The 32nm processors, with which Intel is initiating the era of the x86 CPUs with integrated graphics, are not exactly keeping their old promises – but yesterday’s sins are now catching up with Intel.

Just one and a half years ago, Intel published “Detecting Multi-Core Processor Topology in an IA-32 Platform” where it explained how to correctly determine the CPU topology in a future-proof way in order to optimally distribute one’s software on any system. Whoever counted on that ... will now be disabused: at least in the systems we have tested until now, the Arrandale and Clarkdale processors behave like quad-core processors with crossed out cores and so the “robust algorithm” that Intel presented then, now returns “holes” in the core IDs. And although the newest processor generation features a nice extension of the CPUID command, which can alternatively provide Information about the Topology, old software might fall flat on its face for now.

After a vague announcement at the SC09 supercomputing conference, Intel has now let the cat out of Schrödinger’s bag: the planned graphics processor Larrabee is dead and alive at once.

Nick Knupffer, the PR Manager responsible for high performance computing (HPC), officially confirmed that the Larrabee is not – as was originally planned – going to be released as a standalone product, as a GPU on a PCI express card, like Radeon or GeForce, in the first quarter of 2010. It will presumably appear sometime later, but at first only for the HPC market, not for the consumer market.

Still, the already fully developed cards are not going to be pulped, but used as development platform for the subsequent Larrabee generations.

MANNHEIM, Germany; KNOXVILLE, Tenn.; and BERKELEY, Calif.—In its third run to knock the IBM supercomputer nicknamed “Roadrunner” off the top perch on the TOP500 list of supercomputers, the Cray XT5 supercomputer known as Jaguar finally claimed the top spot on the 34^th edition of the closely watched list.

Sun’s Rock is dead; long live Rock Creek, Intel’s new experimental processor. Intel hopes for EU research funds – and for a friendlier new EU competition commissioner. AMD is going to talk about new deactivatable cores at the ISSCC conference.

HAMBURG, Germany, December 1, 2009 – ISC’10, the 25th International Supercomputing Conference urges all researchers seeking an opportunity to share their research results in the computing and scientific disciplines to submit their original work by Monday, January 11, 2010.

ISC’10 encourages papers reporting original work in theoretical, experimental and industrial research and development in the following areas:

Intel and AMD come to an arrangement and now AMD can cheerfully present new roadmaps without worrying about pesky patents. In return, problems arise between Microsoft and Intel. The Redmonders were actually planning to advice against the application of Nehalem Xeons under Windows Server 2008 R2.

You now can have all the TOP500 lists in the palm of your hand using the new TOP500 iPhone application available in the iTunes Application store.

The new application can be installed directly from the iPhone (search for TOP500) or using iTunes.

At the third attempt, it finally made it. The supercomputer at the National Center for Computational Science in Oak Ridge, named Jaguar, now tops the 34th TOP500 list of supercomputers with 1.759 petaflops. In the previous two lists, the Jaguar had already gotten quite close to list leader Roadrunner from IBM (the first system worldwide to break the petaflops barrier in summer 2008) – the difference was less than 4 percent Linpack performance.

The Chinese National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) recently unveiled China’s fastest supercomputer, also the World Fifth fastest computer, which is able to do more than one quadrillion calculations per second theoretically at its peak speed.