First Intel Sandy Bridge E CPU Has Only 6 Cores, Enthusiasts Disapprove

[Ci7]

Intel didn't really cause mixed feelings among its followers the same way AMD did, but it still offered a reason for them to be less than enthusiastic by not being as enthusiastic as them, so to speak.

Intel recently 'disappointed' the more enthusiastic of its followers by revealing that its first Sandy Bridge-CPU would not have eight cores.

That is to say, not all eight of them would be enabled and, instead, 'only' six would be up and ready to breeze through even the most hardcore of games and applications.

A short list of reasons was compiled in order to explain to those hardcore overclockers and gamers why this is going to happen.

The TDP (thermal design power) is the most obvious of them, since the E chips are very big beasts (relatively speaking) and have a lot of cache memory.

Desktops nowadays try to stay at 120W or under, while an eight-core chip, with a clock speed higher than 3 GHz (to justify the upgrade form old CPUs to new ones) would demand about 150W.

The other major reason is how operating systems don't really know what to do with chips that have so many cores (they can barely put six of them to work, let alone eight).

In other words, Intel is making the same argument AMD used to assure prospective buyers that the FX Bulldozer chips willgain performance when Windows 8 appears.

All in all, the first Sandy Bridge-E CPUs will, in the end, have 'only' six cores because the company wouldn't have been able to jam more than that number, working at 3.3 GHz, into the 130W limit.

After all, since enthusiasts won't really be susceptible to the wiles of eight-core units if said chips don't have at least 3 GHz from the get go.

Intel should get around to enabling all eight cores at the next CPU stepping (with 20 MB L3 cache memory instead of 15).

source:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/First-Intel-Sandy-Bridge-E-CPU-Has-Only-6-Cores-Enthusiasts-Disapprove-228018.shtml

[citan]

Hm, i guess i'm going to wait for Ivy Bridge, going to build my new render machine then :)

[Miuku.]

They should really say "Windows doesn't know how to use more cores" because Linux and BSD definitely can, and properly for that matter (as well as OS X).

[neufuse Veteran]

They should really say "Windows doesn't know how to use more cores" because Linux and BSD definitely can, and properly for that matter (as well as OS X).

*scratches head* yet Windows 7 was to take full advantage of multithreading it was one of the "features" of Windows 7's environment... so that whole thing makes no sense... because I can run 8 cores perfectly fine at full speed in windows server 2008 r2...

[Amarok]

Completely understand where they're coming from on this one. The cores have to be utilized for them to be useful and they have to each have to match current processors in speed. If they're not fully utilized (and for the most part they won't be yet.) they're superfluous, and if each core isn't as fast as current quads (or six-core processors) then there is absolutely no reason to upgrade to them as you won't see any benefit at all until support for 8 cores is common. Granted there are some applications that will take advantage of 8 cores, but not that many, and even fewer that the average person uses. On the gaming front it took forever and a day to get a decent number of them supporting 4-cores, I'm hoping that support for 8 won't be such a major headache.

[giantpotato]

My guess is they just haven't perfected the manufacturing process yet, and their batches routinely have 1-2 defective cores, so they're just salvaging them and marketing them like AMD with the tri-core cpu's. The reasons they give don't hold any weight IMO. If the next stepping will have 8 cores, and the same clock speed they will still consume 150W eventually. Surely, the performance would not be worse with 8 cores vs. 6 cores even if windows 7 cannot manage threads efficiently.

[Vice]

They have 8 core XEON's this is just them not feeling the heat from AMD. No reason to release an 8 Core CPU when they have no competition. Don't you find it suspect they waited a mere 3 days after the Bulldozer benches to release these statements when they could have said this months ago when they finalised the specifications and pricing of the three chips?

Had Bulldozer knocked the socks off Intel's 6 core Sandy Bridge E, they would have most definitely brought an 8 Core to market. No question.

[The Teej]

I thought Windows 7 was designed to be scalable enough to handle up to 64 cores?

[xendrome]

My guess is they just haven't perfected the manufacturing process yet, and their batches routinely have 1-2 defective cores, so they're just salvaging them and marketing them like AMD with the tri-core cpu's. The reasons they give don't hold any weight IMO. If the next stepping will have 8 cores, and the same clock speed they will still consume 150W eventually. Surely, the performance would not be worse with 8 cores vs. 6 cores even if windows 7 cannot manage threads efficiently.

8 Core Xeon's have been out for well over a year, Intel has it down pretty good imho...

Look up the Xeon 7500/Xeon E7-8830

[AJerman]

My guess is they just haven't perfected the manufacturing process yet, and their batches routinely have 1-2 defective cores, so they're just salvaging them and marketing them like AMD with the tri-core cpu's. The reasons they give don't hold any weight IMO. If the next stepping will have 8 cores, and the same clock speed they will still consume 150W eventually. Surely, the performance would not be worse with 8 cores vs. 6 cores even if windows 7 cannot manage threads efficiently.

I know they are having trouble with yields on Sandy Bridge right now, so I'd bet on this.

[giantpotato]

8 Core Xeon's have been out for well over a year, Intel has it down pretty good imho...

Look up the Xeon 7500/Xeon E7-8830

Just because one type of chip can be manufactured with 8-cores does not mean a newer architecture automatically can be.

[Vice]

8 Core Xeon's have been out for well over a year, Intel has it down pretty good imho...

Look up the Xeon 7500/Xeon E7-8830

I know. That's what I said. Intel have 8 Core XEONS. I've personally had access to the X7560. I use two Six core L5640's personally. The 8 core processors are more than 4x as much as the L5640.

And this is also due to a lack of competition. AMD's 12 Core Opterons do not even beat Intels Six core processors let alone the 8 Core XEON chips.

[neufuse Veteran]

I thought Windows 7 was designed to be scalable enough to handle up to 64 cores?

it was, hence my post prior... yet everyone seems to be ignoring the fact the OS is already designed for this....

[tsupersonic]

I don't get why enthusiasts disapprove? It's not like Bulldozer or any AMD chip can match its performance anyway. They barely can keep up with i5/i7 as it is

[AJerman]

I know. That's what I said. Intel have 8 Core XEONS. I've personally had access to the X7560. I use two Six core L5640's personally. The 8 core processors are more than 4x as much as the L5640.

And this is also due to a lack of competition. AMD's 12 Core Opterons do not even beat Intels Six core processors let alone the 8 Core XEON chips.

Intel has 10 core Xeons out also. :)

[Vice]

Intel has 10 core Xeons out also. :)

I'm aware.

[Singh400]

They have 8 core XEON's this is just them not feeling the heat from AMD. No reason to release an 8 Core CPU when they have no competition. Don't you find it suspect they waited a mere 3 days after the Bulldozer benches to release these statements when they could have said this months ago when they finalised the specifications and pricing of the three chips?

Had Bulldozer knocked the socks off Intel's 6 core Sandy Bridge E, they would have most definitely brought an 8 Core to market. No question.

Agreed, took the words out of my mouth. This is what happens when you nearest competitor can't compete. Come on AMD step up your game.

[MS Bob 11]

People still don't get that to benefit from all the cores, you have to write specifically coded apps to take advantage of those cores using parallel programming libraries and compilers. Regular apps just won't automagically benefit from increased cores. Yes the scheduler in Windows 7 has some optimizations for multiple cores to ensure fairer scheduling. But even in this test for example, XP outperforms Windows 7 on dual and quad cores. Only when it cores increase to 8 or more, Windows 7 leaps ahead.

[Jack 0Neill]

it was, hence my post prior... yet everyone seems to be ignoring the fact the OS is already designed for this....

Sadly you can't cure stupid.

[mkol]

waste of money

[MikeGMD]

maybe it is just me but i do not see the need for more then 2 cores

i have a dual and a quad and see no difference at all

this time next year we will have AMD 26 core 256bit cpus lol

[ShiZZa]

these 6 core cpus most likely are the ones that don't meet x8 that are used in the xeons or some i7 xtream to be released later. This is fairly common in the cpu world. Unless you buy the top of the line you are buying something that is defective so to speak.

[Ace]

Regular apps just won't automagically benefit from increased cores.

If you have ever used Foobar2000 or dBpowerAMP to encode music you will know this is not quite true. The more cores you have, the more copies of Lame.exe or NeroAACEnc.exe you can run simultaneously. Then you have multi-process apps like Google Chrome...

[AJerman]

these 6 core cpus most likely are the ones that don't meet x8 that are used in the xeons or some i7 xtream to be released later. This is fairly common in the cpu world. Unless you buy the top of the line you are buying something that is defective so to speak.

I would definitely agree with this, but the article only says Sandy Bridge E, which includes the Xeons as well. I'm curious if this limitation will exist on the early Xeons as well. I know the ES chips are 8 core, but I have heard they are still getting pretty poor yields out of the chips right now.

[MS Bob 11]

If you have ever used Foobar2000 or dBpowerAMP to encode music you will know this is not quite true. The more cores you have, the more copies of Lame.exe or NeroAACEnc.exe you can run simultaneously. Then you have multi-process apps like Google Chrome...

That's because apps like encoding tools are usually almost always multi-core optimized by their developers, they are not regular apps. :)