Core blimey

Three is the magic number with the latest in Serbian processor technology, reports Stanislav Blingstein

Every so often, the tit-for-tat war between Intel and AMD is broken by a courageous release from a little-known startup. But few newcomers have been as radical as the forthcoming triple-core processor from Serbian Laibach Technology. The Laibach Scaramanga™ CPU is an x86-compatible design based on the company’s Sell™ processor technology. The Sell™ was the surprise hit of 2004 amongst Latvian gamers. With a modular hyper-pipelined marketing strategy and 14 megabytes of Level 4 cash, the Sell™ found huge appeal for those hardware enthusiasts who had no interest in actual performance.

The Scaramanga™ integrates a trio of Laibach Sell™ processors into one ceramic package, each with its own five-way 69-bit encryption co-processing super-pipeline. Unlike AMD’s and Intel’s dual-core releases, the Scaramanga™ uses patented PartyWall™ technology to make three 1.02GHz processors or a single virtual 3.03GHz 64-bit CPU operating the PMS64™ instruction set. PMS64™ is a hybrid of AMD64, EM64T and Debian Linux and is backwards compatible with Windows 3.11. The user can choose single or triple-processing mode on the fly with a big red knob on the front of the PC.

Early benchmarks are encouraging, with the Laibach Scaramanga™ beating IDT’s Winchip in single-CPU mode, and exhibiting noticeably better performance than three Motorola DragonBalls put together in triple mode. Manufactured locally in Serbia at Laibach’s pottery fab in Belgrade, the Scaramanga™ will be available in Q7 2009 from selected Q8 petrol stations and from all Argos outlets.

piFast benchmarks

IDT WinChip 205MHz (Windows 3.11) – 1,047 seconds
Laibach Scaramanga™ 3.03GHz (Windows XP 64-bit) – 999 seconds

3 x Palm Vx with 20MHz Motorola DragonBall (PalmOS 3.1) – 5,543 seconds
Laibach Scaramanga™ 3 x 1.02GHz (Debutante Linux) – 4,837 seconds