Why Desktop CPU's are 6core while xeon is 8 core.

[tweakboy]

Why does Intel do this.

They cant make a 8 core desktop but can make a xeon 8 core. I dont get it.

Do they feel with the computing power you wont need 8 cores and that 6 is enough. Where did they get this 6 core stuff from, why not 8 cores like its server line,, Why is the best desktop workstation 6core 12 threads when it could be like a xeon and be 8 core 16 threads.

This puzzles me, what couldn't they do to make it a 8 core 980 extreme instead of 6 hmmmmm.

Soo whats the road map , 16 core desktop cpu's when ???

 

[Daemas]

money due to artificially segregated their product. they do the same thing with their SSDs (artificially limiting the write speeds on their x25m)

 

[faxon]

Its probably a gross margins thing. Idk what their yelled are, but I doubt that's the case since the gulftown die is smaller than nehalem anyway. Best reasoning is that anyone who really can utilize an 8 core chip and can afford it, want other features which only their server platform offers. Personally I think it's just dumb, I'm sure there's plenty of pro video editors and DC nuts who would love to get their hands on an 8 core

 

[Smartazz]

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/products/server/processor/xeon6000/specifications

I think it might be because they don't clock that high. Even the X6550 is pretty slow with a turbo speed of 2.4GHz. I'm sure some people might find it useful, but I can't imagine a consumer market would be big enough to warrant Intel bringing 8-core processors to consumer desktops.

If I was in the market for tons of cores and wanted to build it myself, I'd probably go with an evga SR-2 and a couple of Xeons. However, I can't even push a quad core i7 so I wouldn't even consider a dual socket board.

 

[Phynaz]

Workstations use Xeon's. Not too many desktop pc's can use 16 threads. And not too many people want to drop $2k on a CPU.

 

[HAL9000]

In all honesty at the moment I wouldnt say it makes a huge difference...

 

[mv2devnull]

Indeed. Bigger does not necessarily mean much better. (Except in profits.)

Why does Intel do this.

They cant make a 8 core desktop but can make a xeon 8 core. I dont get it.

1. It is not Intel. AMD's server line has 12-cores too, yet sell cheap six to consumers.
2. Both companies can make various chips, but choose not to.
3. "Don't get it" as in "I will not buy a server CPU"?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Clock speed? The six cores are offered up to 3.33GHz stock and don't really have any trouble hitting 4+GHz. The eight core xeon is 2GHz stock and 2.4GHz turbo.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Clock speed? The six cores are offered up to 3.33GHz stock and don't really have any trouble hitting 4+GHz. The eight core xeon is 2GHz stock and 2.4GHz turbo.

^ Plus it's a different socket and you aren't going to be able to overclock it. So for most people 4 GHz 12 threads >>> 2.4 GHz 16 threads.

 

[mv2devnull]

Checking the specs, there are only four 8-core (Beckton), all priced way over $2,000, and numerous Xeon with less cores. So it is not "low-core desktop vs 8-core server", but only a tiny corner of the server market.


What you really want to do with these 8-core products is to put them into a rack, with at least 4 per unit. But that gets you only 1344 cores per 42U cabinet ... hopefully there is a blade solution to get really dense?

Now, there are 4-cores that you can pack four into 1U too, hands down. Ones that cost only quarter or less than what the 8-cores cost. So you can afford four cabinets and double the cores for the same money. Around same clocks too.

I was going to say "very smooth Aero", but I doubt it scales up. :sneaky:

 

[muskie32]

AMD has some 8 core CPU's...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-266-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-265-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-273-_-Product


But i guess this is about intel... ^_^

 

[degibson]

Workstations use Xeon's. Not too many desktop pc's can use 16 threads. And not too many people want to drop $2k on a CPU.

This. Only a small minority of the desktop market could actually appreciate 6-core anyway.

 

[dangerman1337]

We are going to see 8 core high end desktop next year (sandy bridge LGA2011).

 

[ther00kie16]

Remember reading that Intel planned on 8-core enthusiast back when they first showcased Nehalem. Apparently they pushed for it but software never caught on. Can you imagine if it did?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

AMD has some 8 core CPU's...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-266-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-265-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-273-_-Product


But i guess this is about intel... ^_^

Of course it is, because this topic is about top end chips for single user enthusiasts looking for the absolute best performance likely for workstation use. Those chips would get owned by 4 core i7s let alone 6 core i7s. Even AMD's own X6s are better for what we're talking about.

8+ cores for enthusiast/workstation use won't appear until sandy bridge LGA2011 for intel or bulldozer for AMD.

 

[mtnd3vil]

Why does it matter? Just buy an 8-core Xeon if that is what you want.

 

[aigomorla]

because not a lot of people can even afford a 6 core.
You want intel to bring out a 8 core?

Are you hoping by some coincidence the 8 core will force the 6 to drop to budget prices?

Well what i heard was 1366 was supposed to end at a beckton variant 8 core.
But this was b4 i heard about the 990X.

I have no clue if intel is still gonna continue the beckton variant 8 core for 1366.

In all actuality, the 8 core was really meant for a quad socket board.
Also the beckton cpu is seriously suffering from a shortage of cache.
So i highly doubt u would even want a beckton over a gulftown to begin with.

 

[adamantinepiggy]

Rather than complain about 6 vs 8 cores, it would be better to ask for something more useful like support of ECC memory on the desktop chipsets with the i7.. With the greater and greater amounts of RAM on desktops, ECC support would be more useful than a couple of extra cores most can't take advantage of. If you can afford 6 cores, you can afford a lot of RAM, and ECC costs are negligeable on top of that, to ensure you aren't flipping bits.

 

[Idontcare]

Rather than complain about 6 vs 8 cores, it would be better to ask for something more useful like support of ECC memory on the desktop chipsets with the i7.. With the greater and greater amounts of RAM on desktops, ECC support would be more useful than a couple of extra cores most can't take advantage of. If you can afford 6 cores, you can afford a lot of RAM, and ECC costs are negligeable on top of that, to ensure you aren't flipping bits.

I agree with this.

For as much effort as Intel goes to in engineering data integrity and reliability into their products that are handling your data - be it from wear-leveling algo's in their SSD's to the ECC present in the on-die caches of the CPUs - it has always boggled my mind that they leave this big gap in the middle of the data train where the user's data has no protection.

They built this tri-channel bandwidth behemoth that practically no one can take advantage of in an LGA1366 environment, so it is ripe for ECC without ECC imparting a performance degredation, but no ECC support for non-XEONs.

At least give us the option, we may still decide to not take advantage of it but at the very least let it be our choice.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

because not a lot of people can even afford a 6 core.
You want intel to bring out a 8 core?

Are you hoping by some coincidence the 8 core will force the 6 to drop to budget prices?

Well what i heard was 1366 was supposed to end at a beckton variant 8 core.
But this was b4 i heard about the 990X.

I have no clue if intel is still gonna continue the beckton variant 8 core for 1366.

In all actuality, the 8 core was really meant for a quad socket board.
Also the beckton cpu is seriously suffering from a shortage of cache.
So i highly doubt u would even want a beckton over a gulftown to begin with.

Not a lot of people can afford intel 6 core because its so much faster than AMD six core, which is priced (and performs) roughly on par with intel 4 core. Its not that intel couldn't give us 6 core for cheap, they simply don't have to, so it makes sense for them to sell every 6 core chip they have for $900+.

 

[Vic Vega]

I considered a six core processor when I built my new machine last month but ultimately decided against it. That said, when the six and eight core processors come down in price I'll probably get one. As it stands, I use my current machine as a "workstation", not for folding but for doing actual work in my field (IT) and although to some it might not be considered high end, it's very capable and tackles anything I ask of it with ease. With that in mind, it's hard to see how much more productivity I would get out of a six or eight core machine, for my purposes.

 

[VirtualLarry]

i agree with this.

For as much effort as intel goes to in engineering data integrity and reliability into their products that are handling your data - be it from wear-leveling algo's in their ssd's to the ecc present in the on-die caches of the cpus - it has always boggled my mind that they leave this big gap in the middle of the data train where the user's data has no protection.

They built this tri-channel bandwidth behemoth that practically no one can take advantage of in an lga1366 environment, so it is ripe for ecc without ecc imparting a performance degredation, but no ecc support for non-xeons.

at least give us the option, we may still decide to not take advantage of it but at the very least let it be our choice.

amen!!!

 

[aigomorla]

who told u guys the X58 didnt take ECC?

 

[Martimus]

Why does Intel do this.

They cant make a 8 core desktop but can make a xeon 8 core. I dont get it.

Do they feel with the computing power you wont need 8 cores and that 6 is enough. Where did they get this 6 core stuff from, why not 8 cores like its server line,, Why is the best desktop workstation 6core 12 threads when it could be like a xeon and be 8 core 16 threads.

This puzzles me, what couldn't they do to make it a 8 core 980 extreme instead of 6 hmmmmm.

Soo whats the road map , 16 core desktop cpu's when ???

The way I see it, there are two main reasons for this.

1) Going 6-core made it so that they could not only add 2 cores, they could also increase the clock speed over the 45nm i7s. This means that the processor should be better in nearly all situations, not just heavily multithreaded situations. If they released an 8-core consumer processor, they might not be able to clock it high enough that it would be better in non-heavily multithreaded situations.

2) Even if 1 is not true, they have an instant response ready for any possible x86 release that may be faster than expected. They have no competition at the high end, so they can be extremely conservative with what they release. (And they have been) Even without competition, they have this ace up their sleeve to release if their high-end Sandybridge processor is slower than they expect. This allows them to continue to make incrementally faster releases if they are needed.

 

[adamantinepiggy]

who told u guys the X58 didnt take ECC?

The x58 chipset will only do ECC memory with a Xeon processor. The ECC memory support controller is built into the CPU, not the chipset (at least according to everything I've read about the issue). So buying the most powerful 6-core Intel desktop processor which is more powerful than the vast majority of the xeons means you can't have ECC memory that even the cheapest xeon supports.

I've got 24GB of ECC memory I can't use with my 980x because of that. :-(