AMD's Shanghai proffers 12 cores, HyperTransport 3.0

If your interest in processor speeds doesn't extend much beyond "is it fast?" then these juicy tidbits likely aren't for you. That said, AMD is certainly getting excited about its upcoming Barcelona successor: the 45nm Shanghai. The main points of interest out of the gate are HyperTransport 3.0, which was nixed late in the game on Barcelona, and six cores, which are meant to pit the chip up against Intel's upcoming six-core Dunnington chip. Where things get really exciting is a few months after Shanghai's late 2008 debut, when AMD plans do release a twin-die version, with 12 cores of happiness connected by HyperTransport 3.0. What does all that mean? Beats us, but we hope it's fast.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 19th 2008 7:30AM]

People who complain there isn't software that can utilize multiple cores need to look past the end of their nose. No the average Joe home user or even gamer isn't going to use 12 cores right away. That isn't their initial market. The market is first in SERVER space. You know, stuff like virtualization, web servers, database servers. Current modern server software that SHOULD use multiple cores on the most part CAN use multiple cores.

@Schfelzerberg

The don't make 10Ghz because at about 4 to 5 Ghz the speed is too great to be realistically cooled.

[simbiot Posted Apr 19th 2008 7:49AM]

The enterprise sector will definitely use these. I can see some data centers using these for VMware ESX servers with Vmotion. In fact, many companies are starting to use VM's for their Citrix farms. Makes for very quick disaster recovery.

[CmdX Posted Apr 19th 2008 10:14AM]

I have access to an 8 core mac pro, and I cannot get compressor to use 100% of all 8 cores when compressing video... and OS X is great at that...

Using that many cores for one application is going to take some work... although enterprise apps may find it useuful... A lot of websites that use MySQL use Opterons because of their great 64 bit support (which works GREAT with MySQL)

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 19th 2008 10:53PM]

It's over NINE cores!!!

[Wwhat Posted Apr 19th 2008 11:17PM]

Didn't MS set the max per license at 8 cores or something? And while I mention it, can windows even work with more than 4 cores? Or even use them at all, I bet it'll require all sorts of patches knowing MS.

And I do include server versions of windows in my fears.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 20th 2008 7:45PM]

I can't wait to tell my friends at Geek Squad about this, thanks Geek Squad your the greatest. (This comment has no affiliations with the Best Buy Company, friends til the end Best Buy, awesome!)