Intel Quad Core Chips Arrive
Intel announced today that its new quad core Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (nicknamed “Kentsfield”) will begin shipping in time for the holiday season. The chips were originally set to begin shipping next year, but Dell had already jumped the gun and said they would be using the chip in their new servers and high end workstations.
Today’s announcement puts Intel on top again in the never-ending chip race with AMD, whom Intel has been trailing for several years. AMD is planning on releasing its own quad cores sometime next year.
Intel claims the quad cores, which are essentially two dual cores sandwiched on the same chip, will give some applications as much as a 70% performance boost.
Before you get too excited, bear in mind that there isn’t a whole lot of software out there that can really take advantage of a quad core chip. The most immediate beneficiaries of the new chips will likely be servers and grid computing projects. While there are some high-end multimedia and scientific programs capable of using however many cores are present, the average office and desktop programs will likely see only marginal performances gains from the new chips.
Intel’s performance figures may however prove correct at some point in the future when software catches up with hardware. With more and more consumer machines already using dual cores and the new quad cores hitting the market, we will undoubtedly see more programs becoming multithread capable in the near future.
ZDNet has put together an interesting informal benchmark test using Intel’s new quad-core Xeon 5355. The folks over at ZDNet reconfigured a Mac Pro to fit it with two quad cores, making an eight core machine, and ran some benchmark tests. In some tests the original Mac Pro actually out performs the new chips, though as ZDNet points out their custom machine does not benefit from optimized firmware or other components that Apple would likely add if they use the new chips.
So far Dell, IBM and a few others have announced plans to use the new chips. Apple, who typically does not announce such things, has so far not said anything about the new chips.
At $999 per chip, Intel’s quad cores probably aren’t going to fit most consumer budgets, but early adopters, gaming junkies and those who just have to have the latest and greatest will no doubt be excited.
