Will You Really Be Able To Use 80 Cores?
Intel recently announced its intentions to develop a CPU containing 80 cores, but Mike Magee over at The Inquirer explains why he thinks more cores may not be better. The main point of his argument is that hardware can only truly be effective if software can take advantage of it's full capabilities. With that said, what good is an 80 core CPU without software that can utilize that much processing power? Only time will tell whether software will be developed to take advantage of Intel's proposed 80 core CPUs. Perhaps CPUs with as many as 80 cores really are the future of micro-processing, but then again perhaps we are just witnessing another publicity bombshell in the core war.
So if Intel manages to produce 80 brains on a sliver of silicon that must be good, right? Wrong. While computers, like the best of carbon-based accountants operate on pluses and minuses, the sad truth for Intel and AMD is that everything depends on software and marketing, both of which depend on often erratic carbon-based programmers, marketeers and spin doctors. We fondly remember Intel telling us in 1990 in Augsberg that by the end of the decade everything would be integrated into the CPU. As usual, Chipzilla pulled out Moore's First Law of Conveniently Warping the Facts to Suit the Spin'o'the'Day.
