Intel Plans for Dual-Core Prescott CPUs in 2005

scapermoya writes "X-Bit Labs is reporting that Intel is planning to step up their introduction of dual-core processors, with the first chips to hit the market in late 2005. Intel announced this plan at the Technology for Business Today seminar, held in Washington, D.C. Looks like NetBurst is sticking around, despite what we have heard lately about a move toward the 'M' architecture. Supposedly, thanks to HyperThreading, the OS will see 4 installed processors. Snazzy."

Comments

Windows Licencing

[Neophytus]

The sticker on the bottom of this here laptop says Microsoft Windows XP Professional 1-2 CPUs. Will this mean that Microsoft will have to reconsider their licencing policy for CPUs if people are going to have "four" from one chip? I've never needed to run more than two (through hyperthreading) so if someone could shed some light on what happens if you give a "2-licence" four processors it would be appreciated.

Re:Windows Licencing

[Asprin]

My six dual-Zeon IBM xServer 225's correctly see four processors as well. One of them also has MSSQL2K and it also understands the two of the processors are hyperthreaded non-physical CPUs and does not complain that we only have two processor licenses installed.

It was a surprise to me when I installed Windows on them a couple of months back because I didn't even think Win2K supported hyperthreading. w00t!

Perhaps any hyperthreading-related issues that may have existed with Win2K were patched in a service pack?

Prescott?

[lachlan76]

The article doesn't actually say that Prescott will be a very promising architecture to use for a dual core configuration...imagine 200W of heat coming from a single dual-core processor.

Having multiple cores will make the already-present high heat requirements increase, while the processors in laptops get faster and faster, but not necessarily much hotter. The P6 architecture is the way to go, I think.

200 Watts?

[ahfoo]

Well clearly this demonstrates that Intel really does get the best smoke on the market today. That shit has got to be pricey, because the whole joint is stoned out of their heads.

Let's do some math for them. If we leave our PCs on all day --and that is why we have 24/7 broadband connections isn't it-- that's 5KW/Hrs a day.
At 15cents KW/Hr it now costs seventy five cents a day to have an Intel CPU. That's twenty bucks a month.
But do you get 15cents per KW/Hr lately? Check your bill, you might be closer to twenty cents. A buck a day. Hey, I running the Intel PC costs almost as much as broadband. Perhaps they should include free broadband connections with these things.

Re:Ars

[paitre]

Exactly.
And -PRESCOTT- cores?
What, do they think we're nutty enough to have a desktop system that needs to dissipate 200+ watts of heat?
Please. I don't think so.

Re:4 CPU's

[TheRaven64]

SMT (HyperThreading) provides the OS with two CPUs whose capabilities vary (the first one can do anything, and the second one can do anything the first one is not doing). If you use a classical SMP scheduling algorithm on these virtual CPUs then you are likely to get a performance hit, since it may schedule (for example) two integer intensive threads to one physical CPU, which will generate resource conflicts. If the scheduling algorithm is SMT aware then this problem goes away.

Re:Ars

[gr8_phk]

"bringing out dual core Prescotts in '05 would be a feat even for Intel."

Did he point out that it's easy for AMD? The K8 architecture has had dual cores built into the design from the start. Apparently they actually chopped one off for the first couple years. I've read that they have them running in simulation with both cores and I'd speculate they've even made sample chips with two. I've been wanting to know if AMD will go dual core at 90nm or wait for 65nm. I suppose it all depends on what Intel does. IMHO AMD needs to start acting like a leader instead of a follower - their 130nm parts are actually competetive with Intels 90nm ones in terms of performance.