Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[jhalada]

wbmw,

The cost argument is irrelevant in this case, since all of these are low volume enthusiast platforms. Kentsfield is nothing more than an Extreme Edition part, with some possible penetration into the top couple of mainstream slots. 4x4 is an uber enthusiast sku that no one will be able to afford unless AMD drastically reduces the pricing of their CPU stack.

AMD is reducing the prices in July, but I am still having hard time seeing the benefits of 4x4. Heavily multithreaded apps, such as rendering, visualization workstations - maybe. But for gaming, it seems of extremely limited use.

There was a press release of some software companies supporting this, but the benefits will arrive only when more games are rewritten to take advantage of multithreading. Even there, going from 1 to 2 cores gives you the biggest benefit, and each additional core provides less benefit.

I can see 2 reason for 4x4:
- if the Reverse Hyperthreading is actually a near term possibility, and if it speeds up execution materially in enough apps
- as a way to have more memory memory DIMMs, to add memory on the cheap

Joe