Quad-core processors: Do they really double up the efficiency of smartphones? – Part 3

The basic reason why quad core cannot compete with dual core on double the performance game, likewise with dual-core and single-core, is because the apps are not designed in that way. Most of the apps are designed to render in a single thread. The cores cannot make distribute code into two or four parts. That can only happen when the operating system has good coordination with hardware or the app has the capability of multi-threading.

The multi-cores will not help the smartphone until the applications are threaded and that depends on the capability of application alone. Then pops in the operating system that is responsible for distributing the tasks to the different cores in the processor.

The problem, said Greg Sullivan, senior product manager for Microsoft, is that writing code to take advantage of multiple processor cores makes writing apps much harder. Likewise, there’s a lot more complexity in debugging apps when something goes wrong, a challenge that many app developers are reluctant to face. Multi-core won’t help you in a world where the apps aren’t threaded.

Gaming and video are two examples of many apps that can take advantage of multiple threads. Let’s say you want to stream a video clip from YouTube or ESPN. Video streams aren’t easily broken down. According to Sullivan, video spools in a serial process, it doesn’t easily divide up for multiple cores to work on and then reconvene. As a result, some tasks, like watching a video, will max out one of the cores while the other core or cores update apps in the background, pull in e-mail, and so on.

Sullivan’s take on video is up for debate. Chipmaker Nvidia claims that its Tegra 3 processor can efficiently make use of its multiple cores even if the apps themselves aren’t threaded, and codecs do exist to thread video streams.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Apr 11 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.