Photo manipulation as in Photoshop? Photoshop won't use up four cores.

Raytracing will, however, gladly eat all your CPU power and more. It's pretty at times, though.

Simple to answer, user-friendly and hassle-free. The pre-existing knowledge required to operate a current-generation console isn't much more then knowing to plug-in a few labeled cables, press the power button, and maybe insert a disc. In addition, the utilized operating systems are very-efficent and have interfaces that are very-easy to navigate.

Compare that to what computer users must know and-or eventually know to maintain and operate Windows XP, Windows Vista, or even MAC OS X. For instance, I have known people to obliterate their OS X installation by dragging the wrong icon into the trash. Watched Window users constantly wonder why their machines grow ever slower, because of unused files and registry entries confusing the system. Why devices suddenly stopped working, because a DRM has decided to zero-out registries or simply aggressively block it by all means. The list goes on and on. These problems are practically unknown to console users.

Of course, like any hardware driven device, consoles do have potential hardware life issues, and the XBOX 360 is by far no exception. However, typical users of other consoles enjoy some of the lowest defective unit rates in the industry, and rarely encounter problems (unless you threw your Wii-mote into your TV, or bashed your PS3 in with a flail-like controller).



I wouldn't entirely disagree, but the process isn't that much different then typical computer tasks of formating, insert image, and follow a few steps. The process isn't really difficult and believe most of the current installation procedures for PS3 Linux Distributions are less then twenty-steps now (some far less). Ultimately, it doesn't take a serious amount of knowledge of hardware, and if you learned how to install Windows on your PC, you can probably handle most of them as well.

Now if this was actually a greater focus for Sony and other software groups, we would likely see a much more user-friendly alternative. Where you could purchase a copy, insert the disc (or run downloaded file), it auto-installs, and you are ready to go.




Presently Crysis doesn't benefit in performance from a quad-core or even a seriously over-clocked processor (gains less then one FPS), as its primary bottleneck is on the available video card(s).



The future seems to be shifting to Nvidia's CUDA (Tesla systems), because of it's incredible performance and cost-to-performance ratio, i.e. some big companies are already changing over. Many applications even when they do get their applications properly, but painfully multi-threaded, the gains are sometimes not as great as one would hope. In addition, most people barely find use out of two-cores, four-cores are hard to justify for most, and they want to be at eight-or-more cores before years end. I believe AMD and Intel have to address more fundamental issues, instead of throwing more cores at the problem.



Presently, Photoshop hit the ceiling with what they are going (willing) to accomplish with the current multi-core roadmaps set by AMD/Intel. The next editions of Photoshop will be based around Nvidia's CUDA GPU/GPGPU acceleration, which will bring about mind-boggling performance improvements. I anxiously await that edition, because I'm tired of how slow Photoshop runs without it.

However, didn't know of many people working with Ray-Tracing, and can easily see that taxing the best of systems. Good luck with that.

Most people don't even do that much, as an OS is pre-installed on most PCs.



Indeed, video cards are becoming more like CPUs in that their instruction sets have become Turing complete and they are capable of general purpose computing. CUDA is also massively parallel, as video cards have well over a hundred of stream processors.

However, the Stream processing model makes some sacrifices: All it really does is perform a small set of instructions on a large set of data. Which is great for graphics and large databases, but not so great for a a lot of personal computer software, which will often contain a large number of instructions with a small set of data.

Where multiple processors really shine is when you want a lot of multitasking, especially between different types of code. CPUs don't care if a process loads and unloads code all of the time, or if a bunch of applications run with different code. CUDA, on the other hand, does: Loading a new kernel into a stream processor is very expensive, so you'd better be using it on a lot of data, otherwise the process of loading new code into the kernel will be more expensive than the computations it processes. CUDA is ill suited for when the code is always changing and different.



The fundamental issue is the laws of physics. Every time they create faster chips, they need to remove more heat. Their fastest chips are reaching the point where the heat generated cannot be removed fast enough. Going parallel instead of going faster is one way to address that issue.



Yeah, not all software uses multiple cores, and there are many areas where it's difficult to parallelize. In addition, there's a lot of overhead in creating new threads, and that can offset any gains if the developers aren't careful.



Well, Photoshop can do that, as images are a large set of data, which is well suited for CUDA. In fact, if they take advantage of both multiple cores and CUDA, they will get the benefits of both.



It's just a personal hobby; I don't really know of very many people who do it.

I merely stated how simplistic PS3 console is and how easy it is for someone, anyone, to use this console, unlike a "PC". Yes, there are "senile" 70's out there living in an old folks home. Hey, baby boomers baby! And sure enough, there are folks out there who should be cast in a flick called "Revenge of the 70yr old tech virgins".



You bet. Sure is about games, but Vista 's been known to be a resource hog. I'd rather stick with XP. Vista sure needs an overhaul though (CTD, blue screen, you name it). Not my idea of fun, thus the reason I purchased a PS3 for pure gaming and entertainment with its BR player. Just pure fun and no hassles.



Indeed. I've been told the same thing by a Gamestop rep. However, in the long run, I see more and more console users out there, thus, adding support. We will see more costly consoles for sure, and better games/applications for it, translating to more willing spenders. Look at the gas prices rising everyday. It hasn't killed customers. It's all about supply/demand.

Well, sure, you're using Vista and you need four cores. But what do you use for gaming, four cores just barely runs Vista.

 

Back in the '90s, video games were for kids. Now, those kids have grown up and have money and even have their own kids. Add to this Microsoft stepping in with it's Xbox system and the milieu of M rated games and it's easy to see why video games are much more popular today than they were in the past. They've become very much a part of mainstream culture. However, don't think that people are going to pay just any amount for a console; unlike gasoline, consoles are not a necessity.


Mad Cat

From what I can tell, Vista is much more a memory hog (and you can thank SuperFetch for some of that) than it is a CPU hog. When I'm not running anything, my CPU cores are usually pretty quiet.

You're 0/2 on this issue, stick to your day job. Vista uses more memory than XP for rendering all its Aero stuff, but not only is this optional, in practice I haven't found it any worse than XP for gaming or memory usage.

Look at sys-req's for XP vs Vista. 1GB ram, .2 GHz difference. For those of us with a laptop, that's a lot. I have two 1.82 GHz cores, so that's well over 10% of my cores. Granted, they don't like to run much, but that's not their fault.

Well, look at how much hardware has changed since XP's release: What we have today far exceeds the systems we had in 2001. You could run XP comfortably on a machine with about 300 MHz and 256 MB of RAM. Very few people have machines with specs that low anymore. It's much more common today to find machines with at least 2 GHz and with 2 GB of RAM.



Your dual cores perform more than 15 times faster than the absolute minimum system requirements of XP, and 4.5 times faster than the absolute minimum system requirements for Vista. They're totally overkill for the OS.

I've found that, more than anything, it's the RAM that makes a big difference between XP and Vista, not CPU. You can run Vista on 1 GB, but can't do much without a lot of paging. You need at least 2 GB to run it comfortably. With XP, 1 GB is more than enough for most applications.

Yeah, but they're AMD and don't like to run much.

True, but it does make a minor difference.

So you're first talking about quad-cores not running Vista, then you're moving the goalposts and saying it doesn't run well on a laptop. Okay, but that's a completely different point. Another GB SODIMM is not expensive if you find it's running too slow.



You are anthropomorphizing pieces of silicon. They will run if they're requested to by the application. They're not going to hold a strike on the northbridge demanding lower temperature conditions.

They have in the past.

Actually, they don't really have any compatibility for the software that works. For instance, Dual Core optimized stuff runs fine, but older high-power and some other lower-technical support stuff won't like them.

 

I found out that you can already buy Sony Playstation 3s with Linux pre-installed, but still not exactly an avenue for most consumers that already own one. Still a step in the right direction none-the-less.



I am afraid there was no lapse of memory, as it's known that all cutting-edge/new hardware also comes with high-demand, limited-supply, high-manufacturing costs, and early-adopter premiums. As time goes on, the price of any new hardware drops in cost due to increased manufacturing efficiency and so on (more so with consoles). The only current-generation console still sold at a loss is the Sony Playstation 3, but we already observing significant drops in manufacturing costs (original $840.00~, now less then $400.00~) making it roughly cut-even or sold at profit depending on model. The XBOX 360 has been sold with a profit for over a year now, and lastly the Wii has been making profit since it's retail launch.

In addition, the so-called "bells and whistles" also would have blown-up the price of a PC equipped with similar hardware, and in some cases the similar hardware would cost even more to manufacture and to buy for the consumer at retail. You also need to realize that hardware companies (goes for PCs and Consoles) tend to make a great deal or most of their profit from related peripheral sells, licensing fees, developer systems, applied/derivative use in other devices, research and business applications, and so on.

By far, the consumer would still have a FAR more appealing price-point with consoles, where as to get similar functionality and features that consoles offer to consumers you would still be spending FAR more to get it on a PC build.

WHERE??? I WANT! (All-caps done now).