Intel Builds 80-Core, 1-Trillion Calcs Per Second Prototype Chip February 12, 2007

Read more Announcements , PC

The NY Times, Businessweek, the AP, and others are crowing over the powerful new chips Intel demoed in an hotel room last week.

What's cool: Performing 1 Trillion calcs per second, the chip could do the same number crunching that 10 years ago took up 2,000 square feet of machinery to do. Instead of the half-megawatt of juice, it could take as little as 62 watts. The chips could have up to 80+ cores.

What sucks?: Five years, at least, til these are available. No x86 architecture version yet, even in prototype. And optimizing programs that to take advantage of eighty cores is still a very hard thing to do. Multiple core processing is still best for mass rote operations like those involving math and video.

The bottom line: Congrats on the teraflops on chip, Intel, but wake us up when this baby is for sale. The Verdict: Vaporous CPU, solid PR move by Intel.–Brian Lam

Intel's Teraflop Chips [NYTimes and Businessweek]