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Intel Shows Off 80-core Processor

thejakebrain writes "Intel has built its 80-core processor as part of a research project, but don't expect it on your desktop any time soon. The company's CTO, Justin Rattner, held a demonstration of the chip for a group of reports last week. Intel will be presenting a paper on the project at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco this week. 'The chip is capable of producing 1 trillion floating-point operations per second, known as a teraflop. That's a level of performance that required 2,500 square feet of large computers a decade ago. Intel first disclosed it had built a prototype 80-core processor during last fall's Intel Developer Forum, when CEO Paul Otellini promised to deliver the chip within five years.'" Update: 06/01 14:37 GMT by Z : This article is about four months old. We discussed this briefly last year, but search didn't show that we discussed in February.

18 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does it run Linux?

    1. Re:But... by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 5, Funny
      Does it run Linux?

      Yeah. 80 different distributions at once.

      --
      "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  2. cue by russ1337 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Cue the 'needed to run Vista' jokes....

    1. Re:cue by NickCatal · · Score: 2, Funny

      Finally I can realize my dream of playing 500 instances of Quake 3 on one machine!

      --
      -nick
    2. Re:cue by Ngarrang · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh, I get it! You spell "Microsoft" with a "$" replacing the "s" because Microsoft likes money! Then you write some shallow technical-sounding drivel around it to legitimize your flagrant adolescent fanboyism as Slashdot's trademark pseudo-intellectual circle-jerk! Clever! Karma was meant to be burned, not whored.
      --
      Bearded Dragon
    3. Re:cue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      1040? How'd you come up with that number?

  3. beowulf cluster? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    can you imagine.

    1. Re:beowulf cluster? by jollyreaper · · Score: 5, Funny

      beowulf cluster?

      can you imagine. Yeah, man. Or what if Intel codenamed their next processor Beowulf? *inhales, holds breath, exhales slowly, smoke twisting lazily* Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of Beowulfs or did I just blow your mind?
      --
      Kwisatz Haderach
      Sell the spice to CHOAM
      This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  4. Frak everything, we're doing 80 blades by jollyreaper · · Score: 5, Funny
    I'm sorry but when I see these competitions I always come back to this Onion piece. A classic.

    http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930

    Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades

    By James M. Kilts
    CEO and President,
    The Gillette Company

    Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That's three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened--the bastards went to four blades. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three blades and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five blades.

    Sure, we could go to four blades next, like the competition. That seems like the logical thing to do. After all, three worked out pretty well, and four is the next number after three. So let's play it safe. Let's make a thicker aloe strip and call it the Mach3SuperTurbo. 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-blade game. Are they the best a man can get? Fuck, no. Gillette is the best a man can get.

    What part of this don't you understand? If two blades is good, and three blades is better, obviously five blades would make us the best fucking razor that ever existed. Comprende? We didn't claw our way to the top of the razor game by clinging to the two-blade industry standard. We got here by taking chances. Well, five blades 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 blades in there. I don't care how. Make the blades so thin they're invisible. Put some on the handle. I don't care if they have to cram the fifth blade in perpendicular to the other four, just do it!

    You're taking the "safety" part of "safety razor" too literally, grandma. Cut the strings and soar. Let's hit it. Let's roll. This is our chance to make razor history. Let's dream big. All you have to do is say that five blades 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 five-blade razor becomes the shaving tool for the U.S. of "this is how we shave now" A.

    People said we couldn't go to three. It'll cost a fortune to manufacture, they said. Well, we did it. Now some egghead in a lab is screaming "Five's crazy?" Well, perhaps he'd be more comfortable in the labs at Norelco, working on fucking electrics. Rotary blades, my white ass!

    Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we should just ride in Bic's wake and make pens. Ha! Not on your fucking life! The day I shadow a penny-ante outfit like Bic is the day I leave the razor 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, shaving with anything less than five blades is like scraping your beard off with a dull hatchet." Or "You'll be so smooth, I could snort lines off of your chin." Try "Your neck is going to be so friggin' soft, someone's gonna walk up and tie a goddamn Cub Scout kerchief under 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 Gillette is, always has been, and forever shall be, Amen, five blades, sweet Jesus in heaven.

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  5. Imagine a... by simong · · Score: 5, Funny

    oh.

  6. Re:It may be known as "a teraflop", but... by KIFulgore · · Score: 5, Funny

    Trickses flopses... precious...

    --
    - For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
  7. Re:IA64 by ciroknight · · Score: 5, Funny

    I remember when Pentium was the next huge chip from Intel that was a few years off.

    I guess we all know how that one turned out.

    --
    "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
  8. Re:Deja vu all over again by Fozzyuw · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Intel CEO promises to deliver magical new uber processor within five years".

    Great now, I have to wait five years before I buy my next computer because nothing else will compare unless it's got 80 cores. My duel core looks soooo small now. =(

    --
    "The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
  9. Ob by rlp · · Score: 2, Funny

    In Soviet Russia, Intel's 80 core processor imagines a Beowolf cluster of you!

    --
    [Insert pithy quote here]
  10. Re:Not usefull yet.. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1, Funny

    80 cores is an absurd number, with the parallelism level that we have in today programs, most of the cores should be idle most of the time.

    Depends on the task. It might be useful for a webserver or something. Besides, most single CPUs are idle most of the time (unless people are running folding@home, or are part of a really complex botnet)

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  11. Re:AMD's response by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 2, Funny

    Kilts becomes AMD CEO:

    81 cores? Fuck that! We're going to 100 cores and putting a goddamn window on the CPU so all of the fan boys can watch the electrons flow. Then we're going to put the ethernet connection DIRECTLY on the chip. Ya, you heard me right, a connector right on the damn chip. You disagree? Great, I need your soon to be empty cube to store my prototypes you pussy.

    Wait! Brace yourself, I've got another one. A speaker slapped onto the CPU. You hear that? That is the sound of genius and of every command to the CPU being broadcast. The bling-bling crowd will eat that shit up like a cupcake at a fat camp. Let Intel suck on THAT for a while.

    --
    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  12. I'm getting tired of the ancient computer comparis by dj42 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well, those shitty, basic computers that took up big rooms, remember those? No? Ok, well, if those were still here, this thing would be like 90239820 times smaller, cool huh? How many of those are we going to have to hear before we come up with some new kind of comparison. You know how fast a woman can plot a route around a detour using a map in a big city? Yeah? Well, this shit is like 939203902093902093092093 times faster.

    --
    We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
  13. That's why we need 80 cores. by jd · · Score: 2, Funny

    Clearly, there is a demonstrable need for news sites to process dupes faster and in parallel with other dupes. The reason this one took so long is because there isn't a high-speed dupe instruction on the older generations of processors.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)