Intel Unveils Details of New Chip Design

[Bob]

© 2006 NewsMax.Com

Intel Unveils Details of New Chip Design

SAN FRANCISCO -- Hoping to leap ahead of smaller rival Advanced Micro
Devices Inc., Intel Corp. unveiled details of a next-generation chip
design that it claims will perform better - and consume less power -
than today's Pentium 4.

The technology, dubbed the "Core" microarchitecture, will start
shipping in the second half of 2006 in chips for notebook, desktop,
entertainment and server computers.

"We're going to ramp it like crazy and deliver it in volume," Pat
Gelsinger, senior vice president of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group,
said Tuesday. "As a result, it's a better product, and people buy
better products."

Intel's troubles have mounted over the past year as the Santa
Clara-based company has shuffled product plans, managed inventory
build ups and supply shortages and competed against AMD products that
some analysts say deliver performance that's superior to Intel chips.

Between the fourth quarter of 2005 and the same period of 2004, Intel
lost 5.3 points of market share to AMD, according to Mercury Research.
It remains - by far - the world's largest microprocessor company with
76.9 percent of the worldwide market at the end of 2005.

On Friday, Intel lowered its revenue forecast for the current quarter
after seeing weaker-than-expected demand and a "slight" share loss to
rivals.

During the semiannual Intel Developer Forum, Gelsinger demonstrated a
desktop chip based on the new microarchitecture. The processor,
code-named Conroe, delivers 40 percent better performance while
consuming 40 percent less power, he said.

"That's enough that you have a chance of beating the competition,"
said David Wu, an analyst with Global Crown Capital, said. "If it had
been a 20 percent improvement, you don't have enough to write home
about."


--

"To achieve One World Government it is necessary to remove
from the minds of men their individualism their loyalty to
family traditions and national identification."
--Brock Chisholm, Director of UN WHO

 

[JohnS]

© 2006 NewsMax.Com

Intel Unveils Details of New Chip Design

SAN FRANCISCO -- Hoping to leap ahead of smaller rival Advanced Micro
Devices Inc., Intel Corp. unveiled details of a next-generation chip
design that it claims will perform better - and consume less power -
than today's Pentium 4.

Yeah some people have been crowing that a preview test of a new INTEL
which will probably cost a zillion dollars when it comes out,
supposedly under the Extreme Edition name , soundly beat the top of
the line AMD now out by a wide margin. They also said it would be hard
to imagine the M2 beating it with such a wide margin .

Last year there was hype about the new INTEL since they were perceived
as being behind in several areas like power consumption and there were
other problems the last few years with INTEL which supposedly let AMD
grow mkt share though they are still puny vs INTEL.

Anyway it will be interesting to see what happens --- the hype last
year did make it seem like the M2 wasnt as big a leap as possibly the
INTEL but who knows how it will play out.

Even if INTEL jumps ahead again if their prices are far higher than
AMDs then AMD could still be the preferred processor for many. An
overclocked 3800 AMD X2 next year at $200 or so bucks may still be a
far better choice than a $600-800 new INTEL chip unless they come out
with a super budget chip that rivals the cheaper AMDs in price and
perfomance.

 

[Bob]

Even if INTEL jumps ahead again if their prices are far higher than
AMDs then AMD could still be the preferred processor for many. An
overclocked 3800 AMD X2 next year at $200 or so bucks may still be a
far better choice than a $600-800 new INTEL chip unless they come out
with a super budget chip that rivals the cheaper AMDs in price and
perfomance.

If Intel prices are unaffordable, why not use dual AMDs? Aren't there
MBs and OSs that can harness the processing power of multiple CPUs?

What would happen if you could put 8 Celeron-D chips in one MB and
couple them efficiently with one OS? I bet that sucka would fukin'
scream.

8 Celeron-Ds would cost about $400 wholesale, which is cheaper than
some P4s.

--

"To achieve One World Government it is necessary to remove
from the minds of men their individualism their loyalty to
family traditions and national identification."
--Brock Chisholm, Director of UN WHO

 

[JohnS]

If Intel prices are unaffordable, why not use dual AMDs? Aren't there
MBs and OSs that can harness the processing power of multiple CPUs?

What would happen if you could put 8 Celeron-D chips in one MB and
couple them efficiently with one OS? I bet that sucka would fukin'
scream.

8 Celeron-Ds would cost about $400 wholesale, which is cheaper than
some P4s.

Well even a X2 3800 or higher dual core processor would be enough for
many people upgrading from their old athlons etc. if the price was
right. I mean who cares if the new INTELS are 10-30% faster if they
cost twice as much or more? The only thing that would change that is
if Windows Vista and a whole bunch of games came out which
bogged the X2s down to the point you HAD to get a new top of the line
Intel but that scenario sounds unlikely since I cant see the mass
mainstream mkt accepting the fact you had to pay 400-800 for a
processor to be able to run new software adequately.

The killer scenario for INTEL is if they held onto their supposedly
massive lead even in their budget chips down to 200 bucks or if their
200 buck chips were at least equal in performance to the AMD 200 buck
chips in stock form but were even better OCers and with their top of
the line chip hype even if it were 800 bucks it would be getting all
the mkting hype pushing people to just get INTEL because of it.

On top of that say VISTA comes out which feeds into a wave of hardware
and software upgrade hype with all the magazines crowing about how
INTEL has the fastest chip leading people to say all intels are
"better" up and down the line.

I saw a test on a dual chip system that tried two dual core AMDs
opterons and there was little advantage there because there wasnt any
software that took advantage of it at the time.

 

[John McGaw]

If Intel prices are unaffordable, why not use dual AMDs? Aren't there
MBs and OSs that can harness the processing power of multiple CPUs?

What would happen if you could put 8 Celeron-D chips in one MB and
couple them efficiently with one OS? I bet that sucka would fukin'
scream.

8 Celeron-Ds would cost about $400 wholesale, which is cheaper than
some P4s.

Hmmmmm. The main complaint about Intel's highest performing chips is not
that they aren't fast enough, just that they put out enough heat to warm
a house in the arctic in the process. The idea of putting eight cheap
chips in a single PC isn't going to improve upon the energy and heat
problem even if one could manage the trick. Beyond that there are a
limited number of operating systems that will allow more than two CPUs.
You can read that as Linux since regular Windoze sure won't do it.

 

[kony]

If Intel prices are unaffordable, why not use dual AMDs? Aren't there
MBs and OSs that can harness the processing power of multiple CPUs?

Until those Intel CPUs get here, we'll have no way to know
for certain whether there's a difference or not. Right now,
Intel is losing a lot of market share, their PR department
is likely practicing damage control by trying to imply there
will be some benefit for customers to wait for that next
great Intel CPU, if they're not jumping on the P4 bandwagon
at the moment.

Indeed it is expected Intel will do better next go-round, P4
just had to continue being extended... I doubt they really
"wanted" to push P4 past 110W, but perhaps better to do that
than put out a successor before it's time, before it's
ready.

What would happen if you could put 8 Celeron-D chips in one MB and
couple them efficiently with one OS? I bet that sucka would fukin'
scream.

You'd have to have the multithreaded apps, in most cases it
wouldn't be very fast at all because the typical user/uses
many have several background processes but none tend to be
all that demanding. Cart before the horse perhaps, when
sufficient dual core CPUs have entered the market there will
not only be support but time for software vendors to have
added support if/when prudent.

8 Celeron-Ds would cost about $400 wholesale, which is cheaper than
some P4s.

OK, but what about the motherboard and power supply?
They'd easily eat up any savings from the CPU. Even in the
coming few years nothing will be optimized to such a great
extend for 8 CPUs, it's a nice thought but ultimately two
very fast CPUs will replace one very fast CPU for best
performance overall.

 

[Bob]

I doubt they really
"wanted" to push P4 past 110W, but perhaps better to do that
than put out a successor before it's time, before it's
ready.

110W is not all that much - about the power of a typical incandescent
light bulb.

Eventually we will have thermoelectric coolers built into the chip
carrier.


--

"To achieve One World Government it is necessary to remove
from the minds of men their individualism their loyalty to
family traditions and national identification."
--Brock Chisholm, Director of UN WHO

 

[CBFalconer]

110W is not all that much - about the power of a typical
incandescent light bulb.

It all depends on your viewpoint. My house is blazing with light,
supplied by compact fluorescents, none consuming over about 15
watts. Right now there are 9 of those lit in four rooms. My '486
machine consumes about 50 watts when quiescent (disks spun down,
monitor blanked). The P3 machine takes considerably more, and this
is an annoyance.

 

[JohnS]

Until those Intel CPUs get here, we'll have no way to know
for certain whether there's a difference or not. Right now,
Intel is losing a lot of market share, their PR department
is likely practicing damage control by trying to imply there
will be some benefit for customers to wait for that next
great Intel CPU, if they're not jumping on the P4 bandwagon
at the moment.

Indeed it is expected Intel will do better next go-round, P4
just had to continue being extended... I doubt they really
"wanted" to push P4 past 110W, but perhaps better to do that
than put out a successor before it's time, before it's
ready.

Heres the Anandtech preview test that they were crowing about.
Actually this is the follow up to it. the first one had up to a 40%
advantage in the game FEAR over the AMD top of the line. However in
this one they say its more like 20% over an OCed AMD. And they say
its not the EE edition of the conroe.

I guess we'll see and hopefully the M2 will have substantial
performance gains too.

Anandtech sounds a bit more subdued in the second test. Still hyped
but not as super hyped up as the first sounding as if it was all over
for AMD.
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2716

 

[Bob]

It all depends on your viewpoint. My house is blazing with light,
supplied by compact fluorescents, none consuming over about 15
watts.

So is mine. Amazing things.


--

"To achieve One World Government it is necessary to remove
from the minds of men their individualism their loyalty to
family traditions and national identification."
--Brock Chisholm, Director of UN WHO

 

[kony]

110W is not all that much - about the power of a typical incandescent
light bulb.

Eventually we will have thermoelectric coolers built into the chip
carrier.

110W x 8, for the 8 celerons? Granted celeron uses less
than 110W, until that day they're ramped up that high (if
ever), but even so it all adds up. 110W is significant
because they are not yet (if ever) integrating
thermoelectric coolers. Getting rid of any given amount of
heat becomes more problematic because there is finite
expansion of heatsink size possible and nobody wants a loud
heatsink fan (save for a very silly teenagers).

If the heatsink continued to grow taller, it becomes a
significant mechanical stress, even if mounted to the case
wall behind the motherboard (through-board mounting), and in
shipment (remember that OEMs are always a large
consideration), such a large 'sink will flex the board as it
is mounted to the case wall even if only looser coupling to
the heatsink mount itself.

Increasing diameter of the heatsink pushes the power
smoothing components further away from the socket. Massive
numbers of large value ceramic or tantalum (or other solid
hybrid) capacitors become quite expensive, and nobody wants
to start mounting tall parts on the back side of a
motherboard for the obvious reasons. Intel has already
released preliminary information about on-carrier voltage
regulation but until we see that ship, how it will change
the landscape around the socket over the entire life (power
ramping) of any given family of CPU remains to be seen.

It's just much easier to air-cool a sub-80W CPU. You must
have some odd stores in your area if the typical light bulb
is 110W, around here it's considered 60 or 75W though as
much as possible I've been using compact fluorescents. I'd
put a full sized fluorescent above my workbench and
regretted it ever since, they flicker too much while the
compact ones are pretty good except for the slightly
greenish cast to the light (though that is getting better as
well but I can't bring myself to buy the premium priced
compacts when the generic ones do fine for a fraction of the
cost and eyes can acclimate to a given lighting hue fairly
well so long as it stays constant).

 

[kony]

Heres the Anandtech preview test that they were crowing about.
Actually this is the follow up to it. the first one had up to a 40%
advantage in the game FEAR over the AMD top of the line. However in
this one they say its more like 20% over an OCed AMD. And they say
its not the EE edition of the conroe.

I guess we'll see and hopefully the M2 will have substantial
performance gains too.

Anandtech sounds a bit more subdued in the second test. Still hyped
but not as super hyped up as the first sounding as if it was all over
for AMD.
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2716

I always have mixed feelings about such previews... on the
one hand, we are only seeing one next-gen part compared to
same gen, so we could expect AMD to send one of their
best-of-species chips to counter if/when they get debugged
enough.

The other issue is as always, that it seems reviewers
continually benchmark the same types, even the exact same
apps and games. It then appears beneficial to optimize CPUs
for these benchmarks and is justified for those using the
CPUs for these apps, but can paint an ever-more misleading
picture of the performance in other areas.

Recall how there was a time when many recommended P4 for
video encoding? Use a non-optimized encoder and Athlon XP
was faster, especially at same CPU pricing. Similar can
apply to all of intel's fortes like content creation, it has
a lot to do with the specific app and version of app. I'd
really like to see benchmarks where they just assume the
popular things were targeted and mostly benchmark other
software, and for my uses, especially older software because
I'd never buy newer versions of every app with each new
system- was the whole point of full software licenses
instead of OEM system licenses.

 

[Bob]

110W x 8, for the 8 celerons?

No. We were talking about ramping the new P4 up to 110W. I believe it
is at around 70W now.

It's just much easier to air-cool a sub-80W CPU. You must
have some odd stores in your area if the typical light bulb
is 110W, around here it's considered 60 or 75W though as
much as possible I've been using compact fluorescents.

I did not claim anything about the popularity of 100W bulbs only that
they are commonplace, like at WalMart.

I can't bring myself to buy the premium priced
compacts

Try Sam's Club.

--

"To achieve One World Government it is necessary to remove
from the minds of men their individualism their loyalty to
family traditions and national identification."
--Brock Chisholm, Director of UN WHO