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Intel - Market Doesn't Need Eight Cores

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the yeah-but-i-do dept.

PeterK writes "TG Daily has posted an interesting interview with Intel's top mobility executive David Perlmutter. While he sideswipes AMD very carefully ('I am not underestimating the competition, but..'), he shares some details about the successor of Core, which goes by the name 'Nehalem.' Especially interesting are his remarks about power consumption, which he believes will 'dramatically' decrease in the next years as well as the number of cores in processors: Two are enough for now, four will be mainstream in three years and eight is something the desktop market does not need." From the article: "Core scales and it will be scaling to the level we expect it to. That also applies to the upcoming generations - they all will come with the right scaling factors. But, of course, I would be lying if I said that it scales from here to eternity. In general, I believe that we will be able to do very well against what AMD will be able to do. I want everybody to go from a frequency world to a number-of-cores-world. But especially in the client space, we have to be very careful with overloading the market with a number of cores and see what is useful."

10 of 548 comments (clear)

  1. I'm glad to hear someone state this by archcommus · · Score: -1, Redundant

    With all the talk of mini-cores and how great threaded computing is, it seems too many people have gotten into the mindset that more cores = better, period. Thus I'm glad to hear someone intelligent right from the source state that 8 cores is simply not needed. Sounds logical to me. I could see a good use for four cores in the very near future if software is written to take advantage of it.

  2. No one needs more than 640 kilo-bytes of RAM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Attributed to Bill Gates, discussing the then new IBM PC and MS DOS systems.

    Can we hear history repeating itself.......

  3. 640K Should be enough for everybody by zoso · · Score: -1, Redundant

    640K Should be enough for everybody

  4. The guy just wants some fame for himself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    640k, need I say more? If there's one thing you can count on it's that people find uses for more processor power.

  5. Whattya mean I don't need 8 cores? by Yaksha42 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    "No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer."

  6. objoke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    640 KByte should be enough RAM for ever.

  7. Nobody needs 8 cores or more than 64k by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Nobody will ever need more than 64k

    Nobody will ever need 8 cores.

  8. Deja Vu by EotB · · Score: 0, Redundant

    eight is something the desktop market does not need and 640kB should be enough for anyone...

  9. Ever? by tonyr1988 · · Score: 0, Redundant
    eight is something the desktop market does not need
    Given the context of that sentence (two for now, four later), it implies that he meant we will never need eight cores.

    Anyone remember this?
    No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer.
    Ten years ago, could anyone have imagined that we'd be making 750GB hard drives?
  10. Yes, and... by MattS423 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    According to Bill Gates a number of years ago, no one could possibably need more than 64kb of RAM.