clovertown
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Apple Mac Pros: now with 8-cores
So long Woodcrest, hello Covertown! Rumored since October, Apple finally got around to loosing an octo-core Mac Pro -- that's 8-cores of Intel processing power spread across 2 of Intel's latest Clovertown quad-core chips. Arriving just in time for Adobe's Intel optimized Creative Suite 3.0. Quad-core models are still available with processor speeds maxing out at 3GHz. Prices start at $2,499 for 2.66GHz quad-core action or tack on an additional $1,498 for a total of 8-cores running at 3GHz. Shipping now -- hoozah!
Tyan Typhoon 600 series reaches 256 gigflops for "personal supercomputing"
Remember that 16-core Tyan Typhoon personal supercomputer we told you about back in March? Yeah, that was before all the dual-core and now quad-core action started flooding the market. Well, we've just laid our eyes on the Typhoon 600 series, which is loaded to the brim with Clovertown chips, reaching 256 gigaflops worth of processing power from a single outlet. Of course, the Typhoon isn't exactly going to crack the Top500 list of supercomputers, but it'll probably work much better than that those decked out quad-core getups we've seen thus far. If you really need that many chips, just be prepared not to flip out when you see the £10,000 ($19,080) pricetag, which works out to about 25,600,000 flops per pound sterling.
Apple to release Mac Pro with eight cores?
So now we've gotten word that the gang in Cupertino are working on a Mac Pro that will boast eight cores (call it octo-core, if you must) -- packing two Clovertown quad-core chips. Of course, this doesn't really seem all that much of a surprise given that this was already done over a month ago by our buds at Anandtech. But AppleInsider says that this new bump could happen "any time after mid Nov." for the Mac Pro line. Of course, most Apple rumors should normally be taken with a hefty dose of sodium chloride, but given that we've seen that no additional hardware or software tweaks are required to make the Mac Pro run properly with eight cores, it would seem that this is firmly within the realm of possibility. That is, assuming you have the hefty wad of cash that this will no doubt demand, and that Intel can produce enough supply in the near future.
Intel previews quad-core Xeon "Tigerton" server processor
Intel's first quad-core processors still aren't even shipping but that hasn't stopped the company from showing off the next chip up its sleeve, unveiling the quad-core Xeon "Tigerton" on Friday. Set to ship in the second half of 2007 and intended for heavy-duty server use, this one sports the Xeon MP 7000 Series designation -- MP standing for multiprocessor, naturally, meaning that you can use more than one of 'em in your setup for some dual or quad quad-core action. Unfortunately, that appears to be all that Intel's letting loose about the processor for the time being, though the company has reaffirmed that the previously announced "Clovertown" quad-core Xeon server processor will be shipping in November, as will the desktop-bound Core 2 Extreme QX6700.
Quad core Core 2 Duo works in Mac Pro
That's a Mac Pro with 8 processors. Ok, so it really is only 2 processors with 4 cores each, but I bet that thing screams. The good folks at AnandTech just happened to have an engineering sample of Intel's forthcoming 'Clovertown' processor, and they thought, 'I wonder if the Mac Pro mother board can run with this.' So they swapped the processors out, and OS X didn't bat an eye (nor did the hardware).This doesn't mean that you'll be able to upgrade the processors yourself, but it is a step in the right direction.Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Clovertown Intel Core 2 quad-core will work in a Mac Pro
Ok Mac fanboys, listen up: if you somehow manage to have two not-yet-released Clovertown Intel Core 2 quad-core chips kicking around and you happen to have recently bought a Mac Pro, you can pop the pair of them right there into your nice little LGA-771 sockets, for some oct-awesome processing power. In fact, that's precisely what the good folks at Anandtech did. They have their silicon-stained paws on some "engineering samples" of the Clovertown chips and dropped them into their Mac Pro. What did they find? Mac OS X didn't hiccup at all, and neither did the other hardware. The CPU Monitor indeed showed all eight processors, but as Anandtech pointed out, there's not much that you can do at this point that will stress all eight processors at once, not unless you're running SETI@Home, Folding@Home and every other distributed processing program you can find -- and even then that probably won't do it.[Via Slashdot]
Intel fights AMD's 4x4 with new quad-core tech
There aren't many arguments that Intel has a winner -- however temporary -- with their new Conroe Core 2 Duo chips, but they aren't relaxing just yet. With the oncoming threat of AMD's 4x4 chips in the performance/gamer space, Intel is getting a bit of quad-core action of their own with the new Kentsfield and Clovertown setups for consumer and server use respectively. Originally due in the first half of 2007, near when AMD's "Conroe killer" K8L was set to drop, both have been bumped up to fourth quarter '06 status, which sure has Intel looking smug. There are differences, however, in approach: Intel's Kentsfield architecture squeezes four cores into one socket, as compared to the dual sockets used by AMD's 4x4. This means the Intel chips will have less memory and frontside bus bandwidth available to each core, which will hurt them some in the performance race, but it also means cost savings that could give them an edge in the bang for buck arena. If anything, this is an indication of the intense competition going on for our chip dollars, and even if the quad-core war is a bit of a semantic one, we'll accept all the Photoshop crunching and AI processing power these guys want to push our way.
