Idle question about multi-core processors

[Erik Wikström]

On 2006-12-01 00:10, walt wrote:
[I confess, I'm not sure if this question is off-topic or not.]

I just read this blurb in an e-newsletter:

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) launched a motherboard with four cores
on Thursday, targeting gaming enthusiasts in an effort to keep pace with
the release of quad-core chips by rival Intel Corp.
Is it not a mobo with two sockets, allowing for 4 cores (2 x dual-core). 
If that's the case it might make some sense from a gamer point of view 
now that AMD is trying to make device-manufacturers plug their products 
straight into the bus, which might be attractive for GPUs.

Well, I always read that the whole point of expensive graphics boards
is to take the workload off of the CPU.  And now, suddenly, the trend
is to provide more CPU's to attract the gamers?  Something here doesn't
add up.
You are quite right, CPU is not the most important part when gaming, the 
GU is still the bottleneck.

In any case, it looks to me like the mass-market may be supporting SMP
mobo's much sooner than I suspected.  And, I suspect that DragonFly may
provide much better performance on SMP hardware than many other OS's.
I thought dual-core was SMP, was that wrong of me?

--
Erik Wikström