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James Gorbold

Customised - Unleashing the cores

Posted at: 3rd January 2008

Although dual and quad-core CPUs have been available for a couple of years, until fairly recently, these extra cores haven't been put to very good use, outside of specialist video encoding and 3D rendering applications.

However, as 2007 draws to a close, the software industry seems to have finally cottoned on to the fact that more cores equals more performance, and have started programming accordingly. This means that video encoders, which traditionally have been at the forefront of multithreaded programming techniques, are now able to take advantage of the latest dual-processor quad-core systems, and are therefore capable of completing tasks in record time.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, even basic system utilities such as 7-Zip, a freeware file archiving application that we use in our Media Benchmarks, can now take advantage of multiple cores when compressing large quantities of data.

However, the real seismic shift has occurred in the games industry. A year ago, you'd be hard-pressed to name a single game that performed significantly better on a multicore system, whereas such a game now appears almost every month. The latest and best example of this trend is Crysis. Whatever you think of the game, there's no doubting that it represents a massive step forward in graphic detail, and the improvement isn't only due to the development of more powerful GPUs, but also to multicore CPUs. In our testing, we found that having a second core increased the minimum frame rate in Crysis by more than 36 per cent, which is an incredible feat considering that you can now pick up a dual-core CPU for £38. In fact, Crysis will run even faster if you have a quad-core CPU, as will the resource-hungry RTS Supreme Commander. Clearly, the days when you could buy an entry-level CPU and a high-end graphics card are drawing to a close - today, you need to build a balanced system.

This is why you'll find a massive Labs test of 70 different CPUs in this issue, starting on p70. We've collated more than 1,000 test results, the biggest benchmarking marathon in the history of Custom PC, in order to ensure that we can advise you which CPU best matches your requirements and budget. However, the CPU megatest isn't just about which CPU is the fastest - that's an easy question to answer. The factor that really counts is value for money, which you can only calculate after comparing every CPU and price on the market. So, alongside the performance results, you'll also find a bangs per buck graph, which indicates how much performance each CPU delivers for its price. Finally, if you're worried about how much electricity modern components guzzle then our exclusive power measurements will enable you to choose the most energy-efficient CPU.

Among the 70 CPUs on test, you'll find old favourites such as the Athlon 64 X2, as well as more recent CPC-recommended models such as the Core 2 Quad Q6600. There's also a flurry of new models, including AMD's long-awaited quad-core Phenom CPUs, plus a whole range of 45nm Penryn architecture Intel CPUs.

AMD/ATI has also started its fight back against Nvidia this issue with the launch of the Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 GPUs. You'll find reviews of examples of both these GPUs in this issue, including a bargaintastic Sapphire card.

Finally, we used the Custom PC office crystal ball to try to predict what offerings PC companies have in store for us in 2008.

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