What does a 16 core Intel system look like? There are some really great pictures and information regarding Intel's upcoming Caneland and Tigerton products up at Techreport, from Intel's recent demonstration of these new platforms and CPUs. Caneland is Intel's new server platform, designed around the quad-core Tigerton CPU, for configurations easily reaching 16 cores in one system. While absolutely massive, the pictures are impressive. Four sockets separated from the mainboard stand out more than anything else, using Caneland's new point-to-point linking system for the CPUs.
The chipset cooler alone is quite large, resembling CPU coolers from just a few years past. Tigerton is based off Core architecture, and thus is much more feasible and offers more performance than would the original dual-core design from Intel. Caneland isn't going to be commercially available for a while, and is only aimed at businesses that need serious horsepower for development or high-demand services. Intel announced the development of this platform just about one year ago.