Intel Teases 48-Core Mobile Processors Coming in 5 to 10 Years

[Chelovek]

It's amazing to witness the near exponential growth of technology. Perhaps in 50-100 years we won't be able to tell the difference between a carbon-based brain and a silicon-based one.

Source: PhoneArena[/QUOTE]

It's hard to tell even now!:biggrin:

 

[52brandon]

You would think if LTE was much further along then it would be less battery intensive. They already have GPS receivers for phones coming to market next year that use half the power and lock on twice as fast. That's four times more power efficient than current generations in our phones.

you may be right. At this stage, we simply don't know. I was going off how every new form of mobile data has drained the battery faster, all the way back to the cheesy "internet" on flip phones

 

[FoxKat]

I don't believe that these 48 core processors will be 48 times more powerful than a single core processor clock for clock. Each core will probably have the raw power that's only about 1/6 of what current cores have, but they make up for it with numbers. Think of graphics cards, they have 100's of cores but a cpu will beat it clock for clock on raw power. Intel is banking on mobile OS's to become multicore friendly and attack with several more low power cores. This could provide huge battery improvements while maintaining powerful processing. Imagine a hotplug governor that has 48 cores to activate and shutdown to provide precisely the muscle needed.

Smooth move Intel.

That ^^ is an excellent post. I would feel confident agreeing 100% with what was said above. And in relation to the battery use, multiple smaller and less power-sucking cores will be far more efficient than dual or quad core processors of now. Think of a giant diesel engine on a tractor running at idle. It sucks down fuel even when at idle faster than a smaller engine will simply to combat internal resistance and turn, but can provide far more horsepower when needed. Now take that same technology of the smaller engine and duplicate it over and over. Now you have multiple highly efficient motors which at idle "sip" the fuel rather than gulping it, and yet when needed they can work in unison to put out massive horsepower and incredible torque, even more than equivalent displacement of a single 4 cylinder engine, due to the extremely low overhead of each individual small motor.

Here's an example of this thought process. This is a 24 "cylinder" chainsaw powered motorcycle. This thing is ridiculous, I know...but it proves the point. It's a monster and runs and sounds like it.

LiveLeak.com - Chainsaw-powered motorcycle startup