(image source: Intel)
BY EVAN THOMAS
ANCHOR MEGAN MURPHY
You're watching multisource video news analysis from Newsy.
You think your 8-core PC is fast? On Tuesday-- Intel unveiled a commercial processor with 50-plus cores on a single chip, called Knights Corner. Not for consumers quite yet -- it’s for research.
It can crank out a teraflop, or one billion calculations per second. For reference, today’s fastest consumer chips top out at a little more than 100 million calculations per second.
Intel’s technical computing general manager Raj Hazra explains the milestone.
“... the first delivery of a teraflop of double-precision performance in a single chip .... Breaking the barrier that the last time was broken 15 years ago with a system that was in excess of 70 cabinets.”
The old computer Hazra referenced was the first to perform at teraflop speeds. Of course, it took up a lot more space, and a lot more power. Intel wants to use Knights Corner to build a supercomputer that runs at 10,000 teraflops.
All that speed on one chip is impressive, but ZDNet is looking past the numbers. What does this mean for the future of computing?
“Intel’s answer for everything is better performance, more muscle and manufacturing breakthroughs. But in the end, I want the narrative. What exactly is possible with exascale computing?”
How about... gaming? What if you slotted one of these chips into a top-end consumer rig? Dvice says-- that’s overkill.
“It's probably for the better that we can't get our hands on one of these processors. Aside from professionals and hardcore gamers, who really needs more than a Core i7 dual-core processor anyway? Heck, most people don't even need that. An iPad will do fine in most cases.”
Maybe for now, but Gizmodo thinks personal supercomputers are only a matter of time.
“... there’s no doubt that core count is the future, and the race to push the ‘many’ in many cores is on. This tech will be in your tablet, eventually. Remember when it was about megahertz? Barely.”
The Knights Corner supercomputer won’t be online until January 2013.
