by Clay Breshears (Intel) on Dr. Dobb’s Blogs
Ten years ago, multi-core processors were just on the horizon. Today they are mainstream and have become the impetus for a revolution in computer programming that can make best use of the two, four, six, or eight cores. Along with multi-core processors, we have seen the rise of manycore processors (having 32 or more cores) in the consumer market. GPUs from nVIDIA and AMD plus the forthcoming MIC line from Intel all fit this category.

So, what can we do with all those cores? Graphics and visual computing are the obvious first answers. Scientific problems that model some large domain or employ hundreds of thousands of data points — all computed on in the same way — can decompose the data set across a large collection of cores. Many of these applications are really outside of the experience or usage for the average computer user, though. I like to think of my 70+ year old mother as an average user. The last time I checked, she reads her email, surfs the web, views pictures from friends, and plays some solitaire games. No heavy duty graphics processing, no modeling fluid flow around the latest submarine hull design, and no hurricane path forecasting that I’m aware of.

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