Jacob writes, "When multi-core processors were first introduced, it didn't take long for Intel and AMD to come out with dual-, tri-, and quad-core processors. Its been a while now, and quad-core seems to be the defacto standard ... but when will we start to see more cores in our processors?"

If by "we" you mean gamers, then we've already got more than four processing cores in our systems: our video cards generally come packed with anywhere from 5 to 16 processing cores, plus thousands of stream processors.

Of course, you're not interested in the processing power of your video card, but the processing power of your CPU. Well, five, six, eight, and ten core CPUs are right around the corner. We first heard word of six-core consumer processors way back in May of 2008, and rumor has it that AMD is getting ready to introduce the x6 line of Phenom II processors. When they'll introduce that is anyones guess, of course.

Actually, don't be surprised to see a sudden explosion in the multi-core race. We can very easily go from quad-core systems, to 16 or 24-core systems overnight simply because AMD and Intel have been working on this technology for a very long time.

Interestingly, Intel has been working on a little talked about piece of technology that masks the multiple processing cores from the operating system, presenting the CPU as one processor, and then breaking up single-threaded applications among its many cores to enhance performance. We'll see if the technology catches on or just dies in R&D, but if it comes to fruition, expect to see the next generation of processor advertised by the number of cores they have, rather than by the number of cores and their clock speed, as we could easily see the CPU be a race to see how many cores companies can fit in one CPU socket.

If you have a question send it to lordkat@gmail.com

Be safe,
Jason