News Intel's next-gen Extreme Edition is quad-core

[WilHarris]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/02...ion_quad_core/

[mclean007]

oooooooooh that's a tasty morsel of information! No word on whether it will sport hyperthreading as well for 8 logical processors?

[Hybr1d]

HOLY...

That is the dawg's, I wonder what AMD will compete with

[Antimerc191]

wow... that would be awesome, i wonder wat the cooling requirements would be on one of those

[atanum141]

i wonder how much thats gonna cost? and how much cooling you'd need with that yet still provide no actual performance increase in most games......

[mclean007]

Originally Posted by Antimerc191

wow... that would be awesome, i wonder wat the cooling requirements would be on one of those

I would hope not too bad - I think Intel has finally come past the days of obscene heat output - their new architectures are much more efficient.

[off-topic]re: your sig - is your mate from school Douglas Adams, by any chance?[/off-topic]

[Mankz]

I Still think that Intel are trying to catch up with AMD, and in order to do so are making Crazy Processors that will cost about £800 each. Look in peoples signatures here on Bit-tech - how many people have dual core Intel Processors conpaired with AMD. I seems that Intelhave well and truely lost out recenty.

Mankz

[mclean007]

Originally Posted by Mankz_91

I Still think that Intel are trying to catch up with AMD, and in order to do so are making Crazy Processors that will cost about £800 each. Look in peoples signatures here on Bit-tech - how many people have dual core Intel Processors conpaired with AMD. I seems that Intelhave well and truely lost out recenty.

Mankz

Hmmm. Among the specialist community on bit-tech, AMD does seem to be doing rather well. However, if you look at the processor market more generally, Intel is still in a very good position. Dell, the world's number one systems builder, still uses 100% Intel processors (IIRC). The laptop market is basically sewn up for Intel - you'd be mental to buy anything other than Centrino / Yonah IMHO. The business market still massively favours Intel. Intel has just started shipping Viiv boxes, which I would expect to do very well in getting Win MCE onto more TVs. Add to that the fact that the cheapest way to go dual core is Intel, and things don't look too bad at all.

Apart from the hardcore gaming community, Intel is still very much in the frame. Even in gaming circles, Intel's credibility is gradually coming back - the new dual core Extreme Edition seems to hold its own rather well against FX60, for example, and I think we'll see this filter down to Intel's more mainstream gaming-targetted CPUs shortly.

Personally, I'm very much of the view that more cores is a good thing. There are already reports of people finding themselves short on power with X2 when running multiple processor intensive apps, and I'd say quad core is definitely going to give the market a boost. I'd be hugely surprised if AMD didn't announce X4 within the next 6 months.

[zr_ox]

AMD have announce Quad Cores in early 2007 anyway so I doubt they (INTEL) will make any serious impact anyway.

both my system are intel

[BioSniper]

Having looked at AMD's roadmap for the future of their CPU's they do say "multi core by 2007" and one can only assume this will most likley mean 4 cores.
They also state 8 cores by 2008.
Im sure it wont be too long before AMD announce a similar product officially but I am however doubting that many gamers will switch to intel, or atleast I like to believe that people have brand loyalty.

[mclean007]

Originally Posted by BioSniper

Having looked at AMD's roadmap for the future of their CPU's they do say "multi core by 2007" and one can only assume this will most likley mean 4 cores.
They also state 8 cores by 2008.
Im sure it wont be too long before AMD announce a similar product officially but I am however doubting that many gamers will switch to intel, or atleast I like to believe that people have brand loyalty.

Brand loyalty is the trademark of people who aren't particularly discerning about getting the best for their money, hence why businesses and average Joe consumers have stuck with Intel for years despite the fact that AMD have at many stages been offering faster chips for less cash. They would rather pay a bit more and get a bit less performance, but have the peace of mind of having a brand they know and trust in their machines. It is only recently that AMD has started to gain that brand cachet and to be able to steal this type of customer from Intel.

As such, brand loyal (i.e. not particularly tech-savvy) people will probably continue, for the most part, to stick with what they know. Meanwhile, I would expect that gamers will go with whichever platform gives them the best performance for their budget. If Intel's quad core processors outstrip the equivalent AMD models for whichever games are most popular at the time, then Intel will take the gaming market. Simple.

[Buzzons]

Other than gamers, there are groups that would benifit from this hugly, such as core servers // graphics designers (using 3ds / maya / xsi etc).. Hopefully the "quad core" will make a move over to the xeon area, not just stay in the gamer / home user area.

[mclean007]

Originally Posted by Buzzons

Other than gamers, there are groups that would benifit from this hugly, such as core servers // graphics designers (using 3ds / maya / xsi etc).. Hopefully the "quad core" will make a move over to the xeon area, not just stay in the gamer / home user area.

Actually, this new gaming chip shares some of its architecture with the new quad core xeon chip, Clovertown, so your dreams are answered!

the new chip...will share some of the characteristics of the new server chip that Intel is developing, Clovertown

[LockmanX]

I just don't see a point in marketing a quad-core chip as a gaming processor. Game developers seemed 'unthrilled' about dual-core in the first place. I think it's likely many future games will be multithreaded, but two is probably plenty for a few years.

Still, even with a pushed launch date, I'd put money down that a lot of people will be waiting to see what AMD will bring to the table. I'm no so worried about this stuff anymore. No matter what happens, people on each side of the fench are going to rip into the other. Both companies will still be around and AMD will likely have a bigger market share. I don't see thier growth rate in the market slowing down now that companies are really starting to embrace that hardware.

Still, the potential of quad-core for certain appliactions does sound cool. If you could really use it, I'd bet it would be a greater assest than an X2. AMD dual-core is hardly obsolete though. By the end of 2006, I expect production on most single core processors to slow down, probably with the exception of low power/low cost units. I also predict by the end of 2007, single core will be nearly phased out, the low cost/power units being bumped to older dual-core architectures, probably as rebrands of whatever hasn't sold yet.

I haven't gone dual-core yet, so I can't tout personal experience. Then again, I doubt my day to day applications would benefit too much. And when I think about that, I wonder just what the next dude looking to buy a computer for his dorm is after. The 60 year old man that just retired and wants to learn a thing or two about computer. The parent buy a first computer for thier kids. We gotta face that fact that the enthuisiasist are not the bread and butter of the microprocessir market. And the microprocessor market probably needs to realize Joe Blow doesn't know or doesn't care whats in his computer as long as it works and was as cheap as possible. Outside of server and maybe workstations, more cores is nothing short of a publicity stunt. I doubt the college student, the retiree, or the parent are planning on doing anything that could tax last years celeron, much less some multi-core behemoth.

[Bladestorm]

I seem to recall people suggesting that sources within AMD were hinting at support for more than two cores on socket AM2, practically as far back as its anouncement in what 2004?

Can't say I'm that surprised that we now have our first official anouncement .. I can't say I'm that surprised that its intel either.
I know people like to suggest that AMD don't really have plans for the future, at least compared to all the things intel are anouncing, but my own take is that they could be keeping there cards close to there chest because they think they already have the edge in the current market, thus no reason to give intel ideas (Intel, while playing catch-up, are going to anounce every cool new thing they are on to try to win people back, even if the hardware doesn't quite exist yet)

I'm only mildly familiar with programming mind but .. I suspect once you are already splitting a game up into threads to run on multiple cores, splitting those threads across more cores won't be that difficult, Assuming of course that they spent the time to make the program threaded properly in the first place, rather than going quick and dirty in just hacking something down the middle ... wait we're talking game publishers like EA here aren't we ?

[Tulatin]

now can intel stop screwing around already and implement features we actually want, like an on die MCH, and CMOS voltage regs? Hell, this EE is what, a 1066 chip? Even if they hump it up to 1333, the damn chip is still going to choke on that joke that they call an FSB. Intel overclockers will know what i mean by that one.

[Bindibadgi]

Four cores on one FSB. Yay.

Might as well buy a 533 celeron.

[Antimerc191]

Originally Posted by mclean007

[off-topic]re: your sig - is your mate from school Douglas Adams, by any chance?[/off-topic]

[off-topic]He said that he heard it from somewhere, but he didnt know where, thanks for that [/off-topic]
If the cooling requirements arent insane, i know a few friends who would want to buy some...

[K.I.T.T.]

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi

Four cores on one FSB. Yay.

Might as well buy a 533 celeron.

you make a very good point as usual Bidi with the FSB only being kicked up to 1333 as sujested by Tulatin earlier your not goning to be able to get the amount of data throughput needed to work each core to its best and then if you add HT that just compunds the problem.....hmmm i think i see where this is going....dual synchronus FSB's anyone?

[Faind]

I'm realy happy with my dual core I'll probably go quad if it's any good but i have to admit I almost went AMD this time so if Intell dosn't catch up by the time I get around to upgrading then I'll make the switch this time period.