H.264. All this and the computer won't skip a beat...and it's fairly important that it doesn't if you're streaming music and video elsewhere in the house.
The day will come when you can buy a single computer with 16-cores and have terminal LCD/Plasma screens around the house using that one computer to handle the OS accounts. Every member of the family would simply be using the terminal and their own account...the muscle work will come from a single computer and split them across the CPU cores.
So, sure, some apps won't benefit from the smaller clockspeed boosts but a new way of using computers is emerging. And the CPU hungry apps will probably start becoming more threaded anyways, so everyone wins.
Disappointed that clockspeed is stagnating and that current single thread apps won't see a boost with the upcoming computers? Don't be...multiple cores are bringing us into a new era: finally the computer can truly become a digital hub.
The computer will finally be able to stream music to speakers within the house. Not just one stream but multiple streams to different sets of speakers. And at the same time, stream a movie to your TV. All the while, you'll be able to have a 3-way iChat conversation with your work colleagues and encode your kid's video in H.264. All this and the computer won't skip a beat...and it's fairly important that it doesn't if you're streaming music and video elsewhere in the house.
The day will come when you can buy a single computer with 16-cores and have terminal LCD/Plasma screens around the house using that one computer to handle the OS accounts. Every member of the family would simply be using the terminal and their own account...the muscle work will come from a single computer and split them across the CPU cores.
So, sure, some apps won't benefit from the smaller clockspeed boosts but a new way of using computers is emerging. And the CPU hungry apps will probably start becoming more threaded anyways, so everyone wins.
Comments
Virtualization
Putting Storage on the Network
Multithreading
DRM
WiFi
All play vital roles in shaping how the future computers will interconnect and metamorphis. Today's thinking about computers (outside of a business realm) is too closed and confined. Resources aren't being pooled and utilized effectively.
I see the proliferation of "mini server" on multiple core computers that will provide the many services that the typical and atypical computing user will need. I see more control and a blurring of the line between Internet and LAN.
Can Apple be a player here? They'll have to start planning for this now. The hardware isn't the hard part...the software is.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/xgrid/
I think that with multiple cores and the ability to harness the multiple processing powers of multiple computers the vision that K. K. Sol would be more practical and more universally implemented.
It is just a short hop to the notion that even the meager processing power of an ipod could be used to beef up the grid.
Originally posted by TednDi
Xgrid!
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/xgrid/
I think that with multiple cores and the ability to harness the multiple processing powers of multiple computers the vision that K. K. Sol would be more practical and more universally implemented.
It is just a short hop to the notion that even the meager processing power of an ipod could be used to beef up the grid.
Indeed Xgrid fits right in.
The way I see it, a house could have one central computer (or many computers if they so wished) to feed all the terminal screens, speakers, TVs, etc. But, there will undoubtedly often have cores that are doing absolutely nothing...Xgrid would come in and connect neighbors or other people in the world that may need the extra computing power and need to borrow your unused cores.
Of course, this thing should be toggle-able...I wouldn't want to share my processor with just anyone or at anytime.
Originally posted by kim kap sol
The day will come when you can buy a single computer with 16-cores and have terminal LCD/Plasma screens around the house using that one computer to handle the OS accounts. Every member of the family would simply be using the terminal and their own account...the muscle work will come from a single computer and split them across the CPU cores.
It's seemed to me for a while now that this is where the future of PCs is headed, and I look forward to it. Ironic that it's sort of throwback to the days of big iron and dumb terminals - we'll have a mighty, central box doing the heavy lifting, and a variety of portable, inexpensive terminals scattered around the house to interact with it. And it will all run some flavor of UNIX.
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Xgrid would come in and connect neighbors or other people in the world that may need the extra computing power and need to borrow your unused cores.
That's where things are heading, in my opinion : a world wide cluster with a world wide storage array! Would be neat!
I would definitely like to try my distributed raytracer on such a cluster!
And unlimited storage could open the doors for neat stuff : wouldn't it be nice if you could have access to all former versions of a document by Ctrl-clicking it in the Finder?
any apps that use multiple-distributed processing...
SETI@Home
Folding@Home
Pharmaceutical modelling / Protein synthesis
Distributed render farms (Pixar, Lucasarts, etc)
at least where latency isn't an issue -vs.- single CPU efficiencies