SOURCE Intel's current generation of Xeon processors already represents some of the fastest silicon you can buy, and yet the company's forthcoming Nehalem-Ex-based Xeons are being touted as the single greatest generational jump in its history. To achieve that, Intel has strapped eight cores into each CPU, with a pair of threads per core and 24MB of shared cache, along with integrated quad-channel memory controllers, Turbo Boost, and the pretty awesome ability to scale up to eight sockets -- meaning you could have 64 processing cores in the same rig. Don't even ask whether these chips can run Crysis 2, they'll probably be showing up in the machines that are making the game... and maybe yours, provided you have the cash to splash later this month.
That's nuts, good luck to any developer trying to make games for it, lol. Those are server processors though, so it's unlikely.
At work right now we use 2 quad cores and it is more then enough lol, I cant imagine what kind of rendering/physics game would need 64 cores...
well, back in the day, people couldn't imagine why people would need a hard drive in a computer... im sure we'll think of something to use all those cores with eventually
Odds are they already have, I can't imagine them putting up all that money on R&D just hoping someone needs it.