Intel Offers New Compilers
Whether AMD or Intel is on top of the CPU world, there's one CPU related area in which Intel has historically been very successful: Compilers. With today's press release, it seems that Intel is taking their current focus on multi-threading even further:
"Intel Corporation today announced the availability of two software products that help developers efficiently create more reliable, high-performing applications that speed up a computer's responsiveness. The Intel® C++ Compiler and Fortran Professional Editions bring together a unique combination of highly optimizing compilers, performance libraries and the Intel Threading Building Blocks."
With four cores quickly becoming the new standard for high end CPUs, a compiler update like this might mean more of those cores being put to work by a single program. This could end up meaning that new programs made with the updated compilers will not only take advantage of more cores with less programming time, but they can also take advantage of the new SSE 4 instructions. It's also possible that we mght see some existing programs recompiled for possible performance gains in the same way we saw a few vendors recompile some of their recent programs for dual core optimization a few years ago.
