Posted on 07/10/2006 7:03:11 PM PDT by fightnight
32-Core Processors: Intel Reaches For (The) Sun Patrick Schmid July 10, 2006 10:15
The Project "Keifer" Awakening
Intel is of rolling out its Core 2 micro-architecture now. The Xeon 5100 server processor aka Woodcrest was released only weeks ago, Core 2 Duo for the desktop (Conroe) is expected on July 27th and the mobile version Merom will follow only weeks later. The next milestone is quad-core processors, which the firm will produce by fitting two Woodcrest dual cores inside a physical processor package (Clovertown). You may have realized that there is a product development pattern behind recent and upcoming Intel multi core processor releases. Amazingly enough, Intel has been studying Sun's UltraSPARC T1 (Niagara) to come up with a radical processor redesign for 2010 that could perform 16 times faster than Woodcrest. This is no marketing blurb, guys; this is technical intelligence from within the Borg collective.
(Excerpt) Read more at tomshardware.com ...
Okay... let's get this straight.
I don't need a car that will do 210 mph, even though I can buy one. My VW, which tops out just shy of 100, is everything I need.
I don't need a motorcycle that does 200 mph either. My little antique Kaw does the speed limit and is a hoot to drive.
Finally, aside from the gamer that posted this thread, there is nothing in the PC world (or the PC-based server world) that would even come close to taking advantage of that processor. I've got users that are putting along with a P1100 desktop that, when stocked up with RAM and a fast HD, runs (effectively) as fast as the new stuff when it comes to email, spreadsheets, etc.
Just as the AT 101-key keyboard, the SVGA video and the PS2 2-button mouse have been standards for over 20 years, so the processor chip will soon hit a point where any improvement will be pointless.
Intel, like M$, has a problem. Its products are no longer new or unique. Their current offerings do everything that 99% of the users can dream of doing with their computer. Their products are moving quickly from being innovative, to standard-setting, to market-dominating, to commodity. This is exactly what free enterprise economics in Econ 101 would predict.
As for the fightnight's gamer habit... it is already far cheaper to buy a Playstation, or XCube, etc than it is to configure a PC for gaming. I shudder to think what Intel will ask for that 32-core chip.
Meh I will believe it when I see it. Intel promised that by now Netburst would be producing 10Ghz processors and before that IA64 would replace the x86 architecture.
I think your right. However if you like to burn and encode dvd's you know that it can take hours to encode one video and thats small when compared to HDTV offerings, the more the merrier in the future for those.
Besides, it will take at least a 32-core chip to boot Windows 2012. ;)
MMMMMM Can I have one? One of those with about a Terabyte of High Speed RAM!
Wohooooo
I run SQL Server, Visual Studio 2005 and Adobe Elements on my ThinkPad.
You can't have too many cores.
Fact is that we need much more powerful computers. A few terrabytes of RAM, several hundred pentabytes of storage and perhaps 128 processors each running at at least 256 gigahertz each.
Soon we shall have a handheld device that will have the capacity to store the entire world's information. Every single book ever written, every single piece of video ever made and every single piece of music ever recorded. All searchable to the point where a few keystrokes will take you to exactly the media that you need.
Of course by that time, billions of people all over the world will be creating content. Eventually people will have their entire lives recorded on video. So in a hundred years, people alive at that time will be able to rewind to any point of their life and see what exactly they were doing at a particular point in time.
In 100 years, we will be able to store all the world's information on a device the size of a grain of sand.
Maybe it could be used in a car which could drive itself.. For example, 32 different processes could run driving programs, each of which has different driving algorithms and techniques, and each "votes" as to what should be done. In other words, a CPU could poll the results of 32 cores to determine what to do next when driving.
Imagine a 32 core upgrade for the F22, or UAVs. A definite boost for "artificial intelligence"..
For the home and business user? Better speech recognition, even conversation recognition.
Awesome video games..
And cinema quality high def (beyond 1080p).
"intelligent" robots..
There are plenty of uses for such a system, but it is overkill for general use, such as word processing.
You're VW also comes equipped with many other features- besides the speed requirement - that likely made it a good choice for you over say a Kia, or used Pinto. But you chose it over those for some reason.
Finally, aside from the gamer that posted this thread, there is nothing in the PC world (or the PC-based server world) that would even come close to taking advantage of that processor. I've got users that are putting along with a P1100 desktop that, when stocked up with RAM and a fast HD, runs (effectively) as fast as the new stuff when it comes to email, spreadsheets, etc.
There is a market out there for high end chip sets beyond gamers. Heavy number crunching, complex (but common applications), or information serving in many fields (business and home) can benefit. Will I buy one now - nope - usually stay a few generations behind the curve. But I'm glad businesses are investing in the effort to push the technology forward.
You're in good company though - Bill Gates never though people would need more that what? 512 Kb of disc space?
There are plenty of uses for this kind of bandwidth in finance, too. Let's say you want to recalculate a very large portfolio once a second all day long during a trading day. If you can accurately calculate your position and risk faster than competing firms, you can pick up millions of dollars for your troubles. Spending any amount of money to get ridiculously fast machines will make sense. Firms will want to recalculate stocks, bonds, warrants, futures, options, exchange rates, etc. in New York, Tokyo, London, Chicago, Frankfurt, Boston, Philly, Hong Kong, etc. in real time every second of every day to know what their position is to the penny at any moment. This takes unbelievable amounts of horsepower and memory. Markets can always be made more efficient, therefore there is no upper limit to the computer resources Wall Street will want.
It's a server, not a home pc.
That was IBM, not Bill Gates.
And that's a dual-core processor.
Cool - wish I could be around 100 years from now.
Forget video games. Think of the incredible Global Climate Change models I can run. Why, I'll be able to predict the temperature in Kalamazoo at noon within 1 degree on July 10, 2050!
I imagine that software companies will figure out ways to put all that processing power to work.
There are applications for computer technology that remain yet to be conceived, or if they have been conceived - perhaps the only thing lacking is the means.
Perhaps you will...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.