Intel's 80 core processor prototype

[PrntRhd]

Intel is playing around with an 80 core processor that draws 100W and has teraflops performance:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=VN0ZNWESWCEFMQSNDLRSK H0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=197005082

Edit: More info here:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2093458,00.asp

[jlreich]

It's pretty interesting. They are predicting "16 gigaflops per watt" at about 62W running on 1 volt of electricity. That's just short of a Teraflops!

Keep in mind this is with current fabrication limitations.

I always like getting a glimpse into the future of computing like this. :D

[PrntRhd]

That was with the 65 nm process, they have not tried the 45 nm process yet.
The 80-core chip can run at 3.16GHz, while processing a little more than 1 teraflop of information and using only 62 watts. It would take less than 1 volt of electricity to power this chip. If the number of volts is increased, to 1.2 for example, the processor's clock speed would increase to 5.1GHz and give the chip 1.63 teraflops of performance. The thermal envelope would increase to 175 watts.
Yes this is not yet a "product".

[jlreich]

That was with the 65 nm process, they have not tried the 45 nm process yet.
Yes. And they are currently limited to around 80 cores with current fabrication. So the possibilities are much higher once they get past current fabrication limitations.

I think the increase to 1.2v and 175W is far to large a price to pay for the extra speed. But hey, it's just a prototype. Who knows what they will achieve in 10-15 years. :cool:

[mjc]

Beam me up, Scotty!

That's like having a whole cluster of quad cores all rolled into one tny little package...

[saphalline]

So it's like the x86 version of the Cell microarchitecture? It's impressive, but not earth-shattering. Intel misses the number one spot again! :p

[david eaton]

Sounds about right for Windows2020! Along with about 8 terabytes of Ram

[mjc]

And no hard drives...TBs worth of some kind of FLASH RAM for long term storage...

[azzey]

Some more information:
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=155298

[Galaxian]

unless its within 2 or 3 years down the road, i could care less

[PrntRhd]

Chips with 20 to 40 cores are quite possible in the next two to three years. The difference in power consumption makes a large difference in server facilities' power consumption and resulting load on the national power grid. The number of servers in the US doubled from year 2000 to 2005, and the power draw is equivalent to 5 large power plants.
from Informationweek:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=MOLONGXTOPRPOQSNDLRCK HSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=197006830
By 2005, U.S. data centers totaled 10.3 million servers installed, including 9.9 million low-end servers, 387,000 midrange servers, and 22,200 high-end servers.
A couple of years ago you would never have guessed todays dual core and quad core processors would even exist.

The video downloads, music downloads, and VOIP communications you use today depend on these servers, so it affects you whether you realize it or not.

[saphalline]

I don't know, it just doesn't have that WOW! factor for me. I mean, by Intel's new definition, each "core" on these processors is going to be equivalent to a single execution unit on a standard x86 processor. By that definition, a Core 2 Duo is really a 10-core processor, not a dual-core! By changing the meaning of what a processor "core" is, they can do anything they want! This is exactly how Cell-based processors are designed, so to me this is nothing new.

The number of "cores" is impressive, but given the details of current FAB'ing techniques and the design of the PS3 processor, it's easy to see how they can claim these numbers. This is a case of Intel doing further development, not a case of Intel doing anything revolutionary.

[Galaxian]

what happend to that cpu that uses lasers inside it instread of how normal cpu's do it?
i read it in a computer mag a while back, i think it like used lasers for I/O so it was suppose to be mega fast, like 20ghz or something, i think it was some university that came up with it