This week, Intel unveiled its new Xeon Phi coprocessor, which
puts an astonishing 50 x86 cores onto a single PCI-connected
card. The term "coprocessor" should be understood in context.
Every one of the Phi's cores can boot Linux and run any x86
software. However, the card itself needs to plug into a system
that has an independent CPU, which basically oversees the Phi's
operations. Hence, the coprocessor appellation. The first model
to be released in Q1 of next year will have 50 cores, and the
follow-up coprocessor slated for release in mid-2013 will have
60 cores. Each processor supports four threads, making for 200
threads for the initial Phi. The cores run at 1.05 GHz and sport
a 512-KB L2 cache each. They collectively share 8 GB of GDDR5
memory. - Transitioning to Multicore Development - Crime
Prediction and Prevention: A Safer Public through Advanced
Analytics The aim of these processors is initially to attack
tasks that are highly threadable. The Phis compete most directly
with GPU processors, especially