Wow! what a processor at a price

[Radio Fixer]

Easy to understand explanation Nick.

I'm like Mark and have to do it his way to see the individual cores at work.  Well found as I wouldnt have.

thanks Gary

[BusyBee]

When I got my other laptop I envisaged using some simulation software so did get one with an i7 processor with 8 cores (I think) and a reasonable mid spec graphics card (these get very expensive for top of the range). Apart from the things I envisaged I ended up using a flight simulator. Now there is an application which can use as many cores as you can provide, as long as the software can utilise them. Mine copes reasonably but does stutter sometimes. On full settings it would be limited, and shows it when flying over densly packed scenery like cities, with dropping frame rates. Just imagine the power needed for real time processing of aircraft systems and airflow over the flying surfaces, as well as perfectly processing 3D images of ground terrain and traffic. Ideally it needs supercomputer powers.

The program I use is X-Plane. The latest version being developed is being programmed to make more use of the graphics processor and it's parallel processing. Graphics processors are inherently designed for parallel processing and these days can really be considered just as important as the main processor for any kind of simulation or big number crunching. The main processor can perhaps in some ways can be considered more as the management component. On my laptop I can switch processing to the onboard graphics which does switch the main graphics to standby which does save power but it's a laptop rather than top end. For graphics processors you can get programming software, which was freely available for mine, but just don't get the time to look into it.

Tracy

[Radio Fixer]

Thanks Tracy

Yes! I had a play with a flight sim but decided it wasnt for me and got into restoring old tech: radios and amps.

Gary

[Nick]

Easy to understand explanation Nick.

I'm like Mark and have to do it his way to see the individual cores at work.  Well found as I wouldnt have.

thanks Gary

My desktop not doing much... which is what it does pretty much 80% of the time...