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

[afidel]

XP Pro understands hyperthreading fine, and in fact will work with a machine with dual hyperthreading CPU's. What won't work is 2k Pro. Also note that 2k3 server standard reduced the max number of physical CPU's to two for standard edition whereas it had been 4 in previous iterations of NT. Btw don't use hyperthreading on win2k even if you have enough processor licenses because it will balance evenly across the hyperthreading CPU's not realizing that they are really there for spare capacity and hence trash the instruction cache.

Re:Windows Licencing

[qodfathr]

Licensing is for physical processors only. So, even today, if you have 2 physical CPUs with hyperthreading, you are compliant. Task Manager will show 4 CPUs, but the OS can determine that only 2 are physical.

I suspect, however, that a dual-core CPU will be treated as 2 physical cpus...(+2 virtual CPUs)

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?

Re:Windows Licencing

[AliasTheRoot]

I think they will stick to physical CPU's tbh, the low hanging fruit for chip makers in terms of performance seem to be multiple cores rather than increasing clockspeed, i just dont see MS saying to Joe Consumer "well your single CPU has 8 cores so you need to buy 8 copies of Windows."

Licensing may be different for Server installs, but for consumer/desktop Windows I doubt it.

Re:Windows Licencing

[afidel]

Yes, but if you had a 4 ways system with HT enabled you would really only be using the first two CPU's and their HT units, the other two physical processors would be doing nothing. Not to mention that the OS and older apps will naively balance across all 4 'CPU's' evenly despite the fact that the HT units are not fully capable processors and in fact can easily degrade performance by trashing the contents of the instruction and more importantly data cache. MS claims that windows 2000 will properly use the physical processors before the logical ones if the system is written to Intel BIOS specs but my real world experience says that there aren't a lot of correctly configured systems because I've had to restage 4 way servers from Dell, IBM, and HP and 2 way workstations from HP and Dell.

Re:Windows Licencing

[sufehmi]

I don't see a need for hyper threading one dual core chips. It's redundant.

Well, a few weeks ago I had to install 3 test servers - but turned out we have only 1 available server.

I almost freaked out - but then I realised that it's a dual-Xeon box ---> 4 CPUs (to the OS). Using an obscure switch in VMware config file, I manage to assign each CPU to a (virtual) Server. The fourth CPU is assigned to the host OS.

Everyone was very happy with the result, and looking forward to utilise more of this feature (and this kind of CPU) in the future.

It's not even real?!

[Anonymous Coward]

UPDATE: A representative for Intel Corporation told X-bit labs the company had never released any precise details in regards the dual-core strategy. The information published herein should not be considered as based on official statements.

WTF?

Damn

[Anonymous Coward]

Two core dumps for each segmentation fault.

Heat?

[Sir dies alot]

Isn't it a llittle soon to claim to put 4 processors in one chip by 2005, especially sinse last I had heard, one processor was causing a heat concern. Have they fixed this or is this Intel making predictions and setting dates that will only get pushed back anyway?

Re:Heat?

[mobiux]

Intel...

Fighting the next Ice Age since 1968.

Longhorn won't see 4

[frs_rbl]

Thanks to patented HyperSlowing(TM) technology, Longhorn won't see 4 processors but 1.

''And not a very fast one'' a company exec was quoted saying

Ars

[ViceClown]

Ars is covering this too. Ken Fisher makes it a point to mention that the person who made the claims is in marketing. He also speculates, quite logically, that bringing out dual core Prescotts in '05 would be a feat even for Intel. Worth reading for a more sobering take on the situation.

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: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.

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.

Dancing Techs

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened to the days of the intel dudes dancing around in bunny suits?

Cool :)

[execom]

I mean, Hot !

Will it come with the Prescott Survival kit ?

But you should see the heatsinks

[Groo Wanderer]

I caught a pic of the heatsink for this beast at Computex, so it must be real.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16426

-Charlie

(for the humor impared, think humor - haha, not humor - I don't get it)

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:200 Watts?

[NubKnacker]

You seem to be forgetting the fact that your CPU takes that much power only when it's actually working, and not when it's sitting idle. So unless you got SETI running, your power bill shouldn't be that high. Ofcourse if you have SETI running, then it could also be the aliens drawing power from your computer.

Stare of play in CPU design.

[funkytwig]

1 processor core technology is causing heat consernes in thin core. The point is as the core gets thinner the power required to stop lekage across a ever thinner insulation layer increses. A couple of jumps thinner and we would have chips that require the power of a houshold iron. Multi-core is a solution to this problem, maybe Intel are not using very thin core technology to reduce heat in there multi-core processors. There was a very interesting article about this in New Scientist but I dont think it was one they put on the web for free ;-(. (sorry I posted this as a reply to someone elses article but am hanging it of the original post as it seems relevent).

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.

Dual Core vs. Single core

[totoanihilation]

I'd take a DUAL dual-core 2.5GHz G5 powermac over a dual single-core 3GHz anytime.
It would probably be less of a technical challenge as well, and would follow the "GHz doesn't matter" philosophy the POWER(tm) manager said a few days ago.
The 90nm process encounters problems at high clock speeds. So, bring on more efficiency at lower clock speeds!

Strained SIlicon issue

[charnov]

Actually, the big jump in heat for the Prescott cores is from Intel use of only starined silicon in manufacturing. By creating a strained lattice for the silicon, you increase the likelyhood of current leakage (hence more heat). This is why AMD and IBM went with silicon on insulator and added strained silicon later (the SOI process helps to mitigate the leakage in strained silicon).

Here's a simple primer

Re:IBM chugging along

[GlobalMind]

Yes, meanwhile IBM is on their second generation dual core chip, POWER5 -- now available in eServer i5 systems -- shipping TODAY.

The way POWER4 was packaged for the higher end boxes, you have what they call a Multi-Chip Module (MCM) with 4 POWER4 processors on-board. This means each MCM was an 8-way.

Now, for POWER5, they have added the Dual-Chip Module or DCM. With the i5 model 570, you can get a 1/2 way or 2/4 way box. If you buy the 1/2 way, you have one DCM installed...and if you buy the 2/4 then you get two DCMs.

POWER5 has what IBM calls Simultaneous Multithreading -- SMT, which is the same type of idea as Hyperthreading. Essentially if the application supports multithreading, it will functionally see twice the processors...but this is a logical thing...a 4 way is still a 4 way...not an 8 way.

Now, having said all that....never underestimate IBM development labs. I hear POWER6, 7 and maybe 8 are already out in development.

TGM.