IDF, Fall 2005: Intel looks to multi-core future

 

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By Tim Danton in San Francisco

Posted on 24 Aug 2005 at 07:32

It's the type of change that doesn't cause headlines, but on the opening day of IDF Intel announced a fundamental new approach to its business: for the first time, it is basing its mobile, desktop and server chips on the same micro-architecture. And while previous desktop architectures have focused on increasing power with little heed to power consumption, Intel's new vision is based on performance-per-Watt.

Intel has already had great success in reducing the power consumption of its notebooks, and it's now bringing those skills to the desktop and server business. 'Performance per watt is very obvious for things you carry with you, but increasingly it's also essential in the desktop and server markets as well,' said Paul Otellini, Intel CEO.

He claimed that computer users can save $1 billion per year in California by dropping 30W, but had even greater things in mind: 'we can significantly reduce the power consumption of the world', he said.

To empahsise this, he invited Google fellow Urs Hölzle to the stage. 'At Google we have a problem,' said Hölzle. 'Our traffic is going up, and each query gets bigger [as the Internet gets bigger]', which leads to more processing power being needed. And the 'problem' is only getting worse. 'For a typical dual-CPU server, the power cost over four years is half the hardware cost. If we kept on going, power costs could dwarf the hardware costs.'

However, Otellini claimed that the new micro-architecture, combined with the use of smart multi-core processors, would lead to systems having 10-times the processing power but using one-tenth of the power.

The improved performance-per-Watt could also lead to a new form of device: the Handtop. This could run Windows Vista yet be the size of a handheld device today, leading to a whole new way to using computers. This thought was later echoed by Sean Maloney, general manager of Intel's mobility group, who demonstrated an ARM XScale processor (often used by mobile phones) running at 1.2GHz.

However, we will have to wait to enjoy the new micro-architecture, and the products that it makes possible, as it is not due to be released until the second half of 2006.