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YES! APPLE IS A RAT! AND IT'S GOING TO EAT YOUR CHILDREN!

Bat wrote:

Pariah wrote:

Actually I tend to agree with that. I guess I was thinking more about the dual/quad choice that is presented now.

I speculate that the additional cores in the quad will be brought into increasing relevance over the next 3 or four years, giving a quad system considerably more longevity than a similarly clocked dual system.
For my own DIY system I would choose to go a step or two down from the bleeding edge. Save a couple of hundred bucks and make up for it latter with OCing latter if speed really became and issue.

Gaming is not a concern of yours, but equally this refers to "only" a game:

GTA 4 (PC) - Summarization
The PC version of GTA 4 has CPU power for breakfast - independent on clock speed, L2 cache or number of cores. The latter ones are very important, because without quad-core power GTA 4 is noticeably less enjoyable. For example: A Q6600 is about 52 percent faster than the dual-core E6600 when both CPUs are running at 2.4 GHz. If the clock speed is increased, the difference gets smaller, but is still huge and a QX6850 is 47 percent faster than an E6850. Dual-core processors have a serious disadvantage and only with 3.6 GHz an E8500 is able to beat the Q6600, but GTA 4 nevertheless suffers from frequent lags on dual-core systems - no matter if an AMD or Intel CPU is used. The Phenom X4 9950 easily passes the Q6600 and theoretically is on the same level as the Q6700 (not included in the benchmark).

AMD's Athlon 64 X2 6400+ is doing fine compared to the E6600 and beats Intel's Conroe CPU, while the X2 5000+ is equally fast. A single-core CPU is unsuitable and only reaches single-digit results and additionally the game freezes and the animations of the characters is running in slow motion sometimes. Increased L2 cache results in about 8 percent more fps.

GTA 4 (PC) - Processor benchmark review: Conclusion
GTA 4 benefits from quad-core CPUs as no game did up to now. Even a 4.0 GHz E8500 is not able to compete with a quad-core that has 25 percent less core frequency. Both, the K10 and the K8 architecture are doing quite well.

This game is multithreaded enough so that 4 cores vs. 2 outweighs clockspeed and architecture to a very substantial degree. This is the current trend.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,6695 … rs/?page=2

Ya, that kinda supports my contention that if you are getting a brand new desktop system you are pissing up wind getting a dual.

dvpierce wrote:

Random User wrote:

dvpierce wrote:

... PhysX card for gaming, ...

You're kidding right?

I'm admittedly out of touch, but wasn't that supposed to be the "next big thing" a while back?

I know Pariah wouldn't need one; it was just a "for instance."

Yeah, it kinda became a flop. Only a few games had support for it and considering it's price it didn't do much for the gaming experience.

Four cores would do me proud, esp. @~4GHz- but of course I'm not as l33t as Doc Oc- I mean, mark.

Random User wrote:

dvpierce wrote:

Random User wrote:

You're kidding right?

I'm admittedly out of touch, but wasn't that supposed to be the "next big thing" a while back?

I know Pariah wouldn't need one; it was just a "for instance."

Yeah, it kinda became a flop. Only a few games had support for it and considering it's price it didn't do much for the gaming experience.

More and more games support PhysX, but NVidia bought Ageia some time ago, and now supports physics on their graphics cards, at least on PC- they own the IP, and it's a bullet point to sell more cards. Hasn't worked that well, but that was their idea. Ageia's PhysX cards were a flop in large part because gamers thought it better to put that money elsewhere. For some time Ageia was viewed as a company in search of a buyer, and they found one.

They're fine, but it's unfortunate that the two leading makers of game physics APIs, Havok and Ageia, are now owned by NV and Intel respectively.

Not gonna happen. OT from Apple/rat, but to wind up:

..
This week NVIDIA announced that both EA and Take-Two have licensed its PhysX technology to integrate into video game titles coming in the future and a few that are available now.

EA's Tim Wilson said in a statement, "PhysX is a great physics solution for the most popular platforms, and we're happy to make it available for EA's development teams worldwide."

In a separate statement, Take-Two's Jacob Hawley said, "We are very impressed with the quality of the PhysX engine, and we licensed it so our studios can use this solution early in development."

EA, Take-Two Announce Support for NVIDIA PhysX

Companies go home happy making money. Deals make money.

Edit: Intel owns Havok, but remember AMD/ATi teamed with Havok last June to optimize that API for their platform[s]. The two GPU makers are already aligned oppositely, each with one of the two API companies.

Last edited by Bat (2008-12-09 8:28 pm)

hey we did bitten the apple didn't we? (look at the logo), sooo deal with it, we ate some didn't we? If u like you can by apple stocks can't you?

This is going to be a one world one nation great humanity gig....relax and enjoy the ride to doomsday

Remember the path is narrow to go to valhala! and those without wisdom will be left behind and those wtih wisdom will be kill by the people (socrates, Jesus, 12 apostles, Gandhi, benazir butho, Carleones) after that they use their wisdom for other to use....what a drag ....

Th123

If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth...and get busy on the next great thing. Steve Jobs

th123 wrote:

hey we did bitten the apple didn't we? (look at the logo), sooo deal with it, we ate some didn't we? If u like you can by apple stocks can't you?

This is going to be a one world one nation great humanity gig....relax and enjoy the ride to doomsday

Remember the path is narrow to go to valhala! and those without wisdom will be left behind and those wtih wisdom will be kill by the people (socrates, Jesus, 12 apostles, Gandhi, benazir butho, Carleones) after that they use their wisdom for other to use....what a drag ....

Th123

THANK YOU...thats just the info I needed to open this #$(*&%($ dodecahedron journal!

resedit wrote:

I came to that conclusion a long time ago.
I no longer use Apple.

So why do you read and post in a Mac forum?

Seriously - ever take a peek at the Maximum PC forums? Even on a bad day, the people around here are much less frustrating.