Quad Core Chips From Intel and AMD

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."

Comments

The new race

[4D6963]

Say bye to the race to the Gigahertz. Say hello to the race to the core count

Re:The new race

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Say bye to the race to the Gigahertz. Say hello to the race to the core count

Really. It does seem that there's only so much that can be done to increase the clock. I hope this gives an impetus to improve multi-CPU software performance.

Re:The new race

[4D6963]

"I hope this gives an impetus to improve multi-CPU software performance."

Yes, but there is the problem. With the Gigahertz race, you were sure to be able to enjoy the benefit. With multiple cores, you need software able to use these cores, am I wrong (I'm not really sure of what I'm talking about)? And so far we can't always fully exploit these multiple cores, am I wrong?

Re:The new race

[Wyatt Earp]

Not sure that with gigahertz we got to enjoy the benefits. Word on my 233MHz G3 worked as well as it did on 800MHz G4 as it does on my 2x2GHz G5 and as well as it does on my 3.2GHz P4.

I really think in the "megahertz" race we didn't really enjoy the benefits in all areas of software. vi, emacs, text editor x don't really benifit from 3GHz over 333MHz. Someone who just pops open Word or Word Perfect and an email client doesn't benifit from something zoom zoom high GHz.

On that note, quite a few things on OS X work better for CPU/usage on a pair of slower CPUs than on one fast CPU.

Re:The new race

[4D6963]

"Word on my 233MHz G3 worked as well as it did on 800MHz G4 as it does on my 2x2GHz G5 and as well as it does on my 3.2GHz P4."

What you just said reminds me of something I read before, it was something like "Computers in 93 used to run Word as fast as on "I really think in the "megahertz" race we didn't really enjoy the benefits in all areas of software. vi, emacs, text editor x don't really benifit from 3GHz over 333MHz."

Suuure. It didn't benefit much for NetHack neither, but what kind of improvement can you expect from vi that is not mainly design decisions or stuff like that?

vi now can only get as good as it could have got ten years ago because it meets more than the requirements it needs to do anything it can do. But many areas of software can't say they met more than they need, and that's obviously why computers need to go faster for some type of applications to improve.

I fail to see your point anyways, is it that computers don't need to go faster, just because we can run vi or Word fast? Are that type of applications all you need, or do you also use more needy applications like for example a web browser that would have runned more painfully on your 233 Mhz G3?

Re:The new race

[luvirini]

Even if you did not need a fast computer you were able to enjoy gigahertz race, just buy the slowest computer there is, and enjoy the other side of it.. slower things became cheaper.

Re:The new race

[4D6963]

I wasn't talking about the software benefits from more Mhz. I was talking about benefiting, understand, being able to use, those new cores, compared to being able to use the new MHz, back then.

The point was that, if your computer had twice as much MHz, basically, you could make let's say twice as many multiplications in as many time. But if you have a quad-core CPU, given the same amount of GHz, you will only be able to make 4 time as many multiplications if your software is written for using those 4 cores, otherwise, you're fucked.

Nothing to do with whether in your everyday use you benefit from more power or not.

Re:The new race

[timeOday]

With multiple cores, you need software able to use these cores, am I wrong

The transition from single-threaded to multi-threaded is fundamental, and will require a permanant increase in code complexity that we'll all have to learn to live with. However, the transition from 2 to 4 to more should be little or no trouble. At this point only a foolish programmer would think in terms of exactly 2 cores instead of N cores.

The main mistake I think people are making is the idea of having each thread do something different, e.g. one thread for graphics and one for AI. To harness a large number of cores equally, we need libaries which divide up big repetitive tasks (say, collision detection or matrix multiplication) into a large number of chunks. Of course you can't write heavily procedural logic that way, (say, a word processor), but for the most part that stuff runs fast enough on one core anyways.

Re:The new race

[4D6963]

"The main mistake I think people are making is the idea of having each thread do something different"

Totally agree. I once read a comment by a guy who was talking about a 8-core gaming system, and suggesting that one would be dedicated to graphics, one to the AI, one to sound, one to controlling the controllers, lol, some stupid crap like that. If you're gonna use a whole core just for controlling a keyboard or a gamepad, needless to say that you're a fool.

Of course they need to be put to contribution in a way that all the available power is used when needed. Which makes me think, let's say you run a CPU hungry application, couldn't by some way the OS cut the work to be done between each core so it would run concurrently on many cores without the application program to have to modify anything, just having the OS to deal with it?

I realize that the main problem with my question is, if your application is doing serial processing (for example basing it's next computation on the result of the previous one) it's not gonna be easy to make it work concurrently on several cores, but to a more or less small extent, couldn't something be done about the OS so it could make some applications written for a single core take advantage of multiple cores?

Re:The new race

[calidoscope]

Maybe what I mean is not clear, so imagine a quad-core CPU. Your threads can use each core etc, etc.. On a single-core, why don't you "cut" your CPU into 4 "virtual cores" so for example one thread that would act like it's only using one "virtual core" would actually be using 25% of the CPU time slices?

The rational for multi-core CPU's is that 4 slow cores can do the same amount of work as a fast single core system and consume less power. A related rationale is that you can't get a single core system that's 4X faster per core than a 4 core system. With those two exceptions, there is nothing to prevent what you're proposing.

The CDC-6000 series peripheral processor had an interesting twist on the virtual core - the ALU was time-sliced amongst 10 register sets so that it appeared to be 10 processors. The Sun Niagara does something similar - each of the 8 cores has 4 register sets, allowing for very rapid switching between threads. Recently saw a usenet posting stating that a single T2000 performed twice as fast as a dual Xeon box - and the Niagara CPU uses less power than a single Xeon.

Multi-cores

[acslat3r]

I am looking forward to multi-core systems. I have an athlon 64 dual core 3800 using windows for my main ebay computer and it can pretty much handle anything i throw at it. It will be interesting to see how the motherboards of the future look and how the memory is allocated since I would assume all of these cores sharing the same memory has to have more of a performance penalty. Adobe premiere recognizes the dual core during startup but I don't know of many programs that use both cores..i guess it just splits the load between them. I would assume multi-cored processors will sharply scale up in price due to the lower yield rate from effectively making two-four-eight processors at once on a single die.

Re:Multi-cores

[keyrat rafa]

I have an athlon 64 dual core 3800 using windows for my main ebay computer and it can pretty much handle anything i throw at it.

wtf is an ebay computer and why would it need a fast processor?

Re:Multi-cores

[quanticle]

/*I would assume all of these cores sharing the same memory has to have more of a performance penalty.*/

Depends on your architecture, really.  Intel chips might be hurt because of their sharing an external memory controller.  AMD chips would experience little or no performance penalty, because they have the memory controller on-die, and the chance of two cores accessing the same memory address is small.

/*Adobe premiere recognizes the dual core during startup but I don't know of many programs that use both cores..i guess it just splits the load between them.*/

As sibling posters have indicated, that is not how it works.  Unless an application is specifically written to be multithreaded, it will only use a single core.  Multiple cores allow you to have multiple single-threaded applications open without as much of a performance hit, but multi-core will not significantly improve the performance of a given application, unless the app is rewritten/recompiled to take advantage of multiple cores.

Re:Multi-cores

[Daniel Rutter]

Either
(a) he's running a truly awesome amount of auction management and/or sniping software for a whole bunch of auctions, or
(b) he's running eBay.

Having multiple cores ...

[Gaima]

... inside a chip is like having more than one engine under the hood of a car.

Except it's quite useless with front wheel drive.

Re:Having multiple cores ...

[ArbitraryConstant]

"(Having multiple cores)... inside a chip is like having more than one engine under the hood of a car."

No, it's like having multiple cylinders inside an engine.

Actually, they were outdone..

[deep44]

Not to be outdone by AMD..? Bad news: AMD made this very same announcement in June/2005, indicating quad-core CPUs would be available 'sometime in 2007'.

Good for SGI and Sun.

[CyricZ]

This is a trend that may play out well for SGI and Sun. Both have been building systems which involve a massive number of CPUs for quite a while now. They have the experience that Microsoft doesn't have, for instance.

IRIX and Solaris are known to scale far beyond 4 processors. They're proven technologies that are known to work very well on multiprocessored systems.

SGI could easily use this to their advantage, releasing affordable systems that offer the benefit of IRIX on such machines. If they can come out with a system that appeals to developers and business users, then they could take on Apple, Sun, Dell and others again.

Sun, of course, already offers Opteron-based workstations. A dual CPU entry-level system, with four cores per CPU, could be quite useful. When you factor in the superb quality of Solaris, we could really see some truly fantastic workstations, at a very affordable price.

Re:Good for SGI and Sun.

[cyberjessy]

Are you saying that people just woke up to this "trend"? The industry decided years ago that Mhz war will stop, and everyone will try to put more cores in. Its not like no-one else knew it was coming.

IRIX and Solaris are known to scale far beyond 4 processors.
So does almost every other OS. Linux scales to 1000s of processors, in IBMs supercomputers. Windows 2003 Datacenter supports 64 processors (Which is more than enough for a regular commercial application. In case you want more, instead of scaling up, you should be scaling OUT.) AIX, HP-UX etc also have great support.

If they can come out with a system that appeals to developers and business users, then they could take on Apple, Sun, Dell and others again
SGI competing with APPLE and DELL???? In what segment, but in the figment of your imagination?

SGI?? They lost $100m in 2004, $72m in 2005. They are nearly _dead_ and looking for a sell-out. In many ways they deserve it, I still remember their CD drive being priced 10 times higher than the ones in the market if you wanted to replace one. And of course, being totally proprietary nothing else would fit in. Who is buying IRIX now? And SGI now focuses on Linux.

I don't know who modded you interesting. And I did not know SGI still had fans!

When will Microsoft change its license?

[TSHTF]

Currently Microsoft charges per CPU, not core http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/mult icore.mspx. As we begin to see 4-core and 8-core CPUs, how long will it be until Microsoft begins charging per core?

Re:When will Microsoft change its license?

[cyberjessy]

This is silly. Microsoft made a conscious decision to license software per CPU (or per Slot) rather than core, and they had announced that they are doing so because multi-core looked like the natural way in which CPUs will improve, given that the Mhz war has ended. In fact they were the first major company to do so.

Also, this does not really eat into MS bottom line compared to Oracle or IBM. Most of MS revenue comes from the the desktop, while they are just competing in servers. Sql Server suddenly becomes more attractive, given Oracles complicated multi-core policy. (Remember that Oracle earlier announced that every core is a CPU, its just recently that they realized it will be a disaster and modified their original plans.)

Earlier CPU speeds doubled every 18 months. Multi-core will simply take another approach to achieving the same. I am not sure how this will hurt software companies any more than increasing cycles/sec.

Re:When will Microsoft change its license?

[Deluge]

As we begin to see 4-core and 8-core CPUs, how long will it be until Microsoft begins charging per core?

Ah, but why would they? They'll just bloat the OS so it eats up enough CPU to require a multi-multicore chip setup for serious server performance.

It's like razorblades

[Anonymous Coward]

This time next year, we'll have 16 core CPU's from AMD to go along with our 16 blade razors from Gillette.

Re:It's like razorblades

[digitaleden]

It's spelt grammar.

In othe news...

[dcapel]

...scientists report global warming is predicted to increase four-fold by 2008.

Re:DragonFly BSD will really start to shine.

[eviltypeguy]

While I don't doubt that DragonFly BSD will start to shine, I'm not sure that it will "take the lead." I personally expect OpenSolaris to take the lead since SUN has far more years experience in dealing with multiple processors.

Le-Yawn.....

[Groo Wanderer]

Wow, who would have guessed? Me.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29550

Want to know what the problem is? Near the bottom here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25349
(Yes, I know I spelled it wrong, it was a verbal tip....)

            -Charlie

In other news

[Burning1]

In other news:

Not to be outdone by AMD, Gellete releases a 5 core Razor.

Octacore

[drix]

Why wait? Sun already makes processors with 8 cores. For realz.

Sun Microsystems is shipping 8 core CPUs

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Cell versus 8086.

[mrchaotica]

No, because a modern x86 is just a RISC chip with a CISC-to-RISC translator and a shortage of registers.

Bandwidth

[Aardpig]

I wonder whether the quad-core Intel chips will be as bandwidth-starved as the dual-core chips? Currently, the comparison between a dual-core Pentium and a dual-core Opteron is farcical, especially for memory-limited apps.

Re:Bandwidth

[MojoStan]

I wonder whether the quad-core Intel chips will be as bandwidth-starved as the dual-core chips? Currently, the comparison between a dual-core Pentium and a dual-core Opteron is farcical, especially for memory-limited apps.

The quad-core chip that Intel demoed in TFA, code name Cloverton, is derived from the Merom/Conroe/Woodcrest architecture (which is derived from Yonah/Core Duo). It is not derived from the current bandwidth-starved Xeon core (Netburst/Pentium 4).

I agree that the comparison between dual-core Pentium D/Xeon and dual-core Athlon 64/Opteron is a farce. However, Yonah (even with its 667MHz bus and non-integrated memory controller) did quite well against Athlon 64.

Of course, that doesn't mean bandwidth won't be a problem for Cloverton when they move to 4 cores. I believe Cloverton will still have a FSB and seperate memory controller while Opteron will have next-gen HyperTransport and integrated memory controller(s).

OpenSolaris and DragonFly won't take the lead

[r00t]

IBM licensed the RCU patent for GPL software. Well, if Sun really does use the GPLv3, maybe they could use RCU. DragonFly will be GPL when the BSD devil gets to ski and ice skate.

Solaris helped Linux to scale, mainly by showing what NOT to do. Back when Linux was starting to get serious about SMP, the design was strongly influenced by horror stories from former Sun developers. Solaris and IRIX suffer from excessive locking. The locking is so complicated that it causes developers to add new locks instead of using ones that ought to be used, which only makes things worse.

Re:OpenSolaris and DragonFly won't take the lead

[laffer1]

Well Sun has changed the threading design several times in Solaris. You need to be more specific. Sun used a model where one cpu was the controller (scheduler) and the other cpus ran jobs in sun os 4.x and in early Solaris versions it used a m:n model where there would be m user threads to n kernel threads similar to how Microsoft's .NET framework creates threads. Newer versions of solaris (9 and 10) are more like linux and freebsd's latest threading library and make 1:1 relationships between userland and kernel threads. I'm not an expert at this and have been taking an operating systems class this term where this has been discussed.

As for dragonfly, I do think that Matt was right about some problems with freebsd 5 and 6 but each release is getting faster. 6.1 beta is noticably faster. Dragonfly isn't revolutionary though. I think some of the ideas from Mach inspired some of their design decisions and we all know Apple has the most succesful Mach kernel in the commercial world.

I don't know if we'll see freebsd or dragonfly look super impressive on multicore cpus, but I do know that openbsd and netbsd may not scale well depending on what they are working on. I can tell you that freebsd 6 does fine on my dual xeon machine. Solaris 10 on the same system seemed slightly slow but i think that was driver support more than anything. Linux IS SLOW on the system regardless of the scheduler. For that OS class, I had to install the 2.6.15 kernel and custom compile it for my system prior to our work on adding system calls. Its not as fast (gentoo) as freebsd 6 was on the system, but faster than freebsd 5.x. (especially disk io) I don't know why linux seems slow as it is using both cpus quite well. Of course this is percieved speed.. i haven't done any formal benchmarks.

Maybe someone should do a serious benchmark on FreeBSD 6, Netbsd 3, Dragonfly (whatever the latest is), OpenBSD 3.8, Linux 2.6.15 (gentoo distro?), and for kicks OpenDarwin all running on the same dual core hardware. Hell if i get time this summer, i might do it.

A quad system bus of some kind would help more

[CFD339]

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.

Re:A quad system bus of some kind would help more

[WuphonsReach]

I dunno what you do for a living (or a hobby), but there are those of us for whom quad-core won't get here soon enough. Disk I/O is always going to be an issue, but there are a lot of applications that still need more CPU power.

I keep a dual-CPU Opteron system pretty busy most days and I'll be upgrading to a dual-CPU dual-core system once prices drop a bit more.

Race is already over

[Midnight Warrior]

This multi-core race is already over. Sony wins by default with the PS3 coming in with 7 cores (#8 is a ghost to cover over manufacturing flaws and defect counts). And everyone is whining about how to code for 7 cores. Having four cores won't change this single-threaded world. When the libraries of the world are suddenly multi-threaded, the PS3 will be light years ahead. Plus, IBM is going to be putting their Cell processors on blades. IBM and AMD are two years too late to the game.

Be more concerned about the bus

[Courageous]

This whole multi-core trend concerns me. Sun Niagra is now out, in the form of the Sunfire T1000 and T2000 computers. These are fine computers. But they really only excel for very specific workloads. Meanwhile, facts are facts. The chips are starved for data.

It's almost comical how the Slash community seems to be so back and forth over which chip is "best". Cart meet horse. Get behind, thee!

So. I am a bit of an AMD fanboi. I admit it. But it's not really about the chip. It's the IO fabric. Hypertransport (which does happen to be on chip) is why AMD is winning this race right now. It's affordable, and scales linearly with the number of chips. Around the corner on AMD's front is HORUS (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18251), the memory fabric to rule them all. Intel should be really afraid here.

I personally can't get all excited about these multi core chips. Now IO solutions. Those interest me.

Computers are entirely IO bound these days. Hello?

Do any Slashdot readers happen to be home in there!?

*knockety knock*

C//

Adapted from the Onion

[amliebsch]

Fuck Everything, We're Doing Four Cores

By Craig Barrett
CEO and President,
Intel
February 10, 2006

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of computing in this country. The Pentium 3 was the CPU to own. Then the other guy came out with a 64-bit x86 CPU. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Itanium. That's 64 bit and a new instruction set. For performance. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened--the bastards went to two cores. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling 64 bits and a new instruction set. Floating point performance or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to four cores.

Sure, we could go to two cores next, like the competition. That seems like the logical thing to do. After all, one worked out pretty well, and two is the next number after one. So let's play it safe. Let's make a faster bus and call it the Pentium4SuperExtreme. Why innovate when we can follow? Oh, I know why: Because we're a business, that's why!

You think it's crazy? It is crazy. But I don't give a shit. From now on, we're the ones who have the edge in the multi-core game. Are they what's inside? Fuck, no. Intel is what's inside.

What part of this don't you understand? If one core is good, and two cores is better, obviously four cores would make us the best fucking CPU that ever existed. Comprende? We didn't claw our way to the top of the processor game by clinging to the 64-bit industry standard. We got here by taking chances. Well, four cores is the biggest chance of all.

Here's the report from Engineering. Someone put it in the bathroom: I want to wipe my ass with it. They don't tell me what to invent--I tell them. And I'm telling them to stick two more cores in there. I don't care how. Make the wafers so thin they're invisible. Put some on the bottom of the die. I don't care if they have to cram the fourth in perpendicular to the other three, just do it!

You're taking the "point" part of "floating point" too literally, grandma. Cut the strings and soar. Let's hit it. Let's roll. This is our chance to make CPU history. Let's dream big. All you have to do is say that four cores can happen, and it will happen. If you aren't on board, then fuck you. And if you're on the board, then fuck you and your father. Hey, if I'm the only one who'll take risks, I'm sure as hell happy to hog all the glory when the four-core CPU becomes the computing tool for the U.S. of "this is how we compute now" A.

People said we couldn't go to 64-bit. It'll cost a fortune to manufacture, they said. Well, we did it. Now some egghead in a lab is screaming "Four's crazy?" Well, perhaps he'd be more comfortable in the labs at AMD, working on fucking Turions. HyperTransport, my white ass!

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we should just ride in Motorola's wake and make embedded IC's. Ha! Not on your fucking life! The day I shadow a penny-ante outfit like Motorola is the day I leave the CPU game for good, and that won't happen until the day I die!

The market? Listen, we make the market. All we have to do is put her out there with a little jingle. It's as easy as, "Hey, gaming with anything less than four blades is like playing at VGA resolution." Or "You'll be so l33t, I couldn't snipe you with an aimbot." Try "Your b0x is going to be so friggin' fast, someone's gonna walk up and put a goddamn spoiler on it."

I know what you're thinking now: What'll people say? Mew mew mew. Oh, no, what will people say?! Grow the fuck up. When you're on top, people talk. That's the price you pay for being on top. Which Intel is, always has been, and forever shall be, Amen, four cores, sweet Jesus in heaven.

Stop. I just had a stroke of genius. Are you ready? Open your mouth, baby birds, cause Mama's about to drop you one sweet, fat nightcrawler. Here she comes: Put another Level 2 cache on that fucker, too. That's right. Four cores, two caches, and make th

Discussion by year 2342

[elbonian]

Dude one: I've bought a laptop with the new Intel FGHI 3xyz! Dude two: What does it have? Dude one: 3Gc (Gigacores) Dude two: Man! That is awesome! I'm gonna buy one of these. What power does it need? Dude one: A portable nuclear plant model NUKE32 or better.

Great excuse...

[rfernand79]

Great excuse to keep promoting fatware instead of cleverly designed software.

SUN had 8 core CPUS in 2005

[kireK]

Sun is currently shipping EIGHT core CPUS, and each core handles 4 threads... so you are talking 32 threads in one RU of space.

http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/overview/in dex.jsp

Not Surprising

[LionKimbro]

Intel said they were going to be releasing x100-core processors by 2015.

Just watch the Intel 2005 Keynote speech, (video) hear about x100 cores and x100 GBits/sec chip-chip data transfer.

It's not like this is a big secret or anything.

Obligatory...

[jheath314]

64 processors should be enough for anyone

Ars Technica has a better article...

[Malor]

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.

How many have seen / used the Sun T1 processor

[GuyverDH]

Up to 8 cores, 3MB L2 Cache (total shared), 4 execution threads per core, so effectively 32 execution threads per CPU.

A nicely loaded Sun T2000 system, with 8 cores, 32Gig RAM, Dual 2GB FCA and 8 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces comes in with a street price of approximately 30K. Add in Solaris 10 with it's container technology, the fact that it only uses 325Watts of power, and is light on BTUs - we're talking serious datacenter contender for web services, application servers, database servers, etc...

I'm currently looking at consolidating approximately 20 aging systems using over 10KW of power and close to 20K BTUs/hr thermal output. I am planning on replacing these 20 systems with 4 T2000 servers totaling 1500KW and approximately 5K BTUs/hr thermal output. Not only will I be saving on maintenance for the hardware, but also on software licensing as common applications like Oracle and BEA are licensing their products at 1/4 cpu per core on these processors. I will also be saving on power and cooling requirements for the datacenter. Not to mention datacenter floor space - I will be able to empty 2 full racks with this consolidation project. I'm hoping to expand it and end up with 1 rack of T2000's replacing close to the entire datacenter's UNIX population.

The one thing I don't do, is video transcoding...

[CFD339]

...other than that (which admittedly will dim the lights), I've never kept even a hyperthreading P4 pegged solid for more than a short time. I've written multithreaded audio processing software than can pick DTMF or Motorola QC-II tones out of a live audio stream with good reliability, and I've written anti-spam software that in test processes more than a million messages per hour. In neither case did I overwhelm the processors.

Neither of these tasks is important for a desktop user. Large software compiles, scientific analysis -- these are specialized tasks and sure multiprocessor machines will help. The market for these, however, is specialized and limited.

IMO - there will be external specialized processor blocks for these kinds of tasks. For example, an external FFT processor board would make a great deal of sense. Its a well known algorythm, used in a huge variety of analysis -- and is easy to predefine with parameters. Think of a PCI-Express board with its own set of RISC processors dedicated to performing FFT transforms in the same way modern graphics work is offloaded. You define in the drive the frame size, domain size, etc etc.. and get back the results as fast as you can pass them in.

The point is, what holds back solutions like this the most -- is the front side bus.

The 8-core Alpha

[Animats]

Just before the end of the Alpha line, DEC prototyped an 8-core Alpha. It's not clear that it was useful, but they did succeed in cramming eight CPUs on one die over five years ago.

96 Cores

[yerdaddie]

As long as we're waving "number of cores" about as if it were the number of inches a piece of spam is promising:

http://news.com.com/Designer+puts+96+cores+on+sing le+chip/2100-1006_3-5399128.html

In short, Clearspeed's CSX600 has 96 cores, but is designed to be an accelerator board.

Re:Multi CPUs? Why not Cluster?

[Jeremi]

Why can't we take advantage of multi CPU software using networked PCs?

Well, you can, for some things. The problem is that the speed of even gigabit Ethernet is so slow (compared to the speed of the interconnect between two CPUs on the same chip or motherboard) that in order for a program that runs well over a cluster, it often has to be designed completely differently from a program that will run well on a multi-CPU machine. In particular, things like shared memory are extremely difficult to simulate over a network, but trivial when you've got a single machine where the CPUs, well, share the memory.

For a lot of problem types, the high latency and low bandwidth of the network interconnect lead to the situation where you've spent hours and hours getting your app to run across all the CPUs in your cluster, only to find out that it's actually running slower than the simple version of the app that does everything on a single CPU. That's really embarrassing...

News ? It was a little fresher in 2004....

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee whiz, doesn't anyone have a memory these days ?

This was all planned out YEARS ago.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/16/amd_quad-c ore_opteron/

Last email of Randy Allen leaked

[MK_CSGuy]

"Mr. President, we must not allow a Quad-Core gap!!"

Re:I want single core COLD processors!

[swordgeek]

Well for cold processing, you should look at Sun's new T1-based systems. Eight cores on a single die, four threads per core, and all in 72W maximum.

"Proper motherboard designs also can allow multi-proc systems which will mitigate the fact that you need multiple cores on a die."

The problem with that idea is that as soon as you have a multi-socket motherboard, you can put multi-core CPUs in each socket. In actual fact, multiple cores make a lot of sense over discrete processors, depending on the bus architecture, but multicore is where things are going to go.

As for silent computers, that is finally getting the attention it deserves, thanks primarily to the HTPC craze. I would love to see limited power CPUs with no active cooling systems in them.