Intel's 48-core processor destined for science, ships to universities soon
By Sean Hollister 
posted April 10th 2010 6:31AM
posted April 10th 2010 6:31AM
posted April 10th 2010 6:31AM
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I want 48 core processors in my desktop by 2020. No excuses intel, amd.
@DeathroW22
MOAR COARZ!!!
@DeathroW22 by 2020 you will be able to havre them in your brain people with mental and physical problems
Intel and AMD both had 100 core cpu processors a year ago. I wish Intel would already release their Oct Cored Processor with 32 Threads...
@jasonfreeman27 I don't think you understand how powerful the human brain is compared to even the most powerful computers of today.
replacing parts of the brain would require processing power above that of a quantum processor.
@HW90 But can it run crysis?
@mark29 Need more cores, I can't do that without more cores, more cores means more responsibilty, by the might of my cores I condemn you
@HW90 No, not really.
While it is true that some parts of the brain (in different areas depending on the specific brain) are hugely faster than any computer, there is plenty of room for assisted processing by electronics that are much faster in some instances.
Even the fastest mathematician isn't as fast as a computer at crunching calculations, so that's one place where electronics can help (among dozens of other areas).
Of course it won't be as simple as just sticking it in there and having them work with existing tissue (which is why I don't see it being done by 2020, but 2050 might be possible). Other neural assisting electronics (to read neural impulses and relay them to a prosthetic body part or an original part which lost it's connection) is a different story (it's already doable), but it cannot perform calculations for you or feed you information or anything like that.
And, even if it comes to be possible to have brain implants to assist with calculations and such, it's very possible that adults won't be able to make use of it and only children who have it implanted when they are very young will be able to learn to use it.
@HW90 yeah, if they made a computer that one's brain was the CPU, it would be unstoppable Forever. The only limit would be the user.
@mark29 It can't run Crysis but it can play the trailer for Crysis 2 encoded in Flash without the fan kicking in... well, maybe.
The chip uses between 25W and 125W, which is awesome for 48 cores, assuming these are full x86 cores. Could these chips be the products from the Larrabee department?
I really can't wait to get close to this many cores in a computer. Think of all the work I could hypothetically do but won't because I waste too much time on forums and blogs.
The sad part is that we could probably all get these chips now but why should Intel sell us 48-core chips now and never sell another chip if they can spread the upgrades over 10 years? It would be nice if they sold them on newegg so that anyone could buy one just to experiment with.
@YuriTenshi
Ok, your Brain, is able to make adjustments to your breathing, heart rate, it doesn't come close to a Processor in terms of what it can do.
You do things without even thinking about it, from the moment your born, your brain is sending signals to your body, it can adapt learn, and even create new things with the resources you have.
It far surpasses anything we currently have, to say a computer calulate maths faster is abit stupid really, it's not learning it, it's just simple software.
Until the time comes where computers can learn, just by you inputting for instance, using a simple logic patteren, and working out the logic behind it, then you could say that. Until that time, you can't.
@DeathroW22
Useless until developers make software use more cores.
Course, universities will for their specialized applications.
@DeathroW22 I want my 3GCs processor. 3 GIGACOREs Intel. I'm waitin, or I'm switchin to AMD!
@Geoff900 Still adding a processor to augment the brain to improve certain tasks could be quite beneficial. No one is saying a processor could replace a brain, but I'm pretty sure we could be more efficient with added electronics. The processor doesn't need to learn if it can be programmed to help us with common tasks (extra "memory", math calculations, google searches with a wifi chip?).
Just 20 years ago very few people had computers in their homes. Now we have computers everywhere (desktops, laptops, netbooks, cell phones, etc.). I think brain interfacing is the next step in computing.
@mark29
Crysis is called Falluja in the real world and there are real men and women who do it every day.
Universities being their core demographic.
@(Unverified) i see what you did there.
@JRKScope I don't... :/
@loocas
You see, the humor is in the play on the word "core". The article is about some new 48-core processors from Intel, that are going to be given to researchers to use/test. Researchers usually tend to work at universities, so the processors will probably be sent to those universities. Since the majority of them will go to use in the universities, they will be the central place of use, or the "core" of use.
The humor comes from the multiple uses of the word "core", meaning both the processors and "central".
I hope this helped.
@loocas "core demographic" is an anagram for "Epic Grad Moocher", which is, of course, universities.
@morcheeba
Holy hell, did you think of that yourself, or do you have a PhD in ENGL? Or, you used an anagram dictionary._.
@morcheeba
That is epic
It's probably still gonna take ages until those are available in a normal pro graphics station and for under three grand per chip.
First guy to say 'can it run Crysis' gets a really mad demotivational thrown at him
@Exbloder but can it run Metro 2033?
@Exbloder only at medium settings
@Exbloder
You were the first to say it!
oh snap!!!
someone just had to mention there ipad well i guess its not as bad as when the iphone first launched punched alot of people
@Atlantian, wut?
We would need new kernel schedulers for such kind of processors
Ship it here... (My home!)
I want one!
@pankomputerek Me too, finally a processor that can run flash adequately, I might have to change my stance.
Why does the processor look like a 16 color gif while the rest of the picture looks like a true-color jpeg?
@linuxamp maybe because there are 48 cores on that little thing..
@linuxamp or that's not an actual picture of the chip lol
@linuxamp I thought it looked more like a 4 color print someone scanned from a magazine, though that doesn't explain why the rest of the image doesn't look that way (unless the chip was cut and pasted into another image).
48 Cores. I guess that will earn you some bragging rights at a LAN party
These are not full x86 cores, like the ones found in the Core i7 for example.
So they are hard to compare in any useful matter.
What would be useful would be if software makers actually wrote programs that use dual core etc. Doesn't matter how many cores you have if your software doesn't use them.
There only a handful that see more then core.dBpoweramp is about the only one I know of off hand.
Cores are like 64bit they need to get the software developers on board to make it of any use to the end user.
@RandallLind many many programs use mor than one core. your argument is a few years out of date. all recent graphics applications like image editing, sound editing or video editing use many cores, and all new PC games use dual cores well and some require quad cores to function best.
@RandallLind
Any good, modern 3D software will have multi threading, in fact most modern software that requires large amounts of CPU usage will use Multi Thread technology as most people have 2+ core cpu's nowadays
@h0rk and @synth
Yes, because 4 cores is close to being 48
Finally my dreams of writing a fast Matlab raytracer are ready to be realized.
Isn't this just a repackaging of the failed Larrabee project?
@edmcquade Larrabee is CPU-GPU and it is still going to be released, but only as development platform. So it might have similarities, but I doubt this is Larrabee related.
So what is AMD doing?
@spsfinest
Having a pie-throwing competition for sure!!!
@spsfinest Having your dog, behind the sheds...