Ok, who wants one?

[Drum Thumper]

Intel has released a 48 core chip to researchers.

http://news.cnet.com/2300-1001_3-10001951.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

[mDust]

That's pretty cool. The cores are similar to the atom it says...weak little things ~1-1.6Ghz each...but 48 of them? I'll take two! I'll OC to about 1.7Ghz and pwn various programs like you wouldn't believe! I suppose this might be the beginning of the end for overclocking.

Well guys/gals, start saving your pennies now and we'll all be able to afford some of these in 5 years.:)

[LiTHiUM0XiD3]

1.6 E2140 here... cant complain... conroe dual cores make my old P4s look like dirt..
isnt the atom like an underpowered conroe?
imagine the multitasking abilities.. 1 system could be like 4 seperate computers, or more.
definitely impressive

[billygoat333]

jeebus, that thing is sick. you could do all kinds of different thiings with it. like browse the internet, look at porn... etc. :D

[rendermandan]

jeebus, that thing is sick. you could do all kinds of different thiings with it. like browse the internet, look at porn... etc. :D

Now that's funny!

[p0Pe]

sad thing that windows doesnt support more than 16 threads (IIRC):P and who want to run windows server on their gaming rig :D

[mDust]

sad thing that windows doesnt support more than 16 threads (IIRC):P and who want to run windows server on their gaming rig :D

No worries, the next version of Windows should be out before this chip is on the market. They have plenty of time to get things straightened out...oh wait, we're talking about Microsoft...

[p0Pe]

straighten out what lol! they are going to make it use more rams and put a 300 dollar pricetag on it, and call it windows 8 :P

[Luke122]

OR.. make it use less ram, make it shinier, and call it Windows 7. Oh wait..

I still think that Vista got the shaft, mostly thanks to Apple's commercials.

Either way, I agree that we'll most likely see Windows 8 (or even 10, who knows) before this technology makes it to the consumer market, so the thread limit is unlikely to be relevant at that time.

I also read that this new CPU technology is based on something Toshiba came out with.. I'll find the link.

*Edit* Toshiba's tech was called "SpursEngine". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpursEngine

[Airbozo]

OR.. make it use less ram, make it shinier, and call it Windows 7. Oh wait..

I still think that Vista got the shaft, mostly thanks to Apple's commercials.

Either way, I agree that we'll most likely see Windows 8 (or even 10, who knows) before this technology makes it to the consumer market, so the thread limit is unlikely to be relevant at that time.

I also read that this new CPU technology is based on something Toshiba came out with.. I'll find the link.

*Edit* Toshiba's tech was called "SpursEngine". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpursEngine


The way that M$ licenses it's products I would doubt that they would see this chip as a desktop part. Due to the number of cores, they would most likely cripple any home targeted OS so that not all the cores would be used. They would WANT you to buy the server OS to use this CPU. IMO it is not that big of deal to run the server OS on a gaming rig. There are tons of tutorials on the web describing how to strip down the OS for optimal performance. Hell I was running server 2003 x64 on my workstation for a while because it was more stable than XP64. It also ran games as well as my gaming rig AND saw all 16gb of my memory...

[Trace]

I want to fold@home on that!

[DaveW]

There's much more interesting architectures out there...FPGA systems, the Cell, even Larabee (which they're apparently stuck at and can't figure out, hence the delays).

I was working on advanced architectures last year, and I'd stake money that for an application such as folding@home, the Cell BE would still beat that hands-down. Forget the number of cores; working purely on the number-crunching powerhouse that is each SPE on the Cell, which it has 8 of (unless you have a PS3, in which case I'm sorry to say you only have 7), you're looking at a guesstimate of 9 of those Atom cores to a single SPE.

(Reasoning: ~triple the clock speed, roughly 3 times faster than conventional architectures at processing numbers, especially given SIMD programming, leads to around 9 times the power of a single-core Atom. So if 1 SPE = 9 Atoms, then 8 SPEs = 72 Atoms. Not even counting the hyper-threaded PPE Core of the Cell.)

The most powerful supercomputer is the IBM Roadrunner, which broke the petaflop barrier when they added a couple of hundred Cells to it, and the folding@home project became the most powerful distributed computing network (throughput increased by almost 33%, if memory serves) when they launched a PS3 app for it.

So, 48 cores? It's like the Megahertz race all over again. Look to new an exciting architectures instead. :)

-Dave