Intel Says Goodbye to 4GHz P4 - Why This Business of Dual Core?
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Unless of course you are one of those people who play Doom3 and encode .WMA files at the same time, run multiple simultaneous compiles in Gentoo Linux, or manipulate photos while creating a CAD drawing and running an anti-virus check, in many cases you aren't going to see a huge benefit out of a dual processor workstation with your current software. So why this business of dual core then, which is just bringing dual processor machines to the masses?
Intel has hit a wall, and throwing more money at it isn't going to make the problem go away. The laws of physics don't play that game. Everyone who has built a 90nm processor has found they don't scale like they did in previous shrinks, which is why we see that Prescott has barely budged from it's release frequency. Intel doesn't have a problem making 2.8GHz Prescotts, or 3GHz ones -- they just can't make 3.6GHz ones or higher with any kind of consistency, or without them acting like a nuclear furnace. This isn't just Intel, either.
AMD has fallen down the same well. Again, 90nm Winchesters dawdling along at 2GHz doesn't seem to be an issue. But 2.6 and 2.8GHz sure seems to be.
What about IBM? Apple had planned on releasing a 3GHz G5 system by Christmas. However, the IBM PowerPC 970 processors they use need an interesting water cooling system just to be viable at 2.5GHz. What's next? Phase change cooling?
Next: The Core of the Problem >>
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