Intel demonstrated a 80-core, Teraflop CPU!!!

[gOJDO]

Intel last week demonstrated a working processor with 80 individual processing cores. Each core, or "tile" as Intel calls them, consists of a compute element and a router that allows each tile to connect to its neighbor. The chip can deliver more than 1 trillion floating point operations per second (teraflops), depending on how fast it's running. This is only a research project right now, as there are a lot of challenges involved in making an 80-core chip that's a practical option for PCs and servers.

Intel demonstrated the teraflop research chip in a briefing for reporters last week at a San Francisco hotel. It built a special cooling system for the chip and ran a few applications to demonstrate its performance. Intel had the chip running at around 3GHz during the demonstration, but has gotten it to run faster in its Oregon labs with a water-cooled system, said CTO Justin Rattner.

This is how Intel demonstrated the chip for reporters. Several power supplies were required, and Intel also needed to build a special motherboard. Engineers showed how Intel can obtain different levels of performance by tweaking the chips' clock speed and voltage supply while running an application that solved complex mathematical equations.

C.net news

Vara says the 80-core chip uses less than 100 watts of energy; a dual-core chip uses 60 to 70 watts and a quad-core uses 105 to 130 watts. Of course the numbers for the 80-core chip could be affected by the fact that it's lacking some functionality, but Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group, says it's still a significant accomplishment.

"We're quite literally creating a network mesh to let each little core communicate with the other cores and the rest of the system," says Vara. "The cores will want to know what the other cores will doing so they don't fight."

While it may take five to eight years to come out with a working 80-core chip, Vara says IT managers might start watching for what he calls "different flavors" of quad-core chips. "Maybe you'll have interim chips where they have more complex cores along with simpler cores, too."

EE Times

OMG!

[mr_knowitall15]

OMG thats really awesome.
Well, not really awesome, but pretty awesome.

[justin_c]

just imagine a multi threaded superpi on that rig...

[K404]

I tried to, but the calculation was finished before I really got a thought together

Thats pretty sweet!

[nn_step]

cool but I thought they were also going to include stacked Cache with these

[cky2k6]

i love the theoretical language the intel engineer is using, they might have mixed chips, like he doesnt know, lol...

[lawrywild]

OMG thats really awesome.
Well, not really awesome, but pretty awesome.

Stop stealing quotes from Jackass 2

[SoF]

wow what a rig
read it some time ago that they are going "multicore" but didn't expected them to show it that soon.

even it still takes its time, impressive where technology moves...

[The Ghost]

looks like a lot of wires there , nice research

[CPLB]

I wonder what kind of heatsink that is. Looks a little like the ThermalRight SI-128 but with 6 heatpipes.

[mukmaster]

Folding at home
We need it.

[VulgarHandle]

I wonder what kind of heatsink that is. Looks a little like the ThermalRight SI-128 but with 6 heatpipes.

looks like water, or chilled water maybe...

[Supertim0r]

looks like Scythe Andy Samurai Master

[onewingedangel]

I really like that intel are diversifying more recently - from graphics, to chips with integrated nb's to massively multicore chips (rival to suns niagra in the server space?), as well as persuing their desktop architectures and (to a seemingly limited extent) Itanium.

Flexibility will be the key in the coming years, and by having the modular components ready they will be in a great position to mix and match elements according to market demand.

AMD bought ATi so that they would be ready for the changing landscape, and it appears that intel is doing their darndest to ensure they don't get caught off guard and stuck down an architectural path again.

[NapalmV5]

watta woman, that mobo..

ever gonna get some.. ?

[nn_step]

watta woman, that mobo..

ever gonna get some.. ?

yeah but 8 power connectors doesn't exactly screen energy efficient

[NapalmV5]

yeah but 8 power connectors doesn't exactly screen energy efficient

now thats some sexy curves..

[Sparky]

And people complain about a PC's current power consumption - looking at all those thick wires....

[n00b 0f l337]

Well that mobo will be a pain in the ass to insulate

[BlackX]

yeah but 8 power connectors doesn't exactly screen energy efficient

Its only 100W

I bet Intel keeps their fingers crossed until quantum computer's test day

[onewingedangel]

I think the ammount of wires has more to do with providing very precise voltages, rather than absolute power demands. As they said it outputs less than 100w of heat, and is on the 65nm process, theres no way it needs all that much power.

[[XC] Teroedni]

Wow 80 cores

[CPLB]

looks like Scythe Andy Samurai Master

Yea I think you're right. It's crazy that they can use this on an 80 core CPU.

[ownage]

Probably low clocked cores, maybe round 400mhz, otherwise i wouldn't know how intel could cool that even if it would be 45nm.
This core structure has to be a lot differend then there current retail technologie.

[CPLB]

Probably low clocked cores, maybe round 400mhz, otherwise i wouldn't know how intel could cool that even if it would be 45nm.

"Intel had the chip running at around 3GHz during the demonstration, but has gotten it to run faster in its Oregon labs with a water-cooled system, said CTO Justin Rattner."

I'm assuming that's 3GHz on air with the Scythe heatsink?