AMD, Intel Plotting Six-Core CPU Releases

[omnimodis78]

I think we all agree that more cores are good, but I think it's not so silly to say that it would be so much better if apps took absolute advantage of it. I would love nothing more than to know that any given application will work 100% faster if I upgraded from dual to quad, or from quad to octo, but the issue that most people have with the "# of cores race" is that this is not how it works. I am sorry but if I see a 10%-15% speed increase over-all but have to dish out minimum $300 for that new CPU then forget it, the cost doesn't justify the "benefit" (for some it does, for most it probably doesn't)

 

[warmon6]

[citation][nom]chechak[/nom]six-core CPUs Errr....is 4 cores not efficient?what application need that power ???[/citation]

rendering, video editing, stuff like that needs 6 cores.

as for efficiency, almost if not all quad core cpu that are made to day are efficient. it just there a point were you cant get more power out of quads and extra cores are needed for some programs.

 

[Guest]

I got a simple core i7 920, overclocked at 3.2Ghz (a small overclock since most people easily reach 3.8Ghz on air cooling alone. In my task manager it shows as 8 cores.
I'm a very heavy multitasker, and often have like 20-30 web browsers/tab pages open, a heavy 3d game in the background that i switch to and from, all kinds of bittorrent apps, music studio software... etc.. and I have never EVER seen it use more than 1 single core to 100%, in fact thats only when i run a 3d game, and the other cores never go past like 15-30% no matter what. so i think this is B.S, they need to make clock speed higher. Not many tasks or programs are parallel, and the ones that are hardly need the power we already have and its been years.

 

[hundredislandsboy]

My interest is in video encoding. Until GPU computing becomes mainstream, you still need a fast cpu. (though the Winfast Cell cpu Card might suit some users)

The upcoming AMD 6 cores are reputedly going to top out at 2.8GHz. Unfortunately, unless there are any architectural improvements, a 2.8GHz AMD 6 core will give approximately the same encoding performance as an i7 860 or i7 920. With the i7 860 currently going for around $280, it bodes ill for any $300+ AMD cpu's.

It's not all about the number of cores or GHz speed. You can have one core run at 1 Ghz and smoke dual Xeons or dual i7s if it had the "right" architecture and if it had ridiculous amount of cache, L1, L2, and L3! Of course that "one core" chip would be the size silver dollar.

 

[itadakimasu]

I was browsing Dell's site and they already have 6-core xeon cpu's out ( 1366 ) for servers.

We're at a point though where technology is growing so fast, that it almost doesn't matter. Sure, a 6core beast machine is great for bragging rights but most of it will sit idle with everything you do on it.

 

[4banger4life]

[citation][nom]fafner[/nom]Which latest app/game actually take advantage of more than 3 cores? And you want 8? Ever considered the overhead and development effort involved in milking that little bit of gain which is measly compare to if you double the clock speed? STFU noob.[/citation]

If I'm not mistaken, haven't the chip makers already decided that the speed war is dead?

While I'm sure everyone finds the prospect of 8 GHz processors drool-worthy, how do you propose to convince the manufacturers that consumers will pay for chips you have to use dry ice or liquid nitrogen to make work?

I'm pretty certain calling them noobs and telling them to STFU won't be very effective.

 

[rodney_ws]

Sex sells, right?

 

[everix]

In a decade we will all be on dna computers and cores will be moot!

 

[fafner]

If I'm not mistaken, haven't the chip makers already decided that the speed war is dead?

While I'm sure everyone finds the prospect of 8 GHz processors drool-worthy, how do you propose to convince the manufacturers that consumers will pay for chips you have to use dry ice or liquid nitrogen to make work?

I'm pretty certain calling them noobs and telling them to STFU won't be very effective.

You think 20nm process will need dry ice? How about 10nm?

What we have here is lazy chip makers munching on their past laurels and take the easy way out by keep piling on more cores instead of thinking of being creative, much like bands in the 90's who would do a pointless unplugged set to make up for the lack of material to come up with a new album.

So now multicore is the "trend" everyone is complaining about why no software developers are writing programs with increased number of threads while completely failing to understanding that in most cases it is a waste of time to do so.

Thus, the burden of progress is slowly being shift from the chipmakers to software developers. While people like you are totally oblivious to the fact that it is both the software developers and the public who are getting the short end of the stick.

My STFU remark was directed towards the immature response of "ha ha ha, who wants single core 6GHz bla bla bla," so if you insist on getting into other people's business at least try to figure out what the hell is going on.

 

[Guest]

All these people need to stop complaining about us developers...

Suppose you have to sum up the first 1000 integers from 1...1000

You could just do something like (n * (n+1))/2, where n = 1000. Of course, you can't optimize this for multicores... you HAVE to multiply n * (n + 1) before dividing by 2. The next result depends on the last. There's a lot of algorithms out there; and a lot of the good/fast/useful ones tend to be single threaded by nature (like above). You can't just "recompile" something and whala, multicore. It's a lot harder than that.

 

[papasmurf]

man thats not fair now my i7 won't be king anymore. I gotta start saving up, who cares about rent my epeen might become smaller in relation to other peoples epeens and that is unacceptable.

 

[ananymouse]

[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]I bet AMD wins this round for a simple reason.AMD 6-core for $300.Intel 6-core for $1200.[/citation]

Except unfortunately if the top end AMD 6 core is only 2.8GHz, with no architectural improvements over the Phenom II or Athlon II architecture, it will perform just about the same as an i7 860, which is currently $280.

I wouldn't call that a win, especially since the i7 has turbo modes to make it more of an all-rounder for less threaded apps. And I hate Intel, so it's not as if I'm just being a fanboy. I just hope Bulldozer works out.

 

[Guest]

They should call it the 'Phenom Sex' would be funny!

 

[techguy911]

[citation][nom]loomis86[/nom]Why six cores? Doesn't it make more sense to double? 1 core...2 core...4 core...8 core...? so in a decade we'll all be running 256 core CPUs of which the cores composed of carbon nanotubes and single electron transistors running at a terahertz with a 8192 bit wide bus on a 32 socket double sided motherboard![/citation]


100 core cpu's already exist although they are not mainstream yet:

http://www.internetnews.com/hardware/article.php/3845421

The military has cpu with even more cores as a rule military tech is 25 years ahead of public sector.

 

[descendency]

[citation][nom]demonhorde665[/nom]you obviously don't knor curent gen console specs ... xbx 360 = uses a 3 core processor PS3 = cell processor by nature is a sereies of cores in parralelpc games = right now 70-80 % of pc games are actualy multi threaded , and nearly ALLL major releases are l4d 2 , fallout 3 , dragon age masseffect mass efect 2 all coded to amke use of multiple core processors the curent console are multi cored and most pc games comign out are being programed for multi cores , so eys to a game 6 core chips will show soem benifical results today not just tomorrow[/citation]
You're only telling half of the story. While lots of games are multi-threaded, many can only manage two of those threads at a time, effectively. They are basically optimized for 2 cores. Some games show performance improvements over large numbers of cores, but the fact that most games are not CPU limited basically makes the CPU improvements vastly over-rated.

I'm interested to see how 4+ Cores and NVidia's 'new' MIMD designs work together.

 

[4banger4life]

[citation][nom]fafner[/nom]You think 20nm process will need dry ice? How about 10nm?What we have here is lazy chip makers munching on their past laurels and take the easy way out by keep piling on more cores instead of thinking of being creative, much like bands in the 90's who would do a pointless unplugged set to make up for the lack of material to come up with a new album. So now multicore is the "trend" everyone is complaining about why no software developers are writing programs with increased number of threads while completely failing to understanding that in most cases it is a waste of time to do so.Thus, the burden of progress is slowly being shift from the chipmakers to software developers. While people like you are totally oblivious to the fact that it is both the software developers and the public who are getting the short end of the stick.My STFU remark was directed towards the immature response of "ha ha ha, who wants single core 6GHz bla bla bla," so if you insist on getting into other people's business at least try to figure out what the hell is going on.[/citation]

So that means we'll be getting super-speed processors at 20 and 10 nm, as opposed to the enthusiast-friendly 4 GHz overclocks which seem to be the norm nowadays? If so, I most certainly do stand corrected, and I will be one of the first in line to pick one up.

How should the burden of progress be distributed? You assert that it is being shifted from the chip makers to the software developers, and that this shifting is unfair to the developers and the public. Does progress lie solely with the chip makers?

Since it is, as you say, a waste of time to multi-thread most applications, does that mean there is no room for innovation or creativity in software development? If the chip makers should be the only ones bearing this burden, how do we go about shifting it back?

While his comment may be considered immature, he did not use offensive language in his response in an attempt to belittle the author of the original comment.

The fact that you post your comments on a site that is open to the public makes it the business of anyone who visits it. Your words would be taken more seriously if you left the anger out of them.

 

[tsnor]

[citation][nom]fafner[/nom]You think 20nm process will need dry ice? How about 10nm?What we have here is lazy chip makers ....[/citation]

Cooling is no longer the problem. It's getting 100+ amps of current (125 TDP at 1.x volts) into an ever shrinking die. You can't put too much current in or the power pins melt.

p.s. it's 22nm not 20nm. Intel announced last fall they are shipping 22nm in 2011.

 

[deltatux]

until more software manufacturers take advantage of more cores, these cores would be useless and ppl w/ money would basically go into "I have a bigger penis battle".

 

[JD13]

After quad core, I thought eight cores would be the natural progression?

 

[Belardo]

AMD and Intel have been making 6-core CPUs for quite some time, for the server market.

Making the consumer versions isn't all that difficult. But of course, AMD & intel love the profit margins on their server class CPUs.

 

[dertechie]

[citation][nom]techguy911[/nom]100 core cpu's already exist although they are not mainstream yet:http://www.internetnews.com/hardwa [...] hp/3845421The military has cpu with even more cores as a rule military tech is 25 years ahead of public sector.[/citation]

I find this rather dubious in the microprocessor realm, even with the enormous bills the Pentagon can run up. Sure, Tilera's squeezed 100 40 nm cores on a die. On the other hand, Intel's working with 32 nm cores, AMD's making 40 nm GPUs. Each Tilera core eats half a watt, runs at 1.5 GHz and is an in-order architecture (far smaller and easier to scale to N cores), with less L2 cache than even an Atom. In fact, I'd expect performance per core (and performance per watt) to be roughly on a par with Atom, possibly worse. If Intel is shipping 100-core Atom chips as its best stuff in 25 years, I'll be most disappointed in them.

Besides, Tilera chips are for a different market, large scale servers. SPARC has had 64 thread processors for a while now (8 core x 8 thread), and Opterons are scaling to 12 cores this year. You put a 100-core Tilera against a 4-socket, 48-core Opteron server and it's anyone's game.

 

[hundredislandsboy]

Which latest app/game actually take advantage of more than 3 cores? And you want 8? Ever considered the overhead and development effort involved in milking that little bit of gain which is measly compare to if you double the clock speed? STFU noob.

Gee, someone is unhappy. With that attitude, you're not going to convince anyone here or anybody else in the world of CPU engineering to have a paradigm shift
and challenge the trend "the more cores, the better."

Because I'm not a programmer, I don't worry about "the overhead and development effort" but apparently you do and that's probably why you don't work for Intel or AMD. I don't worry it because I have every confidence that the skilled programmers (probably not you) will find a way to make software multi-core friendly. Besides, I don't like to do one thing real fast. I'm an extreme multi-tasker, flipping through a dozen screens/tabs back and forth while encoding/burning a DVD.
Well, good luck to you in your endeavors.

 

[Hupiscratch]

Prepare for trouble!
Make it Hextuple!
To protect the world from devestation!
To unite all peoples within our nation !
To denounce the evils of truth and love!
To extend our reach to the stars above!
Intel! AMD!
Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!
Surrender now, or prepare to fight!

 

[cmartin011]

To bad they don't make on for my socket :{

 

[fwupow]

It's not about you! The industry needs 6 cores. The PC industry is all about super massive MASS production and without fractional/incremental CPU releases every 6 months, which force everybody to run out and purchase all-new Motherboards, memory, coolers etc., the industry wouldn't be able to keep it's machines churning and it's production lines running.

Any new technology that threatens to jump computer technology / power ahead too fast is bought up by Intel and shelved to prevent derailment of the existing money train. Besides that, they hate the idea of your wallet still having money left in it.