Making the Most of Multi-Core Processing

Students at the University of California, Davis, have created the first 'KiloCore' processor. It's an impressive feat in itself, but what it really hammers home for serious overclockers is that the move toward multicores isn't just a temporary trend: it's the future of processing.

The real innovations

Built on a 32nm CMOS process by IBM, the KiloCore chip contains 1,000 independent processing cores, each able to run independently or in parallel. It also has a pooled memory system that eliminates the I/O bottlenecks in the CPU cache that often clog up many-core systems.

Additionally, researchers claim it's uber efficient, with a single core drawing just 0.7mW of power and the whole thing consuming just 13.1W when fully loaded. They say it’s 100 times more efficient than your standard laptop today.

Maximizing multicores

This latest step up at the development stage suggests that it might be time to start reframing how we tune for performance. Clock frequency and gate count improvements in single processors have been leveling off for a few years now, and multicores are all over the place.

Intel's i7 Extreme is already moving 10-core processors into the market and it's unlocking them for overclockers, too. While that's great news, it's not what really grabs us. One of its most exciting features is the opening of up to 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes that allow huge flexibility in how you expand your capabilities — if your build boasts a motherboard like the Rampage V Edition 10 or Strix X99 Gaming, of course.

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  ROG Rampage V Edition 10
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  ROG Strix X99 Gaming

Where it matters most

Previously, much of the debate over the value of multicores has hinged on how the software uses them. Video editing software is already excellent at multithreading, harnessing the power of every core to render and play 4K video. Conversely, most games have generally used one or two cores at most, but things are changing.

DirectX 12 is just one of the developments on the horizon that will make it much easier for games to take advantage of multicore processors by giving applications the ability to manage resources and state, and syncing the program with your available hardware. That means multicores are becoming more useful to more people.

To join the debate about how to get the most from multicore processing, head over to the ROG forum. If you are reading on Flipboard, you can like and leave comments there!

By Michael Edwards