| rubido said: I find it funny when someone talks about a game using only 30% of the "theoretical power" of the ps3 like if 100% is achievable. I guess I am not going to waste my time trying to explain parallel processing speedup and algorithms to a target audience that will just ignore everything I am saying basically because they don't want to hear it. Whoever understands this knows that it is not possible. Specially with the way that each core processes information, which makes the gap between its theoretical performance to usable performance larger. |
There is an easy way to simplify it for the masses... A 1.6ghz Core Duo does not process information twice as fast as its 1.6ghz Core Solo brother (excluding RAM, HDD, etc... Don't bring it up, this is pure processing power)...
Ask yourself "why not?" and do a little research. You'll soon realize that there are other limiting factors within a processor (bridges, transfer speed, etc) and that no program can achieve 100% power out of a multi-cored processor. The best I've seen (and I read quite a few tech articles) is plus 85% performance over the single core. Not only are you facing hardware limitations to stop you from achieving 100% power output but you also have to program your software PERFECTLY to even get to that +85% mark. This problem only compounds as more processor cores are added to the die. It's hard to get +85% out of a dual core, extremely difficult to get +160% out of a tri-core, etc. etc. etc...
And this isn't even factoring in the various RAM, HDD speed, transfer speeds, etc. you face with any processor.
In short, theorital 100% power of a multi-cored processor is just that, theoritical. It will never happen. And the more processors you have per CPU, the farther away you get from that theoritical 100% mark.
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