blazekid43 :
I'm in my first year at electronic engineering and I have to do a 5-6 min in-depth technical presentation on 8 core processors.
I was hoping i could pick some brains around here for some knowledge as I'm assuming many of you have probably done this before. So for example, how do you think I should begin with my presentation, what technical aspect/s of a multi-core processor should i talk about that would last me 5-6 mins?
Also I'd like to ask some basic questions. I've done some research but I bet the stuff I researched is probably out of date.
-What is the fastest 8-core processor available today to the public?
-Pro's and con's of an 8-core processor
-future of 8-core processors
-or any other relevant questions you think I've missed out.
I'm sorry if this is a bit much, but I only vaguely know how to do a presentation well.
(cracks knuckles) All righty...
0. There are a lot of 8-core CPUs out there and they differ a lot.
- The first CPU I know of with 8 cores on one CPU package is the IBM POWER5. It used four dual-core dies on one massive ceramic package. Benchmarks on IBM hardware are rare due to IBM supposedly having an NDA stating nobody is to benchmark their parts, plus high-end IBM stuff like an 8-core POWER5 costs a ton of money. (The rumor is that the anti-benchmarking NDA's existence is itself covered by an NDA...) The current POWER7 has up to 8 actual cores on one die but like above, few can really say how fast it is or isn't.
- The first CPU with all 8 cores on one die that I know of was the UltraSPARC T1, which was a 1.0-1.4 GHz highly multithreaded (4-way SMT per core) unit. It had extremely poor performance in everything except highly multithreaded Java applications due to its low clock speeds and only one fairly weak FPU per CPU. Subsequent SPARCs (VIIIfx, T2, etc.) have gotten up to 16 cores and performance is very tough to evaluate compared to x86_64 units due to Oracle's rumored NDAs against benchmarking and the sheer expense and lack of SPARC units out there.
- The first x86_64 processor with eight cores per processor would be AMD's Magny-Cours Opteron 6100 series. These have two six-core dies on an MCM, with each die having its own IMC, 24 bits of HyperTransport connections to the other die, and two disabled cores.
- Intel's first 8-core CPU was the Xeon 6500/7500 Beckton Xeon. These had all 8 cores on a massive single die.
- Current 8-core CPUs I am aware of include the IBM POWER7, several SPARCs, some Xeon E5s and E7s, the AMD FX-81xx/83xx series as well as some members of the Opteron 3300, 4300, and Opteron 6300 series.
1. Which 8 core CPU is "fastest" is somewhat application dependent. We don't really know how fast any of the non-x86_64 stuff truly is, other than in synthetic benchmarks like the SPEC series. The highest-clocked 8-core SB-E Xeon (E5-2690) is probably the fastest overall of the x86_64 8-core CPUs as it is moderately faster than any 8-core AMD processor in single-threaded and multithreaded tasks.
2. The future of 8-core processors is that we will see them become more common over time. We hit the point where single threaded performance increased slowly with ISA and process improvements about ten years ago. Thus we saw multithreading become "the next big thing," with dual-core CPUs in the mid-2000s and core counts reaching up to 16 today (UltraSPARC T5, AMD Opteron 6200/6300 series.) We haven't yet hit the limit where adding more cores fails to increase overall performance in all but a few applications due to locking/syncing problems that limit scaling, so we will see higher and higher core counts.
3. If you are particularly astute you will see that core counts quickly jumped from 1 to 2 shortly after "the MHz wall" was hit in the early 2000s. We went from 1 -> 2 cores in 2005 and by 2007 single-core CPUs were nearly unheard of except in netbooks. Quad-core desktop CPUs came out in 2007, six-core units in 2010, and eight-core units in 2011. Intel realized that software programmers are lazy and even six years after they introduced the first desktop quad-core CPU, they still sell a boatload of dual-core units because a lot of old and poorly-programmed software doesn't scale well beyond 1-2 cores. Only in the last couple of years have quad core CPUs become the majority of what Intel sells. Intel still doesn't have a CPU with more than 10 cores even in the highly multithreaded 4+ socket server field and doesn't sell a desktop CPU with more than six cores. Even then, the six-core ones are all $500+ enthusiast parts.
AMD can't battle Intel well in the quest of severely diminishing gains in performance in poorly threaded programs so they decided to go the "more slightly simpler cores" route to much higher multithreaded performance. They made quads mainstream priced and popular with the original Phenom in 2007 (Intel sort of followed with the Q6600) and now most of their desktop CPUs are 6-8 cores. They also pushed the envelope with regards to core count in 2010 with the dual-die MCM Opteron 6000 series with up to 16 cores at the present time. Note they haven't brought those parts to the desktop despite the fact that a 16-core Opteron 6376 costs about what a 6-core Core i7-3930K does- the Opteron 6376's being about twice as fast in heavily multithreaded tasks would not make up for it being about a third slower in poorly-threaded stuff. Most desktop applications simply aren't well coded enough to take advantage of such a system.
FYI, I currently run a 12-core processor (Opteron 6234) in a quad-socket motherboard. I run Linux and most of my heavy lifting is in server-esque applications such as VMs, compiling, and compression/decompression of disk and ISO images.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram