AMD is being sued over their bulldozer architecture processors over false advertisement. The suit claims that the 8-core FX-8000 series CPUs are really 4 cores.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3003...ozer-cpus-arent-really-8-core-processors.html
So a 8-core processor contains 4 modules which contain 2 cores each. Apparently, the problem is that those 2 cores cannot operate independently so they are in fact one core. Also, there is only one FPU per module as well.
One thing that I want to point out about that last bit: Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) has several CPUs that have an asymmetrical CPU/FPU count. Case in point is their UltraSPARC-T1 processors which have one FPU for 2 CPU cores (I have a machine that uses the T2 CPU). So I don't think that would be a valid point. I mean, really: How often do you use software that requires floating point? On my windows PC, I figure that CAD, mathematical analysis/modeling, and calculators would use floating point by their nature. The graphics engines of games like World of Warcraft, Aion, and EvE Online which feature full 3D immersive graphics may be added to that list.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3003...ozer-cpus-arent-really-8-core-processors.html
So a 8-core processor contains 4 modules which contain 2 cores each. Apparently, the problem is that those 2 cores cannot operate independently so they are in fact one core. Also, there is only one FPU per module as well.
One thing that I want to point out about that last bit: Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) has several CPUs that have an asymmetrical CPU/FPU count. Case in point is their UltraSPARC-T1 processors which have one FPU for 2 CPU cores (I have a machine that uses the T2 CPU). So I don't think that would be a valid point. I mean, really: How often do you use software that requires floating point? On my windows PC, I figure that CAD, mathematical analysis/modeling, and calculators would use floating point by their nature. The graphics engines of games like World of Warcraft, Aion, and EvE Online which feature full 3D immersive graphics may be added to that list.