Submitted by Just as the bragging rights for dual-core chip supremacy are dying down, Intel gave the first glimpse of a quad-core chip coming next year. Clovertown, a four-core processor, will start shipping to computer manufacturers late this year and hit the market in early 2007. Clovertown will be made for dual-processor servers, which means that these servers will essentially be eight-processor servers. The company will also come out with a previously announced version called Tigerton around the same time for servers with four or more processors.
Unfortunately Intel is very far behind AMD on bus technology and that, combined with the absence of an on-die memory controller, means that those extra two CPUs will spend most of their time idling while waiting on data.
AMD’s won this battle, and Intel’s going to be stuck for quite some time, 2008 according to this estimate: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060211-6160.html
Hmm… “Clovertown” sounds very nice. I wonder if they could adopt these names for marketing, as Apple did with Tiger. It sounds more friendly.
One thing I am wondering is how well Windows would actually be able to cope with such a machine. Whilst I am sure that you could run Linux or OS X just fine (although you’d need really multithreaded apps to notice it), I have no idea whether Windows can actually handle four cores, let alone 8.
Could someone give me a rough overview of multi-processor support in Windows XP then?
I don’t think this is the type of machine you would put XP on. This chip is aimed at the server market. XP is a desktop OS, not a server OS. So you’d want to ask about the multiprocessor support of Windows 2003. As far as I know Window Pro versions can handle 1 -2 processors, the Advanced Server line can handle at least 8 processors, but something in my brain is saying it can go up to 32 processors but don’t quote me on that.
Here’s a guide for the different versions of Windows Server 2003 (both the original and R2): http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/features/feat…
Just check the Hardware Specs checkbox for processor support information.
As far as licensing goes it will see the the four core, cpu (regardless of hyperthreading) as one CPU. (Other companies are so nice about that) There are versions of windows that support 32 CPU/Cores. I am not sure what the max XP home supports. But then again, I use ubuntu so its not really something that keeps me up at night
support for multiple CPUs [multiple cores + HT excluded]:
Windows XP Home – 1 CPU [+dualcore +HT = 4]
Windows XP Professional – 2 CPUs [+dualcore +HT = 8]
Windows 2003 Standard Edition – 4 CPUs
Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition – 8 CPUs
Windows 2003 Datacenter Edition – 64 CPUs
I now see on my Task Manager a lot of threads of all the processes (around 300 if I sum them all).
So, when I have multi-core processors, aren’t all this threads scheduled in a clever way so it uses all cores available (if the OS supports it, of course) ?
If I have 2 apps running, then I surely will benefit from having dual or more cores!
When you have a multiprocessor-able OS, isn’t this what happens? albeit not being a massively os-level threaded architecture (ala BeOS) ?
99% of threads are just waiting. In this situation the extra 3 cores are useless.
Mac Pro Octal, anyone?
As one poster has already pointed out the bus limitations of the Intel chips, I would have to concur that AMD has an advantage in terms of scaling linearly with the number of cores because of their on die memory controller and so on. Intel is gonna get pwned again….why they did not copy what AMD is doing is beyond me…but ah well. Works for me.
Also with regards to XP not being able to handle quad cores I dont know how accurate that is but I am convinced despite some inherent problems with XP Pros task scheduler, it should work out that you get some kind of a boost with multithreaded apps. If you guys are interested in checking XP 64 bit performance increases with using Lightwave 3D go to http://www.planetx64.com and check out the numbers. I think MS has tackled the issue of multicore processors with their revamped kernel, memory manager and scheduler in Vista. Vista 64 bit will certainly be robust enough to handle quad cores I think.
Being the first to have a feature does NOT always mean it will be the best.
AMD will have quad core processors too:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1826663,00.asp
Oddly enough, I found that Windows XP responsiveness improved to a much greater degree with dual core than Linux did (I also had to re-compile the kernel initially, the Ubuntu kernel didn’t recognize dual processors, an issue noted in the Ubuntu forums).
The improvement came when an application would churn, burning up 100% of the CPU for a specific task. Playing Quake 4, Outlook throwing a fit, a badly written app going bonkers. With a single core the system would be slow and sluggish. With dual cores, I could still switch to other applications and have responsiveness almost as good as when the system was idle, since it’s only churning 100% of a single core, and the other core ready to take on my workload.
Dual core certainly helps out on Linux systems, but for desktop applications, the difference wasn’t as dramatic in terms of overall system responsiveness.
“Oddly enough, I found that Windows XP responsiveness improved to a much greater degree with dual core than Linux did (I also had to re-compile the kernel initially, the Ubuntu kernel didn’t recognize dual processors, an issue noted in the Ubuntu forums).”
Many people think this is a ubuntu issue; however, it is due to the fact the deafult i386 kernel is not SMP enabled! If you are using a modern intel cpu with hyperthreading, SMP (Multicore/processor), or SMT (hyperthreading) get the i686-smp kernel or for AMD get the k7-smp. The package manager makes this a snap, no compiling needed.
Tony,
Re: “Oddly enough, I found that Windows XP responsiveness improved to a much greater degree with dual core than Linux did. I also had to re-compile the kernel initially, the Ubuntu kernel didn’t recognize dual processors, an issue noted in the Ubuntu forums.”
From what you stated it’s either a PEBKAC issue or that Ubuntu Linux did not correctly identify the processor on the motherboard as SMP capable. For example the kernel for SMP capable processors is installed when two or more processors are detected. Whether the processors are two single core processors like the older dual XEON and Opteron processors, Intel P4 with Hyperthreading enabled or the new dual core processors.
Regarding your performance comment comparing dual core processors with Windows XP Professional and a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu Linux. It’s better to include with such comments a benchmark test that is cross platform capable such as SPECviewperf.
Edited 2006-02-13 22:42
It’s probably linked to the fact, that Linux scheduler deals better with multiple threads than Windows scheduler. Two cores alleviate the innate bad (not as efficient) design of Windows kernel in more distinct manner, since Linux is already better suited for multiple application instances. There is simply a lot less to improve on in system responsiveness when adding second core on Linux, than it is on Windows.
1. How much heat is generated by Clovertown?
2. Is the cache being increased?
3. Does it use Hyperthreading?
4. Will Clovertown use the same socket design as Merom and Conroe?
5. Will Intel Clovertown provide a memory controller similar to AMD?
Edited 2006-02-13 21:02
Intel it’s late and also with bad tech..
Why is AMD better?
Well I think the main point is that even though intel will have the 4 cores it wont have the bandwidth to feed them all fast enough. “Please sir, may I have some more?”. Intel is still using their outdated FSB and they wont have the new CSI bus system avail till late 2007/2008. From what I read CSI will be very competitive to Hypertransport (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/12/intel_csi_low/). The AMD has the nice Hyptertransport already and the ondie memory controller so when it comes to the initial AMD Quad vs Intel Quad I doubt intel will stand a chance.