Intel: 'Two cores are better than one'

Intel has said it plans to move quickly to chips that contain two processors each - sometimes called dual-core processors - rolling them out for desktops, notebooks and servers at various times during 2005.

Intel believes the dual-core approach will let it offer greater performance for desktops and notebooks while circumventing power-consumption problems. Dual-core chips offer more performance than single-cores by adding the ability to do multiple jobs simultaneously. A dual-core processor could, for example, render a video on one core while running a PC's operating system and other applications on its other core, said Intel President Paul Otellini.

Those abilities would prove particularly useful inside the digital home, where consumers are expected to record television programs on PCs or use them to share video or other content with various electronic devices.

Intel, which said last week that it had cancelled its next generation of single-core processors for desktops and servers, has now dedicated its engineering resources to dual-core chips, Otellini said.

"Essentially, the design paradigm has shifted at Intel and all the resources we have are dedicated to multicore" processors, he said during his presentation.

Later, during a question-and-answer session, Otellini said: "We could not ship desktop and notebook processors at 150 watts. We just couldn't do it."

Right now, Intel's fastest desktop Pentium 4s, which run at 3.2GHz and 3.4GHz, consume about 90 to 100 watts of power.

The change should give birth to new software by letting developers tap the additional computing power of an extra core in future applications, Otellini said.

John G Spooner writes for News.com