Intel launches Quad Core processors

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As predicted Intel's CEO Paul Otellini used his keynote on the opening day of the Fall 2006 Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco to officially unveil the semiconductor giant's first quad core processors.

The first quad core processors to ship will target the gaming market, and will use the existing Core2 Extreme brand. The Core2 Extreme QX6700 will offer a 70% improvement in performance over current hardware.

More mainstream desktop quad core devices will ship in early 2007 under the Core 2 Quad brand, with a range of processors targeted at different markets. Server processors will arrive at the end of 2006, with the Xeon 5300 for twin socket DP motherboards.

Describing quad core as the answer to current industry trends, Otellini went on to say, "More than ever processing power matters, even as the need to reduce heat, extend battery life, and reduce electricity costs in data centres becomes more critical." Intel promises its next generation of processors will have higher performance for the same power and heat budgets as its existing hardware.

A single socket variant, the Xeon 3200, will arrive in early 2007. A low power variant, the L5310, is intended for blade servers, and will run Multiprocessor hardware will need to wait until the middle of 2007 and the new Caneland platform, with its Tigerton and Dunnington processors.

Steve Smith, VP Desktop Platforms Group, claims quad core will be relevant to a wide range of PCs. "You're looking at the future of media creation and content creation with quad processors. You're looking at the future of servers and when the game folks modify their games to use four cores you're looking at the future of gaming. When you look at a server the vast majority of benchmarks and real world applications just run better - and we get to put a Cloverleaf processor in the existing Bensley platform and get these improvements."

He listed a range of applications that can take advantage of quad core from Adobe Premier Plus and AfterEffects to Oracle 10G and Microsoft SQLServer. He doesn't expect most business users to move to quad core any time soon though. "For the desktop, because of the applications - and it's the applications that motivate people to value this or not -for a mainstream business PC it may be some time before we see the benefit here."

Intel isn't introducing new quad core dies yet. The first quad core processors will be two dual-core dies packaged together with an 8MB cache and a shared frontside bus. Quad-core processors can be made on the same manufacturing lines, any silicon that doesn't make the grade for quad core can still be used in a Core 2 Duo chip and it all adds up to a 10% cost saving for Intel.

Otellini dismisses concerns this will be seen as a halfway house. "You're misreading the market if you think people care about what's inside the package. They care about the performance delivered." Single die quad core systems are unlikely to ship until after Intel begins using its next generation 45nm fabs.

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