“Five years ago, Intel envisioned processors running at 20 GHz by the end of this decade. Today we know that the future will look different. CPUs will sacrifice clock speed over core count: Intel’s first “many core” CPU, will run at only two thirds of the clock speed of today’s fastest Xeon CPU – but achieve 15x the performance, thanks to 32 cores,” Wolfgang Gruener reports for TG Daily.
“So far, it has been unclear when those “many-cores” will actually be available. Documents provided by an industry source and seen by TG Daily, however, indicate that at least “dozens of cores” may be still some time away. The first processor of “Keifer” – Intel’s project name for many-core processors – will be surfacing in the 2009/2010 time frame and integrate 32 cores (128 threads total): The first Keifer chip will be manufactured in 32 nm and use eight processing nodes with four cores each. Every node will have direct access to one 3 MB on-die last level cache (LLC) and 512 kB L2 cache. There will be a total of 8 x 3 MB LLC slices that are connected by a ring architecture and represent a total 24 MB of cache,” Gruener reports.
“Intel does not consider AMD’s Opteron and successors as Kevet’s and Keifer’s benchmark. The documents seen by TG Daily aim Keifer at Sun’s “Niagara” architecture, which is currently available in the “Ultra Sparc T1″ processor. The T1 was launched last year with great fanfare as 1.2 GHz 8-core processor with 3 MB L2 cache and capable of handling a total 32 threads at a peak power of just 72 watts,” Gruener reports. “Intel can’t touch the performance of the T1 in its home turf at this time and the specifications of Niagara’s successors are widely based on speculations… Intel knows that a simple increase of threads combined with “multi-core” processors won’t allow the company to keep Sun’s pace. Engineers at the firm believe that a new architecture – which is rumored to be launched in 2008 – and 32 cores are necessary to catch up and ultimately trump Sun in the 2009/2010 time frame: Key to Intel’s advantage may be clock speed, once again: The company estimates that Niagara III won’t be able to run faster than 2.0 GHz – while Keifer will run at least at 2.0 GHz.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Herm,” “Judge Bork, ” and “LinuxGuy” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: AMD and toast: virtually indistinguishable.
Advertisements:
• Introducing the super-fast, blogging, podcasting, do-everything-out-of-the-box MacBook. Starting at just $1099.
• Get the new iMac with Intel Core Duo for as low as $31 A MONTH with Free shipping!
• Get the MacBook Pro with Intel Core Duo for as low as $47 A MONTH with Free Shipping!
• Apple’s new Mac mini. Intel Core, up to 4 times faster. Starting at just $599. Free shipping.
• iPod. 15,000 songs. 25,000 photos. 150 hours of video. The new iPod. 30GB and 60GB models start at just $299. Free shipping.
• Connect iPod to your television set with the iPod AV Cable. Just $19.
• iPod Radio Remote. Listen to FM radio on your iPod and control everything with a convenient wired remote. Just $49.
Related articles:
RUMOR: Apple to unveil ‘Mac Pro’ with new enclosure design, Intel Core 2 Duo at WWDC next month – July 03, 2006
Intel officially releases Xeon ‘Woodcrest’ processor – June 27, 2006
Patent hints Apple may incorporate Intel’s ‘unified desktop interface’ in Mac OS X Leopard – June 22, 2006
Apple chose well: Intel poised to take massive lead across the board over AMD – June 07, 2006
Intel’s next-gen Conroe, Merom processors to be dubbed ‘Core 2 Duo’ – May 07, 2006
Intel gets aggressive on next-gen rollout schedules: Merom MacBook Pros, Conroe Power Macs, more – May 03, 2006
Intel showcases next-gen multi-core ‘Conroe’ processors, may turn up in future Apple Power Macs – March 07, 2006
It is better to have five illegal aliens peeling potatoes for less than minimum wage than hire one talented U.S. citizen? What does this have to do with electrons and circuits and transistors and stuff? Is Intel planning on designing 32 core potato chips? Wow, this is really some cool news.
Press the F12 key… type “analogy” into the dictionary widget… Press the return key…. read the resultant test
Hopefully you might understand what peeling potates has to do with electrons and circuits and transistors and stuff…
Re: clyde & AMD
If you buy a system just because of the chip inside, then most likely you are you have too much money to spend and/or are egocentric and try to deffend the notion that “I own one, so it must be great”. I call this nerd egocentric behaviour as the DAH effect.
Re:Dynamic Mesh
As for the Cell chip, only gaming consoles use it. Since there is no software for this chip, then nobody cares. You mentioned “Scientists love Cell+” and I don’t know where you got that idea. It’s true that scientists at IBM love it, but in general the Sparc chip is far more superior and 90% of R&D firms love Sun and SGI.
The common issue with hardware is whether the software developers catch up with new technologies. Oly time will tell.
I think that this Intel vision for 2010 is too early for ordinary users to even comment. The only exception to this rule is if you are an insider and I’m not.
My personal choice for a 3D graphics workstation is Apple and Boxxtech. From Jan 2007, when Apple should release the next generation G5 with BootCamp, than most likely I’ll be using Apple.
Personally I’m very impressed with Apple because not only they try to think different, but they also implement their ideas which is Chinese to Dell, HP, Gateway, and many others.
Gee, thank you, Dr. sizewell, Professor emeritus of grammar. Or is it, Mister Potatohead?
Er, small-sized-one, explain again what potatoes have to do with “electrons and circuits and transistors and stuff…” Your train jumped the track of the thought process in the previous post.
Sizewell,
“Anaolgy”, a noun.
Example, “Potato peeling is like processing speed” as “Sizewell is like moron”. It’s all clear now!
Good night gentlmen.
I was only responding to Switched’s analog about potatoe peeling having some merit and how it applied to the current processor design arguments.
Time will tell which is the better design…. it’s similar to the CISC / RISC design’s that we’ve seen discussed in the past.
Sounds like a good opportunity for an Apple core. That has appeal. Time to seed? Any fruit borne from this? Any incider info? How many branches?
If they can stuff 32 cores into 1 CPU package…
Everyone will have a cluster on their desk….Cool!
Now if they just let me queue the cores …..
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
Now I’m hungry. And a little tired. And slightly irritable. And even more curious. Not horny though. A little shaken. Slightly nervous. Even more sleepy. . . <zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz>
As for the Cell chip, only gaming consoles use it. Since there is no software for this chip, then nobody cares
You should read a little. All Mac software will run on it. (unless some fool only compiled for Intel processors)
http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cell/Cell0_v2.html
Look at the facts, what does Intel have by 2007?
Some lame dual dual-core processor they are calling a Quad. (Kentsfield)
It’s already been leaked (most likely intentionally), tested to be only slightly faster than a PowerMac G5 Quad.
What is the Cell? It will be out with the new Playstation 3’s and sport NINE cores on one proccessor, that if used in assembly line fasion is 10x faster than one processor.
Now there is room in a PowerMac/X-Server case for two processors, either two Cells (total 18 processors) or two Kentsfields (total 8 processors)
If I was building a Supercomputer would I even bother buying Apple’s expensive Intel X-Serve if I knew I could get the Intel processors in a cheaper case from Dell?
Remember Apple is a HARDWARE COMPANY, Mac OS X is just the paint job for us consumers, it helps sell hardware to consumers. But big buisness looks at the hardware, and whom they can get the processors from in a case. The OS is meaningless to them.
X-Code is all about structuring progrmas so they can easily be adapted to whatever processor apple choses to use. Intel or PPC (including Cell)
By the way the Cell has Altivec.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
MDN Word: “Blue
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
ya, AMD will not have to worry. Yes, they will be behind Intel, but AMD is always better. Intel always goes for raw power, either in clock speed or this new strategy of as many cores as possible, but AMD has much better architecture, which is why their cores run much slower but pack more punch.
Re: Dynamic Mesh
You stated “…Some lame dual dual-core processor they are calling a Quad. (Kentsfield)…” So… what’s your point? Yep, AMDs first batch of so called dual-core was 2×32 and people bought the marketing jargon of 64. Do you think AMD won’t do the same?
I guess you are an IBM fan because you strongly defend the Cell chip. I give you credit for the article recommendation in which “all Mac software will run on Cell.” I liked that article. Let’s not go into the general feasibility of this for the ordinary end user.
Well… it’s too late for Apple to go back to IBM. And do you think IBM deserves Apple? Do any of you know how ugly things got between IBM and Apple? IBM quality control in chip manufacturing is very poor. Bringing Sun back into the picture, 20% of the IBM chips supplied to Sun (in that period) were faulty and had to be sent back for replacement. Now it’s 10%. In the semiconductor industry that’s really bad figures. IBM is having a hard time making the NY fab work properly.
On top of that, IBM and Motorola were having a feud about patents and quantities of PowerPC production. In the middle, there was Apple wondering when (?) the new chips will be released and are they going to get it on time (?). I felt very sorry for Steve Jobs because most likely he took lots of Exedrin every day.
From this sour experience that Steve Jobs had to go through, I wouldn’t be surprised if he demanded a legal written agreement/contract from Intel that supply and innovation will not be compromised for Apple.
At Apple’s annual shareholders meeting in April 2006, CEO Steve Jobs stated, “Intel has a great roadmap. This new [Intel Core Duo] chip is phenomenal–it blows away anything other suppliers have, including our former suppliers.” Jobs described the company’s upcoming products as “the best I’ve ever seen in my life.”
In time we’ll see what Intel has to offer. August is an important month for Apple.
Dynamic Mesh,
Whilst I’d love to see Apple use decent processors inside their computers again, it does seem rather doubtful right now that they’d use Cell.
Yes, it’s a nice chip, but it is designed for a games console. Its implementation of Altivec and the other streaming processing cores inside it aren’t designed for scientific calculations – they don’t provide a sufficient level of accuracy.
A design derived from Cell could potentially prove useful in super-computing applications.
Whilst it’s true that Apple is a hardware company they decided that they wanted to be in the consumer computer market, not the high performance market. Intel is never going to be the platform to deliver high performance – they’d rather have the mass market and that is what they build for.
I see that some of you people are ranting about IBM and AMD. What’s wrong with you people? Good hardcore geeks are not loyal to any chip manufacturer. All we want is the best available chip. If you start obsessing about chip manufacturers, then you need to get a life.
If you want to rant about quad core, then that’s no big deal. When AMD was parading with dual core, Sparc had 4 and Azul had 36. Now Sparc has 8 core and Azul has 48 core. Numbers mean something only when you define the type of applications used. Otherwise it’s just an extra thing people buy for no reason.
If you want to laugh a bit, have a cold beer and read articles about AMDs recall of 3000 Opterons. As for the Cell chip by IBM that’s an incredible thing. But, apart from gaming consoles IBM is marketing this chip to the Defense Industry and the competition in that area is very tough because of the Sparc and Itanium. IBM used to make chips for the mass market, but they pulled out because the profit margins are too small 3 or more competitors.
Personally I don’t care about AMD, IBM and/or Intel. All I care is that Apple reinvents itself, and being bold is the only way in rejecting monotone orthodox thinking.
Good Night and Good Luck!!!
I don’t use Macs because of the chip. But now, at last I can merge my work under one roof. This is really cool stuff!!!
hey domino360, i don’t like beer. but i’ll stick to martinis and i did some googling on the 3000 opteron recall. auch… what a headache… i don’t think amd was happy with that. many big studios were affected by that recall, including ilm renderfarm in singapore.
you are right about “…Good hardcore geeks are not loyal to any chip manufacturer. All we want is the best available chip…” i’m one of them, and also an apple fan. it’s not worth wasting your time on chip fanatics.
i was taken by surprise when steve jobs announced intel chips and later on the boot-camp software. wow!!! it’s still worth it spending extra money on a mac than on an “dull” little box. i know lots of windows users that will get a mac when they are going to change their systems.
Yep, AMDs first batch of so called dual-core was 2×32 and people bought the marketing jargon of 64. Do you think AMD won’t do the same?
What are you talking about here? AMD’s first dual core processors were true 64-bit processors, not two 32-bit’s marketed as 64. You must be confused with Intel’s marketing.
Didn’t IBM say this as well?
No wait… that was 32 chips in total by 2010.
Every uber geek knows that the 1st batch of dual core from AMD were NOT 64 bit. Technically speaking they are not 64 bit but 48 (that’s another story). So Sammy don’t pretend to know everything. I always read the small print because the PR machine from AMD and Intel is just full of BS (especially the one from AMD). Don’t believe everything you are told by generic articles on the Internet.
True 64 bit architecture processors is made only by Sun, IBM, Siemens, Texas Instruments, and to some extent Intel (the struggling Itanium).
amsterdam cleverly described chip fanatics as “…egocentric and try to deffend the notion that “I own one, so it must be great”…” isn’t that the same as delusions of eloquence?
i’m glad that apple doesn’t use amd chips. having 2 cults under one roof is just suicide. this macdailynews blog is about apple and not amd. amd fanatics should simply stay out of apple turf. don’t backstab apple like you did with intel, because unlike intel steve jobs will nail you down.
Well Borg, NAME the revision of AMD’s “first batch” of non-64 bit chips that were sold and marketed to the public as 64-bit.
The fact is, Intel’s first “64-bit” processor used the same “48-bit virtual addressing” as did AMD’s Hammer series, and 64-bit memory addressing was still possible (and showcased).
And you always read the fine print? Find PR machines from manufacturers to be full of BS? Then you must have surely been appalled with Apple’s claim to “first 64-bit desktop” computer.
some of you people are just idiots. this is an apple blog and not amd crap. sammy, if you want to justify your cause, just go back to amd and get lost in your own athlon rubbish.
WE URGE PEOPLE NOT TO REPLY TO ANY AMD FANATIC CLAIMS. YOU’LL ONLY MAKE THIS WORSE.
REMEMBER THIS IS AN APPLE BLOG AND NOT AMD.