Intel chip with 80 cores?

I dunno where to post this so I think here will do.

I saw a TV show and the people on were talking to the heads of IBM, Intel and other such companies. And somewhere intel talked about a new 80 core chip they invented. Sure it has no practical use yet, but there's always the future.

And I'd really like someone to fix up my information if I'm wrong as I'm going purely on memory here.

It will be ready for commercial production within 5 years (that's their "pledge").

Link to article here: CNET Article

Always on top of things RIDE.

Whenever Intel adds cores, AMD says "yeah but they're just gluing processors together". It's kinda funny to me. I don't care if they actually DID use elmers. Is it faster? Is it stable? Whats the issue??

At some point it stops mattering. If the software or OS can't take advantage of the design features, it's useless. Anyone think that Vista will take advantage of 80 cores?

From what ive read, Intel and AMD's research has shown them that above 16 cores, there is negligable speed increase with current architecure. Intel's 80 core was a one off prototype and from what ive heard, they dont plan to make them for consumers. And i seriously doubt the 5 year thing, intel hope to have quad core as a mainstream processor by 2010, i cant see how they can then go to 80 core in 2012.

There are already 64 core CPUs out, though those are at 800mhz or 1ghz and for prosumer level servers.

baggss said:

At some point it stops mattering. If the software or OS can't take advantage of the design features, it's useless. Anyone think that Vista will take advantage of 80 cores?

Click to expand...

Ya really kind of like how 360 has 3 cores. By the time they take full advantage of 3 it will be time for the next gen.

giulio said:

Whenever Intel adds cores, AMD says "yeah but they're just gluing processors together". It's kinda funny to me. I don't care if they actually DID use elmers. Is it faster? Is it stable? Whats the issue??

Click to expand...

When you are placing a dual or quad core processor into a CPU socket designed for a single core processor you are restricted in terms of memory bandwidth.

The original Intel dual core CPUs had to write back to main memory to exchange data. This is much slower than the chips being able to exchange data via a crosslink or via shared cache.

With the Core Duo platform they finally put two cores on one die, which is how AMD always did it.

Memory bandwidth is always a limitation in multicore designs. Hence why some people have seen poor results with the 4 core chips.