While we mere mortals are all happy with our dual-core processors and all excited about the upcoming quad-core processors, several researchers from Tokyo University are secretly snickering at us. But of course, they have all the right to do so since they invented a 512-core processor known as the Grape DR chip.

To be accurate, the processor is not a replacement for our favorite Intels and AMDs, but sits on a PCI-X card providing number-crunching power. Even though the processor runs at just 500MHz, it is capable of delivering 512GLOPS (512 billion floating-point operations every second). To put things into perspective, our modern processors are only capable of performing at a few GFLOPS.

The 512 cores are split into 16 groups of 32, each group capable of processing a single type of FP instruction. The chip itself measures 17 x 17mm and contains 300m transistors. It consumes up to 60W of power.

The researchers actually started working on this project since 2004. By 2008, they hope to accomplish a prototype capable of delivering 2PFLOPS (two quadrillion floating-point operations a second, 3906.25 times faster than 512GLOPS).

Great news for those of you who are currently having plans to upgrade your desktop computers. Intel announced five new Core 2 Duo processors today, codenamed Conroe (4MB L2 cache) and Allendale (2MB L2 cache). And from bit-tech.net’s preview copies’ benchmark results, it seems like things are looking really great.

There are many occasions where the Core 2 Duo E6600 is hot on the heels of the Athlon 64 FX-62, and in many cases Intel’s slowest 4MB L2 cache Core 2 Duo outperforms AMD’s flagship chip for roughly 1/3 of the price. On the other hand, there are many occasions where the Core 2 Duo E6400 puts in strong performances against the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ and X2 4600+ processors. In many situations, it came out on top of the X2 5000+ while costing considerably less than AMD’s Athlon 64 X2 3800+.

Intel fans rejoice, as it seems like Intel is close to reclaiming its crown. Why close? Because the chips aren’t available for purchase right now. The expected date is July 24, 2006.

Check out the in-depth review.