Chip makers will describe plans to deliver server processors with eight CPU cores at the Hot Chips conference at Stanford University next week, though there is some debate about what the products will mean for end-users.
On Tuesday, IBM will give the first detailed look at the Power7, a follow-on to the Power6 introduced two years ago for IBM’s Unix servers. Fujitsu engineers will discuss plans for an eight-core Sparc64 processor, an update to the four-core Sparc64 VII released last July. Advanced Micro Devices, meanwhile, will give a talk on Monday morning about using its Magny-Cours processor in blade servers. Magny-Cours is a single-threaded, 12-core chip that combines two six-core processors in a single package. Intel will give an update on its Nehalem-EX chips, which will have eight dual-threaded cores and are due in the first half of next year.
