Intel tells Developers To Be Ready For Thousand Core Processing; Soon To Ship 8 Cores
The Intel research blog has always been an excellent source of information and news about what technology one expects to see a few years down the line and what ‘kind’ of processors would power the computers of the future.
We are currently living in the era of the Dual-Core and Quad core processors. In our school, we were taught that, ‘The Processor is the heart and the brain of the computer.’ The first computer that I ever used was powered by an Intel processor cranking up 133Mhz of CPU cycles.
Today, I use a Core 2 Duo CPU which is almost 20 times faster than that. Coming from an
engineering background, I have played with the 8085 and 8086 processors that are considered the great grand fathers of current processors. There have been massive advancements and inventions in technologies in the computer front. The one name that I have always related to processors, is Intel. Intel processors have powered each and every computer that I have owned. They are currently right up there with technology, though AMD is not far behind. Thanks to Intel and their research, we have seen some blazing fast computers power tons of systems all over the world.
Apple’s Mac Pro is a consumer level Desktop computer that is powered by 8 cores. Two 4-core CPUs power the beast that is used by video editors, animation and graphic designers and ever some Apple fanatics. But are 8 cores enough? Ofcourse not. Atleast Intel doesn’t think so.
On Intel’s research blog, this article by Anwar Ghuloum, says that software developers must start developing softwares with multiple cores in mind. And by multiple, he means tens, hundreds or even thousands.
Ultimately, the advice I’ll offer is that these developers should start thinking about tens, hundreds, and thousands of cores now in their algorithmic development and deployment pipeline. This starts at a pretty early stage of development; usually, the basic logic of the application should be influenced because it drives the asymptotic parallelism behaviors.
Intel is already ready to launch a new breed of processors, named Nehalam, which are capable of integrating 8 cores onto a single chip. One could easily build a computer set up with upto 16 cores powering the beast.
So are you ready for the multi-core revolution?
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i liked your blog
I wonder if there are enough applications that demand so much computing power?
Or is it something like the case of Vista. Where the XP was quite good and did not demand resourses so microsoft release vista and force people to upgrade hardware for doing the same things that they did with XP….
Destination Infinity.