Sun: The 8-core Niagara II chip in the world

Sun Microsystems claims the 8-core UltraSPARC T2 microprocessor - codenamed Niagara II - has a new 1.4GHz clock speed, the fastest processor chip in the world.

Although the number of processors is equal, the thread count of Niagara II has been raised to 64, twice the Niagara version I. In addition, each of Niagara II's processor cores has a counterpart. floating point unit instead of only one point like in Niagara I.

In addition to the above characteristics, Niagara II also gives users many other attractive features. For example, Niagara II has built-in capability to support 10GbE NIC network connection, 8 PCI Express I / O connections, 4 memory controllers, 8 single-encryption enabled . These features have helped pushing Niagara II's performance to a high level.

Niagara II's operating efficiency is beaten by energy consumption. Average Niagara II consumes about 95 watts, at the highest level of 120 watts. This energy consumption is much higher than the Niagara I. Sun explains that Niagara II needs 2 watts of power for each thread to handle.

SPEC Benchmark test results for Niagara II chip show that this microprocessor chip still scores lower than some of the world's leading processor chips today. Thus, it seems that Sun's claim to be the world's fastest processor chip seems to be unnamed.

Sun said the Niagara II 1.4GHz system product line will be officially launched in the fourth quarter of this year. Currently Sun's Solaris operating system has been upgraded to support Niagara chips with speeds of up to 1.5GHz.

This month Sun will also announce details of the third-generation Niagara chip specification, codenamed Victoria Falls. The chip is expected to launch in the first half of next year. At the end of 2008 Sun announced that it will launch a 16-core processor chip.

Hoang Dung