Intel Unveils 6-Core Xeon 7400 235
JagsLive recommends CNet coverage that begins "Intel officially unveiled its six-core 'Dunnington' Xeon 7400 processor Monday ... As expected, Intel launched the Dunnington chip for high-end servers ... The Xeon 7400 is also one of the first Intel chips to have a monolithic design. In other words, all six cores will be on one piece of silicon. To date, for any processor having more than two cores, Intel has put two separate pieces of silicon ... inside one chip package."
And we're now tuesday (Score:5, Informative)
I'm betting new Mac Pros will be launched today.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Base 2 (Score:2, Informative)
see amd ... they have 3 cores in one chip and the shit fares prety well
With a catch.... (Score:4, Informative)
"There's an odd catch, however, that will affect the highest of high-end configurations. "Because Microsoft Windows operating system support is limited to a 64-core environment, within a single OS instance, we'll support up to 64 cores," said Colin Lacey, a Unisys marketing vice president."
Gads, who on earth would run a 64-core Windows box? Unless they want to virtualize out multiple servers on one bit of hardware. Most of the "heavy lifting" I've seen on servers with mucho processor cores are running some flavor of Unix. I'm kinda surprised this hasn't been fixed already given the momentum of multi-core processors.
Cheers,
Re:Base 2 (Score:3, Informative)
Is it just me, or does 6 seem like a counter intuitive number of cores ?
Remember they need to put other stuff on the silicon too. The XBox 360's CPU uses three quarters of the die for three processors and puts the shared cache etc. in the fourth quarter. Six + support circuitry probably fits a square die better than eight + support.
Re:Base 2 (Score:5, Informative)
No, it just matters that you have more than one.
Re:And we're now tuesday (Score:1, Informative)
Dunnington is the wrong socket for the current Mac Pros. They would have to rearchitect everything to put a processor designed for 4-way systems into a 2-way box. Apple are almost certainly waiting for the DP versions of Nehalem to come out and jump for that.
Re:Base 2 (Score:3, Informative)
Sun had 8-core server CPUs since several years now. They didn't have any problems allocating the die's surface.
Re:Base 2 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Base 2 (Score:1, Informative)
> there is usually a requirement for an even number
> of cores in SMP (symmetric multi processing)
Why?
You have tasks [A, B, ... I], and you run task A on first core, task B on 2nd, ... task I on ninth. What kind of black magic could possibly hold me back from scheduling nine tasks to run on nine cores? CPU scheduling is CPU scheduling, isn't it? The last time I've checked, you can build a Linux kernel with support for anywhere from 1 to 255 CPUs. Or should I insert "assert((num_cpus%2)==0)" everywhere in my hypothetical homebrew hobby OS?
I think the "symmetric" in SMP means more like "parallel".
Re:Base 2 (Score:2, Informative)
Re:And we're now tuesday (Score:5, Informative)
The article from Ars technica says:
"Unlike the 65nm, quad-core Tukwila, Dunnington is produced on Intel's 45nm process. This means that Dunnington uses less power, and indeed, the top-end, 2.66GHz SKU has a 130W TDP (compare Tukwila's 170W TDP). The 2.4GHz part boasts a 90W TDP, and there's a 2.13GHz part that runs at a relatively cool 65W."
Re:Base 2 (Score:2, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing [wikipedia.org]
Re:Wattage (Score:3, Informative)
That's already the case. (Score:5, Informative)
6 = 8 - 2 broken cores ?
You joke but that's already the case with PS3's Cell (7 SPU = 8 - 1 broken), with tripple core Phenom (3 = 4 - 1 broken), and with a very high number of graphic cards (The range segment {pro/mid/low-cost} on which a GPU is used = the number of functional cores they managed to salvage)
A separate reason may be the number of {quickpath/hypertransport/etc.} interconnects (6 cores require 15 interconnect to communicate, 8 cores require 28 interconnects). 6 to 8 cores isn't such a big increase but keeps the number of inter connect reasonnable.
(Other processors types like Tilera end up only interconnecting adjacing cores on their 64x chips and you have a strongly *Non*-Uniform Architecture, with not all core able to reach and talk to others at the same speed)
Re:Base 2 (Score:4, Informative)
That has nothing to do with symmetric multiprocessing. SMP means that all the chips can make memory accesses to all the memory at the same speed. It is the opposite of Non-Uniform Memory Access, or NUMA, in which certain processors (some or all of them) take longer to talk to certain parts of main memory than others or systems in which processors have a faster path to some private off-chip memory in addition to the main shared memory.
Re: "yes, triple core do exist" (Score:4, Informative)
That's no different from the 486SXes, many of which were 486DX parts with the defective math coprocessor diked out. It's not very different from how the clock rate on every mainstream chip is determined by how many chips turn out to be stable at which speeds.
Re:Yay, more cycles we can't utilize (Score:4, Informative)
In the article it's pretty clear this is a legacy-at-launch part to be a last upgrade for people using the current FSB technology. Other products will use QuickPath, but this is for those who want to keep their current motherboards for one more generation of processors.
Re:That's already the case. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Specs? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Specs? (Score:3, Informative)
There wasn't much in terms of technical specs in TFA. 6 cores, 16MB cache, anything else? Clock speed? 16MB of L2? L3? FSB? DDR(n)? (Though this is probably more up to the MB manufacturer) Why are they moving the memory controller off silicon? That in itself seems like a step backwards.
Pentiums have never had an on-die MMU in the first place, they're actually doing that for the upcoming Nehalem. AMD has used an on-die MMU since the Athlon 64, and while it certainly helps squeeze more efficiency out of the system, the faster clocked bus on Intel rigs often made up for the theoretical performance gap.
The Clock speed was omitted from the article, but the Xeon 7400 is clocked at 2.6ghz. That's actually pretty decent for a Xeon, they don't go as high as the mainstream processors because they're made to be installed in a puny rack chassis with piss-poor airflow.