How long before Octacore CPU's ???

[GuitarDaddy]

With todays release of Phenom benchmarks it is apparent that Intel has won the clockspeed battle with the current quad cores. So it looks like the only way AMD could take advantage of their new native quad architecture is to put two together on a single chip.

So I have a couple of questions (see poll)

 

[swtethan]

Intel already has octo core for testing I think.

 

[AmberClad]

I thought the "talking" Nehalem they demoed at IDF was a quad, not an octo, but of course I could be wrong.

 

[KingstonU]

Octo-Core isn't on the horizon yet. Unfurtunatly AMD's latest promising attack didn't deliver and take down Goliath. And so the waiting game continues as we look forward to 45nm, Bulldozer and Fusion. AMD's next hope is still at least 9 months away. *sigh*

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
With todays release of Phenom benchmarks it is apparent that Intel has won the clockspeed battle with the current quad cores. So it looks like the only way AMD could take advantage of their new native quad architecture is to put two together on a single chip.

So I have a couple of questions (see poll)

At what thermals? A 2.3GHz Phenom i already rated at 95W, so unless you want a ~200W monster...

It's not possible on 65nm, and I suspect 45nm would be a struggle as well. 32nm perhaps...

 

[coldpower27]

Octocore for both AMD and Intel is on the roadmap for at earliest 2009. So later in the life of the 45nm process.

 

[pstylesss]

I'm sure different way of making a CPU will prove to be faster than going 8 cores, but I see no reason to stop at 4.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: AmberClad
I thought the "talking" Nehalem they demoed at IDF was a quad, not an octo, but of course I could be wrong.

Nehalem is a "native" quad and will eventually have an octo-core MCM version, just like the current quads.

 

[SexyK]

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: AmberClad
I thought the "talking" Nehalem they demoed at IDF was a quad, not an octo, but of course I could be wrong.

Nehalem is a "native" quad and will eventually have an octo-core MCM version, just like the current quads.

Actually, Nehalem will support up to 8 cores per die... i.e. it will be "native" octo-core.

See first sentence here.

 

[Bateluer]

I think the process needs to get smaller before either Intel or AMD or TSMC can pull it off in a consumer level chip.

 

[sliderule]

Isn't Intel bringing back hyper threading for Nehalem?

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: sliderule
Isn't Intel bringing back hyper threading for Nehalem?

Yes, it is. 4 cores, 8 threads.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: harpoon84
At what thermals? A 2.3GHz Phenom i already rated at 95W, so unless you want a ~200W monster...

Actually, AMD has now officially raised the TDP of the 2.3 Ghz Phenom to 125W, although they may very well have changed their minds again. I'll see if I can find the link.

It's not possible on 65nm, and I suspect 45nm would be a struggle as well. 32nm perhaps...

My thoughts exactly, for either company.

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edit: Here's an article, dated 11-02-07, that's from a reliable site, saying Phenom TDP will be 125 watts, at least on the faster models.

 

[SexyK]

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: sliderule
Isn't Intel bringing back hyper threading for Nehalem?

Yes, it is. 4 cores, 8 threads.

Again, no, see my post above w/ link: top-end Nehalem will feature a single die with 8 cores and run 16 simultaneous threads.

 

[firewolfsm]

Not until mature 45nm.

Intel does have 50W 45nm Quads coming out so I don't see why they can't do octo right now (only at 2.4GHz)

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: SexyK
Again, no, see my post above w/ link: top-end Nehalem will feature a single die with 8 cores and run 16 simultaneous threads.

That's scary (but cool!).

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

at one point, i heard Intel was going to keep adding more cores while AMD was going to incorporate some other type of processing aside from parallel processing... can't remember what they called it but it, ahh yes, i think the word was FUSION.... but i think that was before the ATI AMD merge...

 

[Markfw]

Each 4-core Nehalem is built from 731M transistors, nearly double that of Penryn. The 8-core variant isn't ready yet so we don't have a transistor count for that one as of this writing. Nehalem will sport an on-die memory controller and a new system interconnect called Intel's QuickPath Interconnect (Intel's answer to Hyper Transport).

So 731m transistors is only the 4-core version.....

 

[SexyK]

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Each 4-core Nehalem is built from 731M transistors, nearly double that of Penryn. The 8-core variant isn't ready yet so we don't have a transistor count for that one as of this writing. Nehalem will sport an on-die memory controller and a new system interconnect called Intel's QuickPath Interconnect (Intel's answer to Hyper Transport).

So 731m transistors is only the 4-core version.....

Yep, scary. But even the 8-core version probably won't match Montecito's 1.72B transistors. In both cases, most of the transistors are cache, but it's impressive no doubt.

 

[AFG34]

quad cores support is not even implemented in most software, octa-core wouldnt make sense for at least another year and a half.

 

[sharad]

Desktop usefulness would be debatable but many of the server side apss (webservers, db servers, virtualization server) can use octa core chip. Any server software that serves a lot of clients and creates a lot of threads.

 

[jmmtn4aj]

Originally posted by: AFG34
quad cores support is not even implemented in most software, octa-core wouldnt make sense for at least another year and a half.

When dual cores first came out, programmers were make their software run two threads, but after quads, I'm pretty sure no one's designing programs for a fixed number of threads, but instead making them unlimitedly scaleable? So if you had even 16 cores, the program would be able to run 16 threads simultaneously to produce results faster..

 

[Deleted member 4644]

8 cores would be pretty stupid right now. Maybe in 2-5 years we will all want/have 8 cores, but right now most software cannot even use quad-core. If you really need 8-core, you have a server type motherboard anyways.

Also, the heat and power requirements from 8 cores would be insane (Think 1000W power supply min).

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Deleted member 4644
8 cores would be pretty stupid right now. Maybe in 2-5 years we will all want/have 8 cores, but right now most software cannot even use quad-core. If you really need 8-core, you have a server type motherboard anyways.

Also, the heat and power requirements from 8 cores would be insane (Think 1000W power supply min).

That's fine, it's going to be closer to 2 years until you and I can afford one.

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: SexyK

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Each 4-core Nehalem is built from 731M transistors, nearly double that of Penryn. The 8-core variant isn't ready yet so we don't have a transistor count for that one as of this writing. Nehalem will sport an on-die memory controller and a new system interconnect called Intel's QuickPath Interconnect (Intel's answer to Hyper Transport).

So 731m transistors is only the 4-core version.....

Yep, scary. But even the 8-core version probably won't match Montecito's 1.72B transistors. In both cases, most of the transistors are cache, but it's impressive no doubt.

We don't really want it to, an 8 Core Nehalem is already going to be large enough as is even using the 45nm process.