Intel held its Developer Forum in late September. With 4 core chips and a smart road map for the future, the chip making giant gives every sign of coming back on top.

To begin with Intel's switch in focus. After stating for 2 years that performance doesn't matter, suddenly, "Performance matters again," according to Intel CEO Paul Otellini. One reporter found the real reason behind the change: AMD's chips ate Intel's chips for lunch until Intel launched its Core 2 Duo chips this year.

Intel states its quad core processors will outperform its current Core2 Extreme by 67 %. Confusingly, the first of these processors, which will come in around November, will also be named the Core2 Extreme. Not to get confused with the Core 2 Quad processor, which will come in the early 2007 and is destined for business PCs. The Core2 Extreme quad core processor is destined for gamers, video editors, and heavy content creation.

But the problem is multi-core processors only produce a developed performance if you have multi-threaded software that takes benefit of the architecture. Actually, single-threaded software sometimes runs slowly on multi-core chips than on single core processors. Up to now, apart from some very precise applications, multi-threaded software is not xo common. Neither it’s unique; its complex to program and the debugging takes more time.

It worths noting that much server software already takes benefit from the multi-core and multi-processor architectures. This puts us on the server road map. Intel stated that its Quad-Core Xeon processor 5300 series brand for dual processor servers will be launched this year. Next year, one can anticipate seeing a low-power 50-watt Quad-Core Xeon processor L5310 for blade servers.

And also, Intel anticipates starting producing chips depending on 45nm technology by some time in second half of next year. Actually, the company is already having 15 products in development across different departments that spring from the more developed technology. Intel's chips will pack in even more transistors in 2010, when it launches Gesher, depending on the 32nm architecture.