Intel Developers Forum roundup: four cores now, 80 cores later

While we've been busy covering lots of other news today, Intel has also been clamoring for the spotlight -- Otellini and Co. had a number of announcements about the future of processors at today's Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. Firstly, the quad-core Core 2 Extreme and Core 2 Quad chips have been officially unveiled and slated for production, with the former running in servers this fall, and the latter appearing in desktops by 2007. Of course, these chips are the same ones we've been hearing about for the last seven months, and it appears that DigiTimes' previous prediction that these procs would debut in November was correct. Secondly, Intel's CEO (pictured at right) told the audience that the chipmaker has already built a prototype with 80 processing cores on a single chip that can perform a trillion floating-point operations per second -- that's a teraflop to the layman -- and is aiming to ready commercial versions within five years. Otellini also teased everyone with announcements of the new 45nm-based architecture, code-named "Nehalem", which will ship in 2008, and the new "Gesher" 32nm chips by 2010, which would allow for a 310 percent increase in Intel processors' performance-per-Watt by that time -- hey, better late than never. Finally, in a move that will surely be met with angry glares from Cupertino, Intel is putting up a $1 million bounty for a Viiv-based Mac mini killer, something that will turn a traditional living room PC into something that is "sexy, stylish and small" (you mean the mini's not?) as determined by a panel that includes judges from PC Magazine, GQ and of course, Otellini himself. Be sure to check the couple extra pics on the next page.

Read - Quad-core chips coming in November
Read - First quad-core servers, desktops coming
Read - 80-core chips coming by 2011
Read - Higher performance-per-watt
Read - $1 million bounty

[Photos: Ricardo]

[ROFLROFFLES @ Sep 26th 2006 6:46PM]

I heart Intel.

[VeganFreak @ Sep 26th 2006 6:47PM]

so is this what i need to run hl3? roflcakes

[Giltronic @ Sep 26th 2006 6:50PM]

why would intel compete with the mini.
the mini already has a intel chip in it.

[Ricardo @ Sep 26th 2006 6:54PM]

Here is a bunch more pictures of the keynote.

http://ricardosblog.com/blog/2006/09/paul_otellini_idf_keynote_in_p.html

[Sam @ Sep 26th 2006 6:55PM]

Mini killer? Only if I could put cable cards in it (and upgrade to cable card 2.0 later)

[Colin @ Sep 26th 2006 7:11PM]

10ghz by 2006!

[chua @ Sep 26th 2006 7:15PM]

The codenames sound like those were projects at their Israeli facility. Those were the guys that made the Pentium M, which is related to Core Duo, which bodes well for these upcoming CPUs.

[Robert @ Sep 26th 2006 7:19PM]

and i heard amd was working on a dual core to whoop intel (AMD got pwned). hello no one wants 2 dual core chips instead of one quad core chip that means you have to buy 2 zalman heat sinks instad of one... ROTFL AMD are you still among the living

[shirizaki @ Sep 26th 2006 7:21PM]

Wanna know how Apple made the mac mini?


They sacrificed 1,000 orphans, a unicorn, and Steve Jobs' soul. That's how the Mini was made. Don't tell anyone.

[Dp462090 @ Sep 26th 2006 9:31PM]

Too bad they didn't have to sacrifice Steve Jobs' ego.

[Warhorse @ Sep 26th 2006 7:21PM]

So according to the picture they are also building mini Death Stars too?

[Aaron @ Sep 27th 2006 3:09AM]

"So according to the picture they are also building mini Death Stars too?"

Yeah, I can see it now...

*Emperor voice*

"Oh, I'm afraid this processor will be quite operational when Apple arrives..."

[Rob @ Sep 26th 2006 7:25PM]

It's not about the speed's anymore. The most important factor is putting more CPU's on a single die. Yes the speed has it's part but an 8 core at 2.2 will always beat a 4 core at 2.8 or similar.

However if we did happen to see the "80 core" prototype with speeds of around 5 / 6 ghz then my god....

[Matt W @ Sep 27th 2006 9:03AM]

Rob,

You're comment that mult-core at a lower clock speed will always beat a single core at a higher clock speed is patently absurd. Even at the same clock speed, an identically designed (not core 2 vs. P4) single core will have performance benifits resulting from lower overhead requirements. It's ONLY when two or more threads are running that more cores are faster. As it is, I'd like to see software manufacturers, microsoft (and open source OS devs), and chip makers come up with a way to allow the user to choose what software runs where. I'd like all of my "utility" software including the OS, network services, anti-virus, etc... to be limited to one core while my processor intensive apps could spawn on several at a time.

Your Pal,
Matt

[scott @ Sep 26th 2006 7:30PM]

odd... 80 isnt a power of 2...

[Ricardo @ Sep 26th 2006 7:33PM]

I just added comments to pictures. Check them out.

[Jeff Foster @ Sep 26th 2006 7:34PM]

what does Intel have against Apple?

now that Apple is an Intel customer, this doesn't make much sense to me.

[Raider @ Sep 26th 2006 7:44PM]

They can offer a bounty for a Mac Mini killer.... but if it looks similar to the Mac Mini, it can't be sold in the U.S. Or should I say, Apple can deny the selling of it (if it looks real close to the Mac Mini) in the U.S.

Google Apple Mac Mini design patent...

[tau zero @ Sep 26th 2006 7:49PM]

I was expecting a 64 core proc... 80 isnt a power of 2

[Ferny @ Sep 26th 2006 8:24PM]

yay our CPUs are going to be outdated even faster. now they will be outdated every year or so. wonder how that will work with PC gamers.

[mike @ Sep 26th 2006 8:29PM]

64 + 16 is 80. Perhaps 64 prime cores and 16 secondary ones?

[Jacob @ Sep 26th 2006 10:29PM]

the dailytech article says that it's 8 cores a processor, 80 processors in the wafer (the big thing he's holding up) so I think someone at cnet screwed up with the numbering

[chaosrain @ Sep 26th 2006 10:25PM]

Reading the Anandtech.com review of the IDF, it seems that the 80 cores in Otellini's hands are "weak" cores, capable of excellent floating point operations, but little else (no SSE, SSE2, SSE3, etc.). For all of the people expecting the 80 core chip to be a 20x scaled up Kentsfield, prepare to be disappointed. Certainly, having so many cores will increase some operations, but a big push and investment will need to be made on the software side to facilitate optimal utilization of such a massively parallel architecture. Also, if folks are writing their code to utilize SSE instruction sets and Intel goes with many cores over hard-wired SSE instruction execution, coding will have to change dramatically across the board. If all you're looking to do is smash the Folding@home records, this baby's a winner!

[CLShortFuse @ Sep 26th 2006 10:26PM]

take THAT ps3! =P

[Nimajus @ Sep 26th 2006 10:37PM]

I guess soon we'll just have a wafer with pins on one of the sides...

[balagan @ Sep 26th 2006 10:55PM]

Made is Israel!

[Murc @ Sep 27th 2006 1:29AM]

Nice.

I plan on upgrading my pc in early 07'. I was thinking of getting dual core...But (depending on the price) I might just go with a quad.

Its seems clear now, that multi-core processors are here to stay.
Looks like Microsoft chose correct with the 360 by doing multiple cores...while the PS3 chose the cell.....BTW, Whats up with the cell? Is comming to desktops???? or what?

[engdgt.10.nikster @ Sep 27th 2006 5:00AM]

Intel has been trying to sponsor "sexy" computers for ages and nothing has come of it - I think it's just an old habit that will continue.

The fact that they now have Apple on board, which actually _does_ make sexy small computers doesn't change that one bit.

Is Apple prohibited from playing in that competition?

[engdgt.10.nikster @ Sep 27th 2006 5:08AM]

On a more serious note: That we can now expect the number of cores to double every year - rather than the clock speeds - is very significant for programmers. A lot more thought will go into parralelization.

With two cores, you don't need to parallelize anything - one core can run all the low priority crap, the other on the main number cruncher program or something like that.

With 4, that's less true. Maybe we will just get used to background tasks that use way more CPU than the current ones - they would slow down a single core tremendously, but on a quad or 8x, you won't notice at all. Xcept maybe with battery life.

[Philip @ Sep 27th 2006 8:41AM]

Murc @ Sep 27th 2006 12:55AM

...while the PS3 chose the cell.....BTW, Whats up with the cell? Is comming to desktops????

The cell processor has 8 cores so i don't see your argument.... the Xbox 360 is lacking only having 2

I have no idea if it will ever come to PC i guess not, have you ever seen an emotion engine PC?? ;D

[John Hughes @ Sep 27th 2006 8:47AM]

4 cores and 7 years ...

[schale_WDI @ Sep 27th 2006 1:32PM]

Here ya go Matt:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/taskman_assign_process.mspx?mfr=true

[Brennan Campbell @ Sep 27th 2006 2:37PM]

AMD is still going to kick Intel's butt with the quad-core due for Q2 2007 release. I mean, ya lower speed, but AMD doubles, almost triples how much data is transfered through Intel's chips. AMD is gonna always woop Intel's ass.

[Brennan Campbell @ Sep 27th 2006 3:57PM]

by data i mean the bus speed

[Maff @ Sep 27th 2006 8:39PM]

core 2 quad, awful, awful name, i already get confused when core duo and core 2 are written close together! what happened to the core quad, and couldn't they just call it the gizentium?

[raja @ Feb 12th 2007 4:59AM]

i am having intel D915G processor machine with 256mb RAM ..but iam unable to play any game more than 10 minutes ..after 10 minutes of any game play it gets restarted by itself ...
yesterday also when i play WWE RAW , the system restarts itself after 8 minutes....
please any person who were all experts in these issues please help me by mailing to the link below
MY MAIL ID: [e-mail]