First Intel Quadro Quad-Core CPU Analysis

If it feels like Intel's Core 2 Duo CPU just came out, that's because it did! And yet Intel is already hard at work on a quad-core chip (that's four cores, folks) possibly slated for release later this year (no date has been announced).

Tom's Hardware somehow got its mitts on a the Core 2 Quadro, as it's currently known. The good engineers there put it through its paces, and to spare you from having to read through their 15-page analysis of the chip, here's a summary of the good, the bad, and the technical mumbo jumbo.

• The four cores are not on the same piece of silicon but are on two dies sitting next two each other inside the CPU casing.
• It's a power hog: 95 more watts at maximum load than a Core 2 Duo Extreme system and power use in line with an old Pentium EE. This might present a problem down the line.
• It's also "clearly hotter," about 50% hotter than a Core 2 Duo.
• Not all applications are ready to deal with four cores... expect some headaches and apps that won't run (or run very slowly).
• On the whole: Record-breaking performance! (Of course.)
• The details: High-end gaming performance but only at the very fastest clock settings; multimedia apps like music encoding considerably faster; general apps like virus scanning can be much faster. Performance is highly application specific, probably due to how well the program is coded to handle hyperthreading (the precursor to multicore CPUs). In the best case, performance can be double that of Core 2 Duo.
• The chip shines at multitasking. (In theory, each core can handle it's own applications, so you should see fewer lags and delays when running multiple programs. This is already the case with dual core chips, but who only runs two programs?)
• You're gonna pay a lot for this muffler: $1,000 for the high-end CPU.

That's a lot to digest, but here's the bottom line: Quadro will be blazing fast for most applications (though not all) yet very expensive. Expect some bugs, and some growing pains, as programmers slowly migrate to thinking about their apps in multicore mode. This is also probably the end of the line for a while when it comes to multicore madness. Squeezing eight cores into one chip package just isn't feasible with current production technologies, so expect 4-way to be the state of the art for the next year or two.

More news as it develops!