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Intel Talks a Little About 10-core Westmere-EX

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That'd be decacore.

Nehalem-EX

At Hot Chips, Intel engineer Dheemanth Nagaraj told everyone in attendance that the next server processor from the company would have 10 cores and be able to process 20 threads.

It's the next in the server EX line, the Westmere-EX, which will pick up from the Nehalem-EX using the newest core architecture. What Nagaraj declined to reveal were clock speeds or anything related to performance, other than it'll have two more cores and four more thread capability than Nehalem-EX.

According to the Register, Westmere-EX will have an L3 cache – something Intel prefers to call "last level cache" – and each of its 10 cores will share 10 "slices" of this cache, which are accessed over a bidirectional ring bus and can handle five parallel cache requests per clock cycle.

Those running Nehalem-EX systems now can maintain their current platforms, as Westmere-EX will be socket compatible with the current Boxboro-EX platform.

One feature that did not make it into Nehalem-EX due to time constraints but will be in Westmere-EX is Directory Assisted Snoopy (DAS) to improve local memory latency.

When asked why Intel is only going 10 cores when the competition has the 12-core Magny-Cours, Nagaraj said that going with 10 "gave us the sweet spot for performance and time-to-market."

39 Comments Comment from the forums
  • razercultmember1
    Multi threaded applications need to be in place BEFORE stuff like this is created...
    Reply
  • Netherscourge
    Seems like the CPU manufacturers have given up on the speed race and are now just trying to cram as many cores as possible onto a single die.
    Reply
  • thebigt42
    razercultmember1Multi threaded applications need to be in place BEFORE stuff like this is created...It will be used on machines with hypervisors and lots VMs
    Reply
  • thebigt42
    razercultmember1Multi threaded applications need to be in place BEFORE stuff like this is created...I don't know how many it can use but I know handbrake (and a lot of video tools do) it uses all 8 threads of my processor when encoding video files. But I get your point, most games are not going to use this.
    Reply
  • tokenz
    razercultmember1Multi threaded applications need to be in place BEFORE stuff like this is created...
    There are applications for this. Server and workstation programs have been multithreaded for years. Your not going to throw this in gaming desktop.
    Reply
  • quantum mask
    razercultmember1Multi threaded applications need to be in place BEFORE stuff like this is created...This is not a desktop processor, it's going to be used for servers. Servers by their very nature with take advantage of multiple threads. Even if it were used in a desktop there are plenty of programs out today that will take advantage of the multiple cores.
    Reply
  • animehair
    just as the guy before me said...these will be great CPU's for servers running lots of virtual servers...or clustering farms.
    Reply
  • nforce4max
    This will be a welcomed upgrade so long the memory subsystem doesn't get completely hammered or draw more power than what they are replacing. Cooling server farms and data centers is expensive then maintenance (down time) can be a pain in the backside.
    Reply
  • mykem
    I can see this being a great value for a multi-threaded database backend or even a high-performance web server.
    Reply
  • JOSHSKORN
    They really need to stop adding cores and threads. Instead, just make things go faster, or at least over 4 Ghz without overclocking. It'll still be a while until most applications even utilize quad cores. Not sure if most of the apps made today even utilize dual cores.
    Reply