Dual-core CPU’s with dual cores on the same unit has struck like a bomb on the PC-market, and both Intel and AMD strives to improve new CPU’s with dual cores, but they also have multi-core CPU’s in their plans. The hardware has in other words has changed drastically, and parallell calculation-abilites has suddenly became very hot, something that software-developers now has to pay the price for. We have already seen it in the gaming industry, where the next generation gaming consoles bring a lot of parallell calculation-force to the table, although the first generation of games will not utilize all available power.
Microsoft has during the fall’s Processor Forum spoke about the problems with the rapid switch to multi-core-processing has caused for the software-developers. Big parts of the software-industry has’nt simply seen it coming, and to solve the problems, better communication between the hardware- and software-market is required. Or as Herb Sutter from Microsoft stated in his opening speech, during Processor Forum:
“I come from the world of software, and we need to talk”
:: Read more about the software-developers problems with multi-core-platforms
