Intel goes multi-core crazy for "Keifer" server line
By Paul Miller 
posted Jul 10th 2006 2:33PM
posted Jul 10th 2006 2:33PM
We've been seeing the multi-core trend oncoming for a while now, but it seems Intel isn't just kidding around with the idea. The word on the street is that they have plans for a 32 core chip line named "Keifer" in the next few years to bust on those server tasks, which will no doubt be as boring and onerous as the processes of today. The good news is that while those chips will be fairly low on GHz -- about one third of the fastest Xeon CPU currently available -- but they'll manage 15x the performance with all those cores working in parallel, running a total of 128 threads. Based on a 32nm process, each Keifer should have eight processing nodes holding four cores, with a total of 24MB of cache between them. It appears Intel is most worried about keeping up with the multi-core efforts of Sun's Ultra Sparc chips, with little fear for AMD's Opteron roadmap, but with these Keifer chips being due around 2010, we're wondering how long it'll take for all this crazy multi-core action to trickle down into laptop chips for 32x (or 15x, as it were) the portable fun. The biggest hurdle of all, however, could be a consumer Microsoft OS that can fully help software take advantage of multiple cores, a task which Vista isn't quite up to.
you think with a code name like Keifer it should be 24 cores...
Dang! Paul beat me to that one!
But the description sounds like Keifer will only be quad-core. It says "8 nodes with 4 cores each" and then says "Every node will have direct access to one 3 MB on-die last level cache". Or is my mistake in assuming 1 die = 1 chip?
"WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF CORES!"
I mean,
"WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME! Tell me, where is the 4th core?!"
Beep-boop-beep-boop.
from 2 to 32 cores?? How about 4,6,8,... I need a good machine to play doom iii too:)
Yawn...this is old news. IBM's been doing this for many years. It's good of Intel to finally jump on the bandwagon though, horrah Intel.
Keep in mind, you're not going to see this in your desktop or notebook for many years after it hits the enterprise server community...if ever.
For Zafar, I believe intel is going quad-core in Jan. '07 with (i might be wrong here!) Santa Rosa? And I think I heard of octo-core cpu for late 07.
This wouldn't be very good for a desktop or laptop application, which has fewer, more time-critical tasks. Unless you REALLY want a dedicated core for your taskbar clock....
As for gaming, I'd be interested to hear how many threads a game developer would reasonably use. I would think multi-core video cards would be more useful.
"WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR!?!?!?!?!"
*shoots him in the leg and smashes gun in wound*
"WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?!?!?!"
"I told you, I work for intel"
"Oh, sh*t," *opens phone*
"Cloe O'Brien"
"It's Jack, I think we got the wrong guy"
"Oh, sh*t"
beep, boop, beep, boop
Chris... "Yawn...this is old news"....
I cant stand when guys like you post that this is old news. Not everyone knows the same things that you do so for future reference, PEOPLE DONT GIVE A SHIT IF YOU THINK THIS IS OLD NEWS! If Engadget reports "OLD" news to you, move on.
Intel Has a NEW LOGO guys. the e has been moved inline.
just for your info!
Uh... Mac OS handles multiple cores pretty well... and last time I checked, Cupertino is using Intel processors... so wouldn't it follow that they wouldn't have to run a version of Windoze that completely sucks with multiple cores?
Won't a 32-core chip run afoul of the same issues that are plauging multi-Xeon systems, which is to say bandwidth? Or is that only a concern with multiple chips, and not multiple cores on the same chip?
/me drools at the idea of running 32 instances of
I think the point was more that Vista might find it hard to handle 32 cores. Might be an ceiling to the number of cores it can handle in SMP.
Key phrase here is "consumer OS", which Vista is. Server OS doesn't apply to an OS that needs 512MB of RAM JUST TO OPERATE! And don't tell me it can run on less (I don't know if it can, it just may), my point is that it's the most resource-intensive thing yet, which doesn't make for good server operation.
Slight problem with the name... it'll be easily confused with Kiefer (which is a rather large company that caters to everything involving water).
I love how "Jack" comes to most of our minds.
Maybe this is a bit facile, but perhaps this is part of the Apple development? Stop and ask yourself who is the voice of MacTel advertisements. And who already has a 64-bit OS.
Maybe its cuz Keifer voice-overed that Mac/Intel commercial.