What would happen if Intel released a "triple-core"?

[TheELF]

Adding cores makes sense when you have weak cores and you are targeting workloads than can be spread out,so tablets smartphones consoles,yeah it makes sense.

If you have two strong cores that already can take care of anything you throw at them and these two cores can double the performance at major workloads people use everyday like general multitasking and games then you don't need to needlessly make the cpu more expensive, especialy if you already have a faster cpu with more cores in your lineup.
Ulocking it or giving it faster clocks from the getgo would give you more for less.

 

[yottabit]

Only AMD and VIA managed to disable one core... and VIA used the SAME system Intel used...... sadly even cores can't manage propperly.

I'm not sure if I'd say AMD and VIA "managed" to do which implies Intel couldn't.

Weren't the AMD 3 cores actually 4 core CPUs with 1 core disabled? If so then it was probably in their best interest to produce them as it was likely a case of improving yields. Remember most of those CPUs were unlockable but not all of them, because some likely had bad defects on that disabled core.

Has anyone ever produced a native 3 core die for PC? I don't remember that happening

 

[Yuriman]

I wouldn't have minded an "i5" that was 3 cores + HT, rather than 4 real cores. HT is generally worth about 30% so multi-threaded performance would be about the same. Intel isn't likely to do this though, because they'd need to move from two (mainstream desktop) CPU lines to three, which would cost more, and any die size reduction on the new "i5" would be offset by that, preventing them from being cheaper.

 

[TheELF]

HT is generally worth about 30%

Hyperthreading is worth 30% in benchmarks that are supposed to use every command a core can give you,so exactly the opposite of what hyperthreading was made to do,in games and general usage it can give you 80-100% more speed.

 

[witeken]

Or

i3 = 3 cores
i5 = 5 cores
i7 = 7 cores

Then their odd naming scheme might finally make sense :awe:

Or

Snapdragon 820 = 820 cores.
FX-9590 = 9590 cores.

 

[Yuriman]

Hyperthreading is worth 30% in benchmarks that are supposed to use every command a core can give you,so exactly the opposite of what hyperthreading was made to do,in games and general usage it can give you 80-100% more speed.

True, being able to handle more independent instructions in hardware has a lot of value, as can be seen by the Pentium vs i3 benchmarks:

 

[throwa]

Or

i3 = 3 cores
i5 = 5 cores
i7 = 7 cores

Then their odd naming scheme might finally make sense :awe:

I was thinking the same thing lol!

Core iX with the X corresponding to the amount of cores would be great.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Core i3: 2C 4T
Core i5: 4C 8T
Core i7: 6T 12T

Should have been this way from the beginning.

 

[Dresdenboy]

Hyperthreading is worth 30% in benchmarks that are supposed to use every command a core can give you,so exactly the opposite of what hyperthreading was made to do,in games and general usage it can give you 80-100% more speed.

These high numbers are more an exception than a general case.

 

[Systems analyst]

There are a couple of possible reasons why Intel might drop hyperthreading in server chips.
One is to simplify power-gating, and the other is to facilitate the separation of tasks, onto physically separate cores; the latter could be attractive for security reasons; the hypervisor would allocate tasks per-processor core, supported by silicon design of the SoC.
If they did drop hyperthreading in E3, E5, E7 powered servers, then this could cause them to do the same in desktop chips.
In that case, having 2,3,4,5 etc cores could make sense.
This is highly speculative, of course.