Intel seem to be pushing out new processors and new architectures all the time nowadays. Only a short while after the release of their Core Duo (and Core Solo) range, they recently released the Core 2 Duo processors aimed at desktops.
Now Engadget seem to think that we will see a Core 2 ‘Quadro’ chip featuring quad cores on one processor chip for even more performance.
Admittedly, this would be cool, but there may well be issues with marketing this chip if it does materialise.
First of all, as Engadget point out, the name ‘Quadro’ is already in use by Nvidia for their high-end professional graphics cards. However, that’s not really a major problem because a simple name change could avoid that issue.
What’s a more important issue here is the fact that, as far as I know, Windows (XP and others) put restrictions on the number of processors they can be run on. Now whether ‘processors’ is equivalent to ‘processor cores’ is unclear, but there are definitely issues here. If the ‘Quadro’ goes to market, some computer users may find that they are breaking the licence agreement (it’s not clear whether Windows fails to work if you do use too many processors).
From the XP Home EULA:
1.1 Installation and use. You may install, use, access, display and run one copy of the SOFTWARE on the COMPUTER. The SOFTWARE may not be used by more than two (2) processors at any one time on the COMPUTER, unless a higher number is indicated on the COA.
So does this/will this affect quad core processors? I guess only Microsoft (or an experienced lawyer) will be able to tell us.
ok im a home builder and if u read what it sez its 1 prosser 4 cores thats not braking any laws,
this is a pointless page.. even september of ‘06 before the quads came out, this would have been a useless topic. we would let intel deal with the legalities of their processor being used on xp. or maybe microsoft will sue intel.. what we need is someone with actual intelligence to write an article online hoping for some publicity.