Rumor: Xeon E7-v3 CPUs To Carry Up To 18 Cores

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hannibal

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They don't have to... We need some very big player to compete Intel, and there is no one. Only Samsung seems to be big enough to compete Intel, and they are not in PC business, so 8 cores are going to cost more than 1000$ for long, long time...
 

dacquesta1

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Faildroid, just because you don't need an 8-core chip doesn't mean other people don't need it. You obviously fail to understand the need for multiple cores. As to the 8-core cell phone CPU...do you have multiple apps running at the same time? I bet you do, so more threads means better multitasking. Think before you speak.
 

alidan

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And yet they still don't sell 8-core consumer chips for less than $1000. Thanks Intel.

Because you don't need it...just like you don't need a stupid 8 core cell phone CPU.

i render crap, i DO need more cores as almost all my applications work off multithreads, and if i put 12-16 cores to the task of rendering, i got 2 cores for general use so i could render 24/7 and not feel it.
 

InvalidError

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Practically no mainstream software exists that can make reasonable use of more than two cores, so there really is no hurry for Intel to bother producing mainstream chips with more than four cores. Most applications people care about rely heavily on single-threaded performance and tuning CPUs for high single-threaded performance means giving up on extra cores.

If you want more cores for a relatively small premium, you can bump it up to six with an i7-5820k without losing much single-threaded performance compared to the i7-4790k.

For those saying Intel is sitting on their laurels by letting performance stagnate for years, keep in mind that even though Intel has been stagnating, AMD has been failing to close the gap for years. If improving mainstream CPU performance beyond where it stands now was so easy, AMD should have at least caught up by now.
 

dragonsqrrl

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I think E7's tend to serve higher-end and higher processor count per node markets. They have a third QPI link and support for higher system memory capacities. Those are just about the only differences I'm aware of. They also typically support higher core counts, but I guess not this time around.
 

dragonsqrrl

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If you really do rely a lot on CPU rendering performance there are good alternatives in the Xeon lineup that actually make a lot more sense than going with Haswell-E i7's. There are even some dual processor options that will come in at around $500-$700 and outperform the 5960X by a good margin.
 

Exactly. Anyone who truly needs that many cores/threads should know they need a specialty machine, not a consumer model. The 5960X is limited to 64GB of non-ECC RAM. Many people who make their livelihood on rendering and number crunching will likely want more, especially ECC memory. You can get a Xeon E5 8C/16T for under $1000.
 

edwd2

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Actually, the E5-2630 V3 is a Haswell 8C/16T 3.20GHz at just $670, and supports up to 768GB ECC DDR4. Not sure why you would look at the 5960X for this purpose.
 
I think to it's a matter of defining things like the difference between 'want' and 'need'. Even for those who could put a dent in the performance of an 18c/36t chip with their workload. Do you 'need' it? Probably not. Do you want it? Of course you do. If you're working for someplace like pixar animation or something and truly need that hardware, it's probably already on order. It's the like the rest of us, we 'want' a humvee or 'want' a 3 story home instead of a 2 story home but we don't 'need' them.
 

Lovenlife2015

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What if the next Nintendo system came out with one of these chips and a gpu that's equivalent. What could games look like then? Pixar level Mario game or true photo realistic metroid?
 

Lovenlife2015

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What if the next Nintendo system came out with one of these chips and a gpu that's equivalent. What could games look like then? Pixar level Mario game or true photo realistic metroid?
 

bison88

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And yet they still don't sell 8-core consumer chips for less than $1000. Thanks Intel.

Because you don't need it...just like you don't need a stupid 8 core cell phone CPU.

Yet I bet you're one of those people rocking an 8 core phone while my 2010 HTC Incredible can still do everything a newer phone can.

Typical Toms and its audience with the stupid Facebook rating system giving praise to ridiculous comments and drowning all the ones that are actually seeing the bigger picture.

You do realize more than just a single game or application is multi-thread right? I mean the OS is what manages all the threads in the first place and it's heavily multi-threaded. I faintly remember back in 2008 people were saying how stupid quad core and six core parts were. Just marketing, as if it didn't benefit you whatsoever working within the OS that has dozens of background tasks going on constantly. Probably forget the days when you had to disable your Anti-Virus, Defrag, and a dozen other applications just to run a game or some gigantic software. Wonder why much of that has changed? Hint: Windows has more hardware to play with while allowing you freedom to do tasks that once killed your machine.
 

Pikker

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And yet they still don't sell 8-core consumer chips for less than $1000. Thanks Intel.

Because you don't need it...just like you don't need a stupid 8 core cell phone CPU.
It depends on what you do with your system, blanket statements like these will always find a way to set off at least a few people who do actually need to have many fast cores. There is a Linus tech tip video that illustrates how cores/threads can affect productivity: http://youtu.be/-GgDZKGA89I

I myself run a lot of programs simultaneously, so 4 cores if woefully inadequate, sometimes I can have 8 heavy-duty programs running with large data sets at once, I just like multi-tasking everything at once. Even if i had a Xeon system with 12+ cores I'd find a way to put all of them to work.

But sure, if all you do is play games and your definition of productivity are programs that start with "Microsoft-" then you really don't need more than a quad.
 

g00ey

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If you do any form of research that involves performing larger amounts of computations - may it be maximum likelihood estimations of statistical data, different forms of simulations or analysis of data - more performance is always appreciated.

The more computational performance you have, the more advanced models you can afford to try out and the more runs you can perform within a given period of time. I for one can testify that if I had access to the top-of-the line hardware that is available today it would have considerably advance pretty much all of the more significant computational research projects I have conducted.

The thing is that almost all of us have a deadline to fit and apart from the simulations and programming that must be performed, a fair amount of time must be put into the research and writing the report. So what is a "consumer" really, especially when we talk desktop PCs? Keep in mind that many of those researchers are 'poor' students. I think it is a bit unfair to discredit those who want or need this performance and make comparisons to Android smartphones. It seems that most people don't know what to do with a computer besides gaming, web surfing, movie watching, email checking and word processing.
 

Steveymoo

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I think the mark-up on high end CPU's from Intel is absolutely obscene. How to crush progress. How hard can it really be to etch 6+ cores onto a single piece of silicon, and market it as a mainstream consumer product.
 
They're not the only ones. Look at the gmc yukon denali/escalade. The yukon denali was around $50k, the escalade was an easy $70-75k. Why? For a couple of cadillac emblems. Both had all power options, built on the same frame, same air ride suspension, identical 6L engine, same bose stereo - the caddy might have had a slightly fancier in dash nav/cd/dvd than the denali (but the denali did have all those things). Obviously both made by gm and likely to share similarities, but they weren't just similar. They were identical in every way. At least intel's offering different performance/features for the added cost, all cadillac offered were fancier plastic badges inside and out. $25k is a helluva lot to pay for pretty stickers lmao. Don't even get started on jewelry markup. The high end tech industry is only one of many that puts the screws to the consumer and not as bad as some markets do.
 

bourgeoisdude

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18 cores? That's a minimum since the E5-2600v3's support 18 cores. In fact the top model listed is just 200MHz better than the E5-2699 v3. Major difference of course is support for up to 8 sockets instead of just two.
 

bourgeoisdude

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"And yet they still don't sell 8-core consumer chips for less than $1000. Thanks Intel."

You do realize of course that the top end processor listed here is likely to cost $7-$10k right? The current Ivy Bridge version, which is "only" 15 cores, costs $6841 a piece if ordered as tray.
 

bit_user

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They have RAS features, to make them more suitable for mission-critical applications (and justify significantly higher prices).
 

bit_user

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Games. It's true that most games are not bottlenecked by the CPU, in higher-end configurations. But in a couple years, you can upgrade your Gfx card and put your extra cores to some good use.

Consider if you have a dual-core SandyBridge, you'd be hurting by now. But if you got a fast quad-core model, you could still play the latest games with a current Gfx card.
 
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