AMD, Intel Plotting Six-Core CPU Releases

Are you ready for more cores?

With both AMD and Intel already floating quad-core CPUs on the market, it's only natural for them to dial things up a bit bigger by adding 50 percent more cores.

According to a report from Digitimes, who sources its friends at Taiwanese motherboard companies, Intel will be rolling out its six-core desktop "Gulftown" processors at the end of March. The six-core Nehalem-based chip will supposedly be named the Core i7-980X and will be priced in the four-digit range.

In response, AMD will launch the six-core "Thuban" 45nm chips as Phenom II X6 1075T, 1055T and 1035T models sometime in May.

As always, take these reports with a grain of salt – but it's safe to say that we'll be seeing six-core CPUs sometime before the summer.

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6

Spoony , January 30, 2010 2:37 PM

cant wait to see specs and prices

i want bang for buck not massive prise and good performance like intel give so AMD all the way me thinks
2

Alsone , January 30, 2010 6:40 PM

Don't get too excited, the fact they're 4 figure prices means they won't be mainstream.
1

Dandalf , January 30, 2010 6:41 PM

The intel one Alsone, likely not the AMD ones
4

anonymous@guest , January 30, 2010 6:50 PM

CPU's don't need more cores. Software needs to be improved to utilize them properly.
4

mactronix , January 31, 2010 3:08 AM

I would hold out some hope that it may push down prices of teh rest of teh Intel CPU range but they just havent moved worth a mention for a good 2 years now. My CPU is actually 50% dearer now than it was about a year ago when i got it.

Mactronix
0

damian86 , January 31, 2010 8:22 AM

how many cores does a cpu need then?.....
1

mactronix , January 31, 2010 4:55 PM

I would say that you actually need 2 now but we are at the point where its useful in some cases to have 4.I would say 4 actual cores would sway me over getting an i3 which has 2 cores and 2 virtual ones.

Mactronix
-1

anonymous@guest , January 31, 2010 11:58 PM

Windows 8 and most of linux distrobutions are going to release 128 bit operating system. most of RAM, nowadays are DDR3 bus 1600MHZ ,64 bit and cpu s are 64bit that saturate market.
cpu and ram and mobo and vga and os become 128 bit
intel and amd and asus and gigabyte intend to manufacture these good things.
2

anonymous@guest , February 1, 2010 4:06 PM

azimzadehWindows 8 and most of linux distrobutions are going to release 128 bit operating system. most of RAM, nowadays are DDR3 bus 1600MHZ ,64 bit and cpu s are 64bit that saturate market. cpu and ram and mobo and vga and os become 128 bit intel and amd and asus and gigabyte intend to manufacture these good things.

With all due respect, that's utter nonsense. 64-bit is still at the beginning of its lifespan and will be around for many decades to come. Don't count on seeing 128-bit in Windows 8, or even Windows 9 or 10 for that matter.
0

reactive , February 1, 2010 8:44 PM

I want 6 cores! I do a lot of 3D rendering, so I can never get enough power... although once GPGPU processing using OpenCL is included in forthcoming software releases, then $1000+ for 6 cores will be look a bit silly next to a graphics card's 500+ processors for $500 :-)
0

silverblue , February 3, 2010 4:30 PM

If there's an application for it, and properly optimised code (none of this power-of-2 crap either), you can use as many cores as they throw at you.

Essentially, until the latter is achieved, people aren't really going to see much difference between dual and quad core CPUs in everyday usage unless they're running something extremely intensive.
1

Dr_M0rph3us , February 3, 2010 6:16 PM

It's an expected move. Waiting also for 6 or 8-core XEONs - massive rendering FTW. Professional graphics is one of the industries that will surely benefit from multi-core technology, as reactive pointed out.