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Quad Core Chips From Intel and AMD

Posted by Zonk on from the more-is-better dept.

lubricated writes "According to the San Fransisco Chronicle, in an effort to one-up AMD, Intel will be coming out with 4 core cpu's in 2007." From the article: "Chips with two cores have been the latest rage, with both Intel and AMD selling those microprocessors as their high-end offering. Apple Computer Inc.'s new iMac, which started selling last month, uses the dual-core chip ... Not to be outdone, Randy Allen, AMD's corporate vice president of server and workstation division, said Friday that his firm is working its own quad-core processor for release next year."

3 of 412 comments (clear)

  1. Sun Microsystems is shipping 8 core CPUs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sun has been shipping 8 core T1 processors for a few months. T1000 and T2000 rack servers based on "CoolThreads" - whatever that is. See here: http://store.sun.com/CMTemplate/CEServlet?process= SunStore&cmdViewProduct_CP&catid=141649. IBM has QuadCore Power5+ chips shipping any day now.

    Both Solaris and AIX scale over 100 CPUs already. Good luck AMD and Intel on getting Microsoft to create a standard OS (not their funny datacenter version) that is the same on 1 CPU or 124 CPU systems.

  2. A quad system bus of some kind would help more by CFD339 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Processing power is rarely the problem. Graphics processing is already handed off, and unless you're trying to crack encryption, most software isn't bound by processor speed anyway.

    Software performance is bound by I/O limitations. It FEELS like processor power because threads on hold for I/O block a core up like cheescake to a lactose intollerant grandparent.

    Until I can index on disk at about 100 times the current speed, these processors won't help what I'm doing.

    --
    The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
  3. Ars Technica has a better article... by Malor · · Score: 5, Informative

    As usual, if you want good CPU info, Ars Technica is the place to look. They have a blurb on Intel's 4-way core plans here.

    Basically, they point out that Intel's dual core processors are already starved on the FSB, and loading two more cores isn't going to do very much. He seems to expect that, until Intel gets their FSB in order(which won't happen until 2008), AMD is going to stomp all over them. He says that Intel's cores are excellent, but without CSI (their new FSB), it may not matter much.

    My own projection is that the extra contention may end up imposing a net speed _penalty_ for many workloads. That is, however, pure speculation from an amateur, based mostly on the dismal performance of the first dual-CPU G4 Macs.