We all knew it already

See this article for more information: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37212

Some interesting things from this article:
Mid 2007, 16-core systems, 90% revamped

Heh, if you didn't know that was going to happen you were stupid! And cool! 16 core!

Oh well, it turns out that it wasn't true after all.

Nope, and it costs more.

Here are some codenames. Wonder who thought those up. Think Perseus sounds quite cool!

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=10231

I hate codenames, they get confusing when you have too many, and loads of them are stupid.

Anyway, it looks like AMD and Intel are rushing to beat each other in 2 areas now - core size and amount of cores per chip. Funny to think we haven't seen any more GHz in the last 3 years ish, I think. In fact, the average has gone down!

What's more important these days is performance per watt, and price for performance.

I think both AMD and Intel did say the Gigahertz race was over some time ago. The 45NM Cpu's I assume will starting pushing 4gig at some point..

Indeed, Aaron.

I don't think we'll see Intel/AMD pushing chips as 4GHz standard, but I'm pretty sure we'll see that kind of speed on water, maybe even air.

For sure on water, atleast close to on air. I bet with a TEC it will go into the four's, if not already. Agree with Aaron's point too

With TECs I would guess around 4.5GHz+ on a good chip. Phase change maybe even 5GHz.

Now that would be some OC. Even on a PHCC, i think that 5Gig would pushing a bit too far. That would be some system though!

It's been done with the C2D I believe, so the new C2Q should be able to do it.

yeah! Oh well it is no surprise that i did not know about the Cpu you mentioned. Anyway it is an achievement none the less.

You'd need some hella sort of cooling for the motherboard though. My motherboard has been approved for 1333MHz FSB. Overclocking it to 1422MHz FSB is fine, but, I mean to get an overclock of say 5GHz on a C2Q on a 9x multiplier (ala Q6600) you'd need a crazy FSB of 2222MHz. That's likely going to fry some bits! I think my motherboard can cope with 1600MHz FSB but starts to get unstable above that. 1600MHz FSB would give me 3.6GHz. This seems to be the standard clock for watercooled Q6600 systems.

For the extreme clocks people generally use the highest specced processor they can find. The 45nm EE would probably overclock to extremes with phase change and decent mobo cooling (chilled water, I'm thinking).

Ahhh guys, here we go...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =CP-202-IN

This is going to be Q6600's replacement

They've been on Scan for a while - Clicky

If I built now, I'd use one of them. Better clocks and a lot more cache than the Q6600, though the high FSB means more expensive RAM is needed for synchronous OCs.

You will need DDR 3. I am supprised at the lower price of some modules. The featured CellShock has some gogo juice in them.

http://www.memoryc.com/computermemory/ddr3ram.html

It's getting cheaper, but it's still prohibitively expensive IMO. DDR2 is much cheaper.

Give it six months or so and it will be mainstream imo. Hopefully at some point, a proper aftermarket RAM WC block(s) will be avaliable.

Yeah, it will eventually drop, but right now it's too expensive. I've seen pre-watercooled RAM, too, it looks quite interesting, but I'm not sure RAM really needs it, it's one of the cooler running components.

I'll disagree with you there

My 1066MHz Corsair Dominator RAM would get very hot. It's a good thing I got the cooling fans for them.

Do you actually have any proof behind that, or are you going by it having fans meaning that it would get hot without? I am welcome to accept it with proof.

Like when I touched the heatsinks and they were hot?