What’s to be expected in the future of computing? While AMD blows millions of dollars up-scaling ATI, Intel continues to do what it does best: Leading the pack in new processor technology. In Intel’s words: “By scaling multi-core architectures to 10s to 100s of cores and embracing a shift to parallel programming, we aim to enable applications and capabilities only dreamt of today". Obviously we’ve seen the vast improvements of Quad Core processors over Dual cores, but what about something far more dramatic? Intel has developed an amazing 80-Core chip, roughly the size of an average fingernail!

Intel's spokesperson Nitin Borkar explains:



The 80 core chip runs at 3.16GHz and 1.01 Tera-FLOPS with 100 million transistors @ only 62 Watts. In comparison, the quad-core QX9775 performs just 51 Giga-FLOPS. That's a difference of 949 Giga-FLOPS or Nineteen QX9775's combined!



Imagine that kind of power in your home computer!

By 2025 there will be so many cores on a die that they will be packed on a single layer, at only an atom's width apart.

For all this to take place, cores have to keep shrinking. The current trend is 45nm (Nanometres), but Intel is working on a 32nm version of the Nelahem, which promises to increase both performance and energy efficiency, with features such as the return of Intel's Hyper-Threading Technology to let a four-core processor handle eight software threads simultaneously. Do not think AMD is sitting quietly on the sidelines, an announcement has been made, declaring AMD's plan to scale their Shanghai to 45nm by the end of the year. AMD already has some 45nm low power chips on the market.

Within the normal realm of back and forth by Intel and AMD, another competitor is sneaking through. IBM has announced its plans for a 22nm chip. Current manufacturing techniques used on 45nm and 32nm chips don’t work with the 22nm process, it's simply far too small. IBM has coined the process as Computational Scaling. The best part is that IBM won’t have to change any of its manufacturing process to go from 32nm to 22nm. Intel and AMD will have to catch up, giving IBM a possible early lead, but does it matter? Can you see yourself switching to an IBM based chip in the near future? Not only would you need to buy the chip, but also a new motherboard and other key components in order to keep everything compatible. IBM will probably target these chips to the server market, and steer clear of PC's.

The future of Tera-scaling does seem bright, but getting all these cores to work with the programs they’re running is an entirely different hurdle. It's likely we'll see far more driver issues as software has to catch up with the upgraded performance of new technology.

TGS

obviously an intel fanboy... only thing i can hate on about the article

So if 80 cores CPU's will be standard in 15 years does that means it'll be 30 until games designers can program for them? You can't argue with the performance though.

PS Why hate at all justinvalencia?

My main rig has an AMD 6000+, my kids have the 3800+, so I'm not a huge fan boy. But be serious, Intel is King of processors. They are the leaders in the field and AMD isn't doing anything to change that. Instead they're blowing millions trying to keep ATI in the lead.

When they finally got around to releasing the Quad core, they put out a crappy one. How'd they follow that up? Tri-Core??? Idiots.

I expect that the future of PC is a complete Hologram of a person that you can carry anytime and anywhere you'd like to go. Also it can be able to provide you with the basic necessities such as being a house servant and son. What an imagination, I'm thinking of AI already.

Quote: Originally Posted by TheGreatSatan When they finally got around to releasing the Quad core, they put out a crappy one. How'd they follow that up? Tri-Core??? Idiots.

The new Phenom's are actually looking really good. There out Q1 2009.

Actually, I read somewhere that AMD is looking into making CPU/GPU all in one........hell, that would put a damper on the vid card dept.......

The problem is that it seems like they've decided "we can't go faster, so we have to go wider".

The only reliable improvement is to boost clock speed IMO.

Adding more cores only helps with well-threaded apps. In the worst case, it seems to cause I/O thrashing (i. e. if you can fire off more apps at once, but each one wants to hit the disc at the same time).

I'm gradually noticing the difference in feel of a quad-core setup versus dual-core (increased responsiveness in known high-load situations), but it's far less prominent than dual-core versus single-core (no hard locks when Firefox explodes) But I can't imagine 6, 8, 60 cores doing much more for me in that regard... but if they could increase my clock 50, 100% or more...

I am such an idiot.

I have this old Emachine in my family room that I rarely use that has 1GB of RAM and a Celeron 1.7GHz running XP. I have lots of good systems just lying around, so a couple of nights ago, I gutted the Emachine and threw in a new PSU, DVD burner, the AMD BE-2300 @ 1.9GHz, 2GB Ram, Geforce 9600GT 512MB, with Windows Vista. Now I have 3 AMD systems in my home and 4 Intel systems