Intel beat AMD to quad core showing

[Steve]

Usually it's AMD that's first with new tech these days, but it seems Intel has the upper hand when it comes to quad core processors. They're publically showing them this Friday.

Intel has been hell-bent on not losing out to AMD on any more milestone releases, and it is going to be the first to demo a four core CPU, even if it is a hack. AMD has shown four ways as early as last October behind very closed doors, but this will be the first public showing. So congrats Intel, you won this round.

[The Inquirer]

[TiG]

We haven't got proper software to take advantage of 2 cpu's yet especially not in the home market, seems a bit pointless to me.

TiG

[Steve]

With virtualisation kicking in it'll soon be useful for servers, at least.

[kasavien]

Just because intel are first to show the processors doesn't mean that they will be first to release it, surely the first to release matters most?

[[GSV]Trig]

Yes but its Intel, they dont like being beaten by AMD and when they get beaten on one thing they'll usually use smoke and mirrors to cover up the fact that there loosing...

Intel say socket 7 is dead and that slot chips are the future, AMD carry on using S7, yadda yadda yadda, few yars later Intel switch back to sockets....

Intel rip AMD for having confusing naming conventions, well, easy to say Intel now are winning on that one too lol...

Its fine showing a quad core but if its just 2 dual cores stuck together then whats the point, we already know that the reason Intel chips suck is down to there using old technology and just making pipelines longer, clock speeds higher and increasing the cache, oh, and then theres the way the chip talks to the rest of the system.....

[sawyen]

im not that excited really... the software Im using only take advantage of 2 cores..

And with what Intel's been doing lately (except Yonah), I wouldnt bet so much on it...

[Funkstar]

i wouldn't class demoing a hacked together quad core system 'winning a round'.

[MrChris]

^^^ spot on...

if theyre anything like intels last dual cores... which i hope to god they arent cos ill be laughing for a few days...then it will be very bad...

somehow i think intel want some kind of killer blow so they can say "We pwn joo AMD"

it just aint gonna happen...
at least pc world can sell quad core pcs to gullible ppl tho...

[Sim0n]

Surely Intel already have the P4 Extreme Edition, which uses simulated/logical 4 way processing ? Which already stated about is a waste of time at the minute..

[Platinum]

/me drools at the prospect of a Quad core, Dual CPU HT Xeon workstation

[Lee H]

and then the week after AMD will announce some Tri-Core opteron series which gives 6 cores when used on a dual CPU platform, and the cycle just keeps going and going and going

[Rys]

/me drools at the prospect of a Quad core, Dual CPU HT Xeon workstation

So 16 CPUs, in two sockets, sharing one memory controller. You're drooling because you relish the thought of validating just how pants that'd be in most situations?

[[GSV]Trig]

So 16 CPUs, in two sockets, sharing one memory controller.

Thats pretty much the direction I was going in, until Intel do a "from the ground up" chipset and CPU then theres always going to be severe system limitations...

[Mike Fishcake]

Bah.

It's all just a load of willy-waving anyway. TBH I couldn't care less which company "wins". They're both massive, massive international corporations. In the end, the fact that they're competing to get the best technology is an advantage to the consumer anyway!

[TooNice]

Do the current programming tech limit all applications to only take advantage of the number of cores it is originally designed for? And is this optimisation process very time consuming (i.e. any more than adding support for MMX/SSE etc.)?
If multicore is the way forward, then it would be a pretty severe limitation: development cycles aren't really getting shorter, and if software developers need to re-optimise for quad-hex-oct-dec-etc. cores when they are released then the future of software development looks pretty painful... And expensive.

[shaithis]

Intel just need to hold their hands up, say "We've been wrong - but we are going back to the design board and are going to start from scratch, no more CPUs for at least 12 months"

They would garner a lot more respect from a great number of entusiasts.