Intel, IBM discuss 8-core 'Nehalem' server chip

Intel on Tuesday said it will ship a server chip that contains up to eight processing cores later this year, while IBM showed off a high-end server in the works that uses eight such chips, yielding 64 cores.

Intel's Nehalem-EX architecture supports up to eight processors and earch processor can integrate up to eight cores

(Credit: Intel)Intel's Nehalem-EX processor, in production later this year and expected to be shipping in high-end server systems by early 2010, will feature up to eight cores inside a single chip that supports 16 threads, according to Boyd Davis, Intel's general manager of the Server Platforms Marketing Group, speaking at a teleconference on Tuesday.

Using threads, Intel essentially doubles the amount of work that can be done on each processing core.

IBM, which participated in the conference, discussed a server currently under development that uses 64 Nehalem-EX cores (eight processors) and can handle 128 threads, according to Alex Yost, vice president IBM BladeCenter. "We're very excited today to be the first to demonstrate Nehalem-EX," Yost said.

Nehalem-EX will also double the memory capacity with up to 16 memory slots per processor socket, and offer four high-bandwidth "QuickPath" Interconnect links.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10249366-64.html

I can't imagine how fast it can offer! \o/