How do you count cores? Or should you?

Jim McGregor
EETimes (3/6/2012 6:40 AM EST)

As we enter 2012, we know that many new processor introductions are on the horizon. Intel will be introducing its new platforms for PCs and servers, ARM will be formally announcing a 64-bit architecture, and many of the ARM partners will be introducing new processors based on the various Cortex cores and core combinations. This is all good news for the industry as whole as we strive to increase performance while maintaining or decreasing costs and power consumption.

So far, the number of cores, or CPU cores to be more specific, has been a very important factor in the industry. Increasing core counts has allowed us to increase overall performance while avoiding the thermal limitations of running a single core processor faster. Increasing core counts has also provided a simple benchmark for comparing products.

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