Are you planning to buy a high-end PC ?
if Yes then my advice would be to hold on for few more months as Intel has something really big coming up.
Let me educate you a little if your are a newbie(nothing wrong in it though),on the basic functioning and attributes of a processor and geeks just move ahead to the next paragraph.
What does a processor do?
A processor is the unit that reads and executes program instructions, which are fixed-length (typically 32 or 64 bit) or variable-length chunks of data.The data consists of number of instructions which specifies the work that is to be done. The instructions are very basic things like reading data from memory or sending data to the user display, but they are processed at a rapid speed that we experience the results as the smooth operation of a program.Processor consists of number of cores depending on it’s design(Dual core,Quad core,Hexa core etc). The number of tasks completed per second depends on these cores, if there is only one core in processor then instructions will be executed one at a time.
Intel’s 32 cores processor
Intel finally changed their way of thinking about processor speed, leaving the unreliable gigahertz numbers they are now concentrating on increasing cores. Intel is planning to develop processors with 32 cores available in the second half of 2010. Intel predicted 20GHz chips by 2010 a few years ago, but now instead of GHz, they’re looking forward for multiple cores that will result in a processor that will be 15 times faster than today’s quickest chips.
Project “Keifer”
Intel has assigned name “Keifer” to the many-core processor project and “Gulftown” specifically to its 32-core processor that will be manufactured using 32nm process(The 32 nm process ‘also called 32 nanometer node’ is the next step after the 45 nanometer process in CMOS semiconductor device fabrication), and it will include eight processing nodes, each with four cores. Each core will run at 2GHz, but since there are 32 of them, processor will run at 64 GHz . Keifer is aimed take on Sun’s Niagara which is available in the market as UltraSPARC T1 processor.
Single/dual socket Core 2 micro-architecture versus Sun’s Niagara in best/worst case scenarios.
So, isn’t that worth a wait ?
Very informative article..i have changed my mind of buying a new PC and now i,ll wait for intel to come up with this awesome processor so that i can do my VFX work in super high speed!
Its written in very sober and simple language which can be understood by any lay men.
While that is all well and good, the average user doesn’t need more than 2 cores. And gamers (even enthusiasts) won’t really ever need more than 4-6 cores for a while.
The Captcha Code is real annoying btw.
Blimey, this has huge potential. Although it’s got to be a super computer/server style chip. I really can’t imagine that it’s a users chip.
Does this mean another bus rethink then? After the i5/7/9 series and it’s new bus design, does this new chip mean that we’ve got a new batch of mobos on the way?
I must admit the thought of HyperThreading and the 64bit extensions, does that mean you could process an entire 64bit instruction in 1 cycle? Doesn’t that mean it could be a 1.2Thz (terrahertz?) chip?!
Freakin’ Schweet.
“Each core will run at 2GHz, but since there are 32 of them, processor will run at 64 GHz”
No it won’t. 2GHz is the fastest that any serial code will run on that processor. If you’re lucky and have code well-suited to parallel processing, you’ll get 32x that basic performance.
WOW!!!
How much will these cores drive up the price of computers?
Duh… uh…
Will it make windows faster?
It’s important to note that in order to make this technology shift, the processors are considerably ‘dumbed down’. The single-core microprocessors of the late 1990s and early 2000s were capable of executing multiple instructions per cycle (see superscalar), not just one at a time as stated in this article. Beyond this, they were ‘out-of-order’ superscalars, making them very sophisticated and powerful.
While 32 cores sounds impressive, these cores are derived from the primitive cores of the first and second generation Pentium processors (Pentium Pro, circa 1995); they are simple in-order non-superscalar processors. Intel has actually moved backwards technologically over the last decade (if you don’t believe, read about the fate of the Prescott processor). Beyond this, modern software can’t take advantage of these kinds of core counts, so most of these simple cores will remain idle.
This means in reality you have a choice between buying the most cutting edge product with a cutting edge price to use only on average 4 (or less) of the 32 primitive cores provided, or you can buy a 10-year old processor with a 10-year old price that provides more performance than 4 simple cores working together.