Intel New CPU Architecture 2019

How would a flight simulator or world simulator ignore time?  Video render application can ignore time/phsyic, when they complete isn't relevant, they move onto the next task.  For simulators (anything that simulates a physical world bound by time), by definition, must have a point of synchronization or nothing would make any physical sense in a simulated world.  P3D does pretty darn good job of threading as much as it can (more than any other simulator or game bound by physics/time).

Intel's position is simply one of economics, it's cheaper to do more cores and less power usage than to increase "actual" performance.  The majority of "consumer" applications like eMail, spreadsheets, word processing, use 1-2 cores, the rest of them go idle in 90% usage case.  Intel are well aware that a dual core processor at 6 Ghz would get more common usage end user tasks done faster than a 4 core processor at 4.5 Ghz.  The problem is Intel would have to invest their R&D into "costly" methods to get to 6Ghz (exotic cooling solutions, high power, etc.) ... but 6Ghz is what the majority of the retail consumer market would benefit from ... this would lower Intel's profits and be more expensive to produce.  So the alternative is to try to market/sell more cores as being "better" ... come up with tasks that aren't bound by time or a physical simulation like say video rendering ... convince "the consumer market" this is important to them, and then benchmark it as such.  Most "benchmark" products will score higher simply because the CPU has more cores even though it's ability to complete a task in most applications is slower ... 3D Mark Time Spy is a great example of that (but it does make for a good stability test as it generates a ton of heat).

In the world of game/flight simulation, Hyperthreading starts to get more and more pointless as Intel introduces more and more cores to their CPUs ... it simply increases the load on the main single CPU core that has to synchronize everything ... sorta like a "hurry up and wait" ... only lots more waiting or worse yet contention and/or disposal of the same tasks over and over and over ... or more like let me go fetch what I think you need, oh things have changed now and you don't need it, well let me try again and again and again.  Lots of wasted energy being transfer as heat for no benefit most of the time.  If the task is predictable, sure it's a different story, but flight and what is going on in the simulated world IS NOT predictable, AI spawn the world changes, the user turns the yoke and the world changes, etc. etc. 

Here is an older but great reading about 3D engine design for a Virtual world here ... noted bio's from folks like Adam Szofran ... ironically now working with the Unity engine.

What I keep hoping will happen, is all those YouTube tech channels stop the madness ... 20 cores is NOT the primary usage case for consumers ... Intel are VERY MUCH pandering to a niche, that niche are those very few applications like Adobe PP, 3DSMax, Cinema4D that aren't bound by time and simulated physics.  If you ask the average consumer today if they own video/animation rendering software and I'll bet you $10,000 US the majority of consumers do NOT ... and yet, here we have Intel selling them "more cores is better".  I keep hoping these benchmarking YouTubers turn around and say, hey wait a minute Intel and AMD most consumer don't want this ... I have a dream 😉

Cheers, Rob.

Edited December 15, 20187 yr by Guest