Compare the upcoming Intel 6xx and 8xx series of Pentiums

[hankman]

Any thoughts on which series (6xx or 8xx) of the upcoming Intel Pentiums
will be the "better" cpu's?

From what I have read it seems that the 6xx series will have a 2MB L2 cache
vs 1MB and will support EM64T and HT technology, while the 8xx series of
dual core Smithfields will only have 1MB L2 cache (per core), support EM64T,
be dual core, but not support HT on either core and will initially be
released at lower frequencies. I am not sure what the front side bus speed
will be on either the 6xx or the 8xx series. Anyone know?

Also, any ideas if the 8xx will run on current mobos with or without a bios
change, or will they require a new chipset, not just a new bios?

 

[Tony Hill]

Any thoughts on which series (6xx or 8xx) of the upcoming Intel Pentiums
will be the "better" cpu's?

From what I have read it seems that the 6xx series will have a 2MB L2 cache
vs 1MB and will support EM64T and HT technology, while the 8xx series of
dual core Smithfields will only have 1MB L2 cache (per core), support EM64T,
be dual core, but not support HT on either core and will initially be
released at lower frequencies. I am not sure what the front side bus speed
will be on either the 6xx or the 8xx series. Anyone know?

As always, it will depend on what you're doing with them. The 6xx
series will have faster single-threaded performance, but the 8xx
series will smack them silly when it comes to multithreaded
performance.

The support of hyperthreading is pretty much a non-issue one way or
the other as far as I'm concerned. It seems like a good idea but it
just isn't doing much of anything. Best case scenario is that it
might give you up to 25% performance boost, but such situations are
VERY rare, typically it's more like 5-10% in multithreaded performance
and -3 to -8% in single-threaded performance.

Dual-core, on the other hand, is the Real Deal (tm) when it comes to
multithreaded stuff. Even with less cache (per core) and lower clock
speeds it should have no trouble beating out the 6xx series in any
software that is at all multithreaded. It should also make the system
much more responsive in the same way that standard dual processor
setups work now. However it will not have much of an impact at all on
the vast majority of games (as one example), and many other
workstation-style applications which are often single threaded.

Also, any ideas if the 8xx will run on current mobos with or without a bios
change, or will they require a new chipset, not just a new bios?

A BIOS update will be the absolute minimum that would be required,
they definitely won't run without one. Beyond that is a bit of a
guessing game.

My money is on a whole new motherboard with a new chipset. The P4
wasn't really designed with dual-core setups in mind and I'm guessing
that there will be SOMETHING in there that will cause them not to work
on existing boards. If you're lucky than MAYBE a new i9xx series
board with Socket 775 will do the trick, but I certainly wouldn't bet
on that.


In any case, if I were buying the chips, it would certainly be an 8xx
series unless the price is outrageous. The 6xx P4 chips seem rather
uninteresting to me. Of course, in reality I probably wouldn't care
one lick about either of them since AMD seems to have dual-core sorted
much better, they've got a better memory interface, will probably have
the faster processor consuming less power, arrive sooner and be
cheaper to boot. Ohh, and the AMD dual-core chips have already been
demonstrated in current Socket 940 Opteron boards. In short, Intel is
REALLY behind the 8-ball on this one.

 

[Richard Williams]

newbie here.

i'm trying to decide as well when and what to buy.

very helpful info. Can you give an example(s) of software that is
multithreaded?

thanks.

 

[Tony Hill]

newbie here.

i'm trying to decide as well when and what to buy.

very helpful info. Can you give an example(s) of software that is
multithreaded?

Uhh.. that's a kind of broad question. Damn near any software CAN be
multithreaded if it's written as such. In fact, I should probably
specify my original statement a bit more in that I'm only referring to
software that makes use of multithreaded code in an effective manner
to increase performance. Pretty much all software has multiple
threads, but mostly all of the threads but one sit idle 99.9% of the
time. FWIW if you check in Task Manager under the process tab you can
add a column to see how many threads are being used.


As for some common examples of multithreaded software, well first off
pretty much ALL server software. You're standard server application
opens each new connection to it as a separate thread. Other common
examples of heavily multithreaded software are high performance
computing applications, which often get split up into groups of
calculations to be distributed among many processors.

More down-to-earth software that is multithreaded included many
(most?) Photoshop filters, some audio and video encoders, most ray
tracing programs, and many, many workstation applications of various
types. Basically any task that can be effectively split up into
multiple chunks can be multithreaded, though whether it was programmed
as such or not is up to the developers.


The following is a article that compares some dual-processor systems.
If you read through the benchmarks at the end you'll see that there
are some applications in which the dual-processors systems do VERY
well; those applications are multithreaded. In other tests the single
processor systems are as fast or faster because the applications are
not multithreaded:

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030422/

 

[Bill Davidsen]

newbie here.

i'm trying to decide as well when and what to buy.

When: when you can get some actual data instead of discussion of these
types of architecture in general (which help your understanding).
What: what you like after "when."

very helpful info. Can you give an example(s) of software that is
multithreaded?

Mozilla, Pan newsreader, many games. Serial communication programs (if
you dialup). Most modern browsers and window managers. The guts of the
operating system. And the printer driver runs in a thread, as does the
audio. Help me, Windows users!

 

[Alex Johnson]

When: when you can get some actual data instead of discussion of these
types of architecture in general (which help your understanding).
What: what you like after "when."



Mozilla, Pan newsreader, many games. Serial communication programs (if
you dialup). Most modern browsers and window managers. The guts of the
operating system. And the printer driver runs in a thread, as does the
audio. Help me, Windows users!

Is Mozilla really multithreaded?? I would have thought not. I run it on
a 2P Xeon under Linux 2.4 and whenever something is blocking one tab or
window, all tabs and windows stop doing anything. Including redrawing!
I use Mozilla 1.7.3. If they went to the trouble to make it
multithreaded, they really should have made it non-blocking. One stuck
thread seems to totally kill the entire process tree.

I wouldn't say many games are multithreaded. That's the problem
everyone is having with this shift to multithread and multicore
processors at lower speeds. Since games don't use multiple threads,
gaming performance goes down.

Photoshop is multithreaded. Oracle and almost every major database is
multithreaded. I would bet AutoCAD is multithreaded these days, but I
haven't used it for years. Probably, high-end commercial applications
are, while games and low-end business applications are not.

Alex

 

[Rob Stow]

Is Mozilla really multithreaded?? I would have thought not.

I took a long look at the source code a couple of years ago and
at least back then it was multithreaded.

I run it on
a 2P Xeon under Linux 2.4 and whenever something is blocking one tab or
window, all tabs and windows stop doing anything. Including redrawing!

I switched to FireFox a long time ago. OS = W2K. I very
frequently have one tab "blocked" but all of the others working
just fine. The only thing I run into anymore than seems to
"block" the whole app is loading/unloading of the AcroRead plugin.

I use Mozilla 1.7.3. If they went to the trouble to make it
multithreaded, they really should have made it non-blocking. One stuck
thread seems to totally kill the entire process tree.
I wouldn't say many games are multithreaded. That's the problem
everyone is having with this shift to multithread and multicore
processors at lower speeds. Since games don't use multiple threads,
gaming performance goes down.

Not sure how you can check thread counts in Linux, but it is
quite easy in W2K and XP. Most 3D games use quite a few threads.

Merely being multithreaded does not mean an app can take
advantage of multiple processors. Even then the specific
architecture can come into play. I have, for example, read a
Delphi programming article that showed several examples of code
that takes a performance hit when running on 2 Xeons instead of
one - yet the same code runs faster on 2 Opterons than it does on
one.

Photoshop is multithreaded. Oracle and almost every major database is
multithreaded. I would bet AutoCAD is multithreaded these days, but I
haven't used it for years. Probably, high-end commercial applications
are, while games and low-end business applications are not.

Windows users can easily see how many threads an app has open.
In Task Manager, use View|Select Columns then put a check mark
beside "Thread count". Some examples from the apps I currently
have open:

Firefox = 11
Explorer = 13
Thunderbird = 8
OpenOffice 1.1 = 17
WordPerfect 2000 = 7

 

[Tony Hill]

Is Mozilla really multithreaded?? I would have thought not. I run it on
a 2P Xeon under Linux 2.4 and whenever something is blocking one tab or
window, all tabs and windows stop doing anything. Including redrawing!
I use Mozilla 1.7.3. If they went to the trouble to make it
multithreaded, they really should have made it non-blocking. One stuck
thread seems to totally kill the entire process tree.

I just fired up Firefox under WinXP and task manager claims that it's
using 9 threads with only a single blank tab open. I don't know how
effectively it is at multithreading, that's another matter altogether.

I wouldn't say many games are multithreaded. That's the problem
everyone is having with this shift to multithread and multicore
processors at lower speeds. Since games don't use multiple threads,
gaming performance goes down.

Almost all programs are multithreaded to a certain degree, the
question is how effectively they make use of the multiple threads
operating independently. Generally speaking, games do much make
effective use of multiple threads at all. The best situation seems to
be where games have one thread doing AI, one thread doing sound and
another doing video, but I don't think we see that too much.

Generally speaking I would expect dual-core processors to add very
performance to games when compared to an equivalently clocked
single-core processor. Maybe a few percent here or there, but not
much.

Of course, that could well change in the future.

Photoshop is multithreaded. Oracle and almost every major database is
multithreaded. I would bet AutoCAD is multithreaded these days, but I
haven't used it for years. Probably, high-end commercial applications
are, while games and low-end business applications are not.

AS mentioned above, basically all applications are multithreaded, it's
really just a question of how effectively they make use of those
multiple threads. For most apps they'll have easily a dozen or so
threads that are totally idle 99% of the time while all the actual
work is handled in a single thread.

The real advantage to dual-core, like with dual-processor systems
before them, is the ability to run multiple tasks at once without
bogging down your system.

 

[Dennis Leever]

Hi All,

Introduction of 6xx series will be at end of Febr.2005..8xx will not be
introduced before summer (but prob.much later)...current i915/925 will
support 6xx series but 8xx will not (need 945/955 chipset...) all are
LGA-775 (!):

Some feature's of 6xx series will be:
- 2MB L2 Cache (like first series of "extreme Editions")
- HT Support
- 800Mhz FSB (latest "extreme's" will have 1066Mhz)
- Execute Disable Bit (J-step) to minimize buffer-overflow / flooding w.
some virus-attacks
- EIST64 (64Bit OS Support)
- Enhanced Speedstep (same as on Mobile..CPU will power down to lower
consumption if not full load is required)

Pricing of 6xx series will be at level of 5xx + next step (so 630
(3.0Ghz) will be @ level of 540 (3.2Ghz). For 8xx prices will be much
higher (don't forget new MB/Memory(DDR2-667))/PSU(?)) and availability....

I think that both 2MB Cache & Speedstep will do a lot of good !! (why
should CPU run @ full speed (& generate lot of heat..) if you're typing
a letter, browsing the internet of even watch a movie (w.latest
video-cards...)

Cheers,
D.