Intel unveils energy-efficient 48-core chip

Night Hawk · 02 Dec 2009

Intel unveils energy-efficient 48-core chip

Research chip said to be 10x to 20x more powerful than chips in multicore Core family

By Sharon Gaudin
December 2, 2009 03:46 PM ET

Computerworld - Intel Corp. is honing its sights on many-core chips that are far more powerful than today's dual and quad-core processors.

As expected, Intel took a big step in that direction today by unveiling a 48-core research chip that it says is 10 to 20 times more powerful than current the top end offering in its multi-core Core line of processors. Intel also noted that the experimental chip uses the same amount of energy as two household light bulbs.

With its eye on the data center and the cloud, Intel built fully functional cores in the new chip as part of what it calls its "terascale" mission.

"With a chip like this, you could imagine a cloud data center of the future which will be an order of magnitude more energy efficient than what exists today, saving significant resources on space and power costs," said Justin Rattner, Intel CTO and head of Intel Labs. "Over time, I expect these advanced concepts to find their way into mainstream devices, just as advanced automotive technology such as electronic engine control, air bags and anti-lock braking eventually found their way into all cars."

Today's unveiling of the 48-core research chip comes about two years after Intel showed off an experimental 80-core chip. That research chip had teraflop performance capabilities but used less energy than a quad-core processor.

More at: Intel unveils energy-efficient 48-core chip

pparks1 · 02 Dec 2009

This is why I always scoff at people who are trying to build a machine that is "future proof". There is no such term in the computer industry. Instead, I find it better to buy middle of the road most times and simply upgrade more often down the road.

Night Hawk · 02 Dec 2009

The term "Future Proof" is a total joke on anyone who believes that one! In one year's time you can see a few new lineups of items like a faster memory speed, new lineup of video cards as mentioned even in the article there about the upcoming Radeon 5xxx series, plus 2010 will bring in a new USB 3.0 standard there!

Future proof in 2009 with USB 2.0? 2010 seeing a new socket type for both Intel and AMD simply makes that even more futile! Most people will see an upgrade in 2-3yrs. time if they are trying to keep up somewhat. Others may run a system upto 5yrs.! They simply make things last depending on the amount of use.

ignatzatsonic · 03 Dec 2009

It seems processing power has advanced so much in the last 4 or 5 years that the average user has less incentive to upgrade the processor--at least in the typical desktop/laptop PC. I wonder if software will ever again get out in front of processing power like it was say 10 years ago.

I was hot to move from a Core 2 Duo E6600 to an i5 or i7, but thought better of it since my existing processor is almost never maxed out. Instead, I bought a little more RAM, a new HD, and a new OS.

I guess maybe Intel has realized that trend and so is putting a greater effort on other types of processors -- Atom, etc.

Night Hawk · 03 Dec 2009

Intel finally got the word to work sideways on cores for multitasking in order to see more work done per clock cycle rather then simply looking at how many mhz a cpu had. AMD had already learned that one long before.

The one thing being looked at now is incorporating video processing into the cpu die which will be new there. That would be a boost felt mostly by those using integrated onboard video such as laptops where you can't see a 1tb card there. 7 adds further by doing more to sync the vpu with the cpu.