Intel Shelton processor

[Yousuf Khan]

http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/20040811-4091.html

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=17790

Apparently it's based on a Celeron 90nm running at 1Ghz with no cache
(presumably no L2 cache rather than L1). I assume that this means that it's
a P4-based Celeron rather than some P-M-based Celeron. Designed to take on
AMD Sempron in emerging markets.

This takes us back to the old days of Celeron when it was based on the
Pentium 2 and
*also* had no cache.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Alex Johnson]

http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/20040811-4091.html

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=17790

Apparently it's based on a Celeron 90nm running at 1Ghz with no cache
(presumably no L2 cache rather than L1). I assume that this means that it's
a P4-based Celeron rather than some P-M-based Celeron. Designed to take on
AMD Sempron in emerging markets.

How could you possibly assume that? At 1GHZ it would be running at 1/3
of the Celeron speed. This would not compete at all with Sempron, which
is not so crippled. 1GHz Celeron with no cache would under-perform my
PIII/500. Not to mention all the press about end-of-lifing Pentium 4's
Netburst architecture. On the other hand, a 1GHz Celeron-M would run at
2/3 of the Pentium-M frequency, which keeps it almost competitive
(except for the lack of cache). And remember intel keeps saying that
Pentium-M is the wave of the future. My money is on a cacheless Dothan
chip. Imagine all those dead dies revived by cutting the faulty 2M
cache. It's a yield dream!

Alex

 

[Yousuf Khan]

How could you possibly assume that?

Well, because they mentioned that it was based on the "_older_ Celeron core
using 90nm". The older 90nm Celerons are P4-based, I believe.

At 1GHZ it would be running at
1/3 of the Celeron speed. This would not compete at all with
Sempron, which is not so crippled. 1GHz Celeron with no cache would
under-perform my PIII/500.

No argument there about the performance, but I assume that Intel really
doesn't care too much about performance since it's meant for "emerging"
markets, and that it's going to rely solely on brand-name here. It seems to
be remarkably similar to the approach Microsoft is taking with its
third-world-busting Windows XP Starter Edition (XP lite); it's taking out a
lot of functionality with it, such as file and printer sharing, multiple
user logins, etc. Features that you or I would assume is just basic to any
computer system, being sacrificed completely for economy. I also think these
sacrificed basic features will also result in no one in the developed world
wanting to touch these products, thus leaving the developed world markets
available only for Intel's higher-margin existing products. I think Intel's
strategy is actually quite clever: when AMD marketed third-world Durons
starting a couple of years ago, they were desirable enough that the
developed world wanted them to a certain extent too -- they simply weren't
crippled enough.

Microsoft will market a crippled Windows XP in the third world to combat
lost revenue due to piracy. Intel will market a crippled Celeron to combat
any possible inroads that AMD and VIA might have in these markets. In both
cases, you get two very well known brand names, i.e. Intel and/or Microsoft.
Branding is often very important in the third-world where incomes are low,
but the desire to have famous western gear for bragging purposes are very
high.

Not to mention all the press about
end-of-lifing Pentium 4's Netburst architecture. On the other hand,
a 1GHz Celeron-M would run at 2/3 of the Pentium-M frequency, which
keeps it almost competitive (except for the lack of cache). And
remember intel keeps saying that Pentium-M is the wave of the future.
My money is on a cacheless Dothan chip. Imagine all those dead dies
revived by cutting the faulty 2M cache. It's a yield dream!

A Pentium-M-based Celeron would be much more competitive than a Pentium
4-based Celeron, true. But if we assume that the Pentium-M is the latest
evolution of the P6 architecture, which started with the Pentium Pro and
went upto the Pentium 3 previously, then looking back at the first Celerons
which were P6-derived (cacheless Pentium 2's running at around 300Mhz), then
they weren't very competive in that form either. P6 might be less
cache-dependent than P4, but it still needs some cache. I don't think a
cacheless P6 is going to be any more or less competitive than cacheless P4.
Now put a small amount of cache (let's say 64K) on a P6, and it will
immediately come to life, which you can't say about a P4-based system. But
at zero K cache, neither P6 nor P4 will have any life in them.

Yousuf Khan

 

[JK]

Well, because they mentioned that it was based on the "_older_ Celeron core
using 90nm". The older 90nm Celerons are P4-based, I believe.


No argument there about the performance, but I assume that Intel really
doesn't care too much about performance since it's meant for "emerging"
markets, and that it's going to rely solely on brand-name here. It seems to
be remarkably similar to the approach Microsoft is taking with its
third-world-busting Windows XP Starter Edition (XP lite); it's taking out a
lot of functionality with it, such as file and printer sharing, multiple
user logins, etc. Features that you or I would assume is just basic to any
computer system, being sacrificed completely for economy.

I don't need those features, and would gladly do without them to get the
next version of Windows at half price. Windows is too large anyway, and
a scaled down version would be nice.

I also think these
sacrificed basic features will also result in no one in the developed world
wanting to touch these products,

They will love them if the price is much lower.

thus leaving the developed world markets
available only for Intel's higher-margin existing products.

Not quite. AMD will get plenty of market share.

I think Intel's
strategy is actually quite clever: when AMD marketed third-world Durons
starting a couple of years ago, they were desirable enough that the
developed world wanted them to a certain extent too -- they simply weren't
crippled enough.

Microsoft will market a crippled Windows XP in the third world to combat
lost revenue due to piracy. Intel will market a crippled Celeron to combat
any possible inroads that AMD and VIA might have in these markets. In both
cases, you get two very well known brand names, i.e. Intel and/or Microsoft.
Branding is often very important in the third-world where incomes are low,

That is funny.

but the desire to have famous western gear for bragging purposes are very
high.

It is a computer, not a fashion accessory. Even for notebooks that are
carried around, people see the name on the case, and not the name
on the cpu as some is in public using the notebook.

A Pentium-M-based Celeron would be much more competitive than a Pentium
4-based Celeron, true. But if we assume that the Pentium-M is the latest
evolution of the P6 architecture, which started with the Pentium Pro and
went upto the Pentium 3 previously, then looking back at the first Celerons
which were P6-derived (cacheless Pentium 2's running at around 300Mhz), then
they weren't very competive in that form either. P6 might be less
cache-dependent than P4, but it still needs some cache. I don't think a
cacheless P6 is going to be any more or less competitive than cacheless P4.
Now put a small amount of cache (let's say 64K) on a P6, and it will
immediately come to life, which you can't say about a P4-based system. But
at zero K cache, neither P6 nor P4 will have any life in them.

Intel needs to sufficiently cripple the Celerons so they don't cannibalize
Pentium 4 sales too much.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I don't need those features, and would gladly do without them to get
the next version of Windows at half price. Windows is too large
anyway, and
a scaled down version would be nice.

I'd say a good price for Windows would be $10, maybe $15 at the uppermost.
That's Canadian dollars I'm talking about too. Pretty much nothing more than
the cost of the CD and its case. Since Microsoft doesn't provide tech
support anyways, therefore that's all Windows is worth.

It's still a little high for the third world, but I'm sure they can sell it
for $1 to $3 over there (locally packaged). They'll be providing employment
for a local workforce of CD stamping plants.

Not quite. AMD will get plenty of market share.

We were only talking about Intel's own sales alone.

It is a computer, not a fashion accessory. Even for notebooks that are
carried around, people see the name on the case, and not the name
on the cpu as some is in public using the notebook.

No, it is quite definitely a fashion accessory. The need for computers in
the third world are very low.

As for the name on the case, haven't you seen the "Intel Inside" and the
"Designed for Microsoft Windows XP" logos? They are noticeable. In fact,
these days in the third world, you can get away with not having a famous
brand-name box manufacturer, as long as you have at least the famous CPU or
OS manufacturers also prominently displayed. As long as a neighbour sees a
famous brand name of some sort somewhere, you're spared the shame.

Intel needs to sufficiently cripple the Celerons so they don't
cannibalize Pentium 4 sales too much.

Which a cacheless Pentium 4/Celeron would achieve. You get a famous
brandname and logo, so what if you barely know how to use the thing and
really have no need for one?

Yousuf Khan

 

[JK]

I'd say a good price for Windows would be $10, maybe $15 at the uppermost.
That's Canadian dollars I'm talking about too. Pretty much nothing more than
the cost of the CD and its case. Since Microsoft doesn't provide tech
support anyways, therefore that's all Windows is worth.

It's still a little high for the third world, but I'm sure they can sell it
for $1 to $3 over there (locally packaged). They'll be providing employment
for a local workforce of CD stamping plants.


We were only talking about Intel's own sales alone.

AMD's market share gains will be Intel's market share losses.

No, it is quite definitely a fashion accessory. The need for computers in
the third world are very low.

As for the name on the case, haven't you seen the "Intel Inside" and the
"Designed for Microsoft Windows XP" logos? They are noticeable.

They are on removable stickers near the keyboard on notebooks, not
etched in the outside case in huge letters in a bold color.

 

[The little lost angel]

third-world-busting Windows XP Starter Edition (XP lite); it's taking out a
lot of functionality with it, such as file and printer sharing, multiple
user logins, etc. Features that you or I would assume is just basic to any
computer system, being sacrificed completely for economy. I also think these

The first thing they should get rid of is the stupid pointless,
wasting my time animations... Multiple user login is fine, who really
uses Windows as a multiple login workstation anyway? pP

Branding is often very important in the third-world where incomes are low,
but the desire to have famous western gear for bragging purposes are very
high.

About 12~14 years ago, when my country was still in the developing
stage, when I was on a student's payscale which is likely to be as
close to third world pay as I can get, it was a no brainer when
offered the choice between an AMD or Intel 486 (or was it a 386? too
far away to remember) and the prices.

While I agree branding is important, but unless the price parity is
non-existent, for 3rd world income levels, the price should win most
of the time. People would rather be able to brag about quantity they
already are familiar with, i.e. "my cpu (Sempron) runs at 1.8Ghz and
has 80GB of ram! Yours only 1Ghz and 256MB! hahaha loser!"

Bragging about having an Intel vs a AMD might not work well,
especially if the Shelton develops the same reputation as the Celeron.
Till this day, I still meet plenty of people who will insist on
getting a Intel despite a tight budget BUT refuse adamantly to even
consider a Celeron.

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[Hank Oredson]

I'd say a good price for Windows would be $10, maybe $15 at the uppermost.
That's Canadian dollars I'm talking about too. Pretty much nothing more
than
the cost of the CD and its case. Since Microsoft doesn't provide tech
support anyways, therefore that's all Windows is worth.

Interesting to hear you think it is worth more than Linux.

--

... Hank

http://horedson.home.att.net
http://w0rli.home.att.net

 

[Bill Davidsen]

No argument there about the performance, but I assume that Intel really
doesn't care too much about performance since it's meant for "emerging"
markets, and that it's going to rely solely on brand-name here. It seems to
be remarkably similar to the approach Microsoft is taking with its
third-world-busting Windows XP Starter Edition (XP lite); it's taking out a
lot of functionality with it, such as file and printer sharing, multiple
user logins, etc. Features that you or I would assume is just basic to any
computer system, being sacrificed completely for economy. I also think these
sacrificed basic features will also result in no one in the developed world
wanting to touch these products, thus leaving the developed world markets
available only for Intel's higher-margin existing products.

At that point will people opt for price plus features and run Linux
instead? It now has some brand name recognition as the #2 desktop o/s in
the world.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

They are on removable stickers near the keyboard on notebooks, not
etched in the outside case in huge letters in a bold color.

Makes very little difference, I've seen most of the original stickers remain
glued on for years in places like these. Many people keep their computers,
monitors and keyboards covered beneath cloth doilies for most of the time
they aren't used, and they only remove them while guests are around to view
them.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

The first thing they should get rid of is the stupid pointless,
wasting my time animations... Multiple user login is fine, who really
uses Windows as a multiple login workstation anyway? pP

Well, I would assume that anyone who has more than one person in the family
sharing the computer would need multi-logins. I'm not talking about just
multiple simultaneous user logins, I'm talking about multiple user accounts
of any kind are going to be prevented in this version of XP.

About 12~14 years ago, when my country was still in the developing
stage, when I was on a student's payscale which is likely to be as
close to third world pay as I can get, it was a no brainer when
offered the choice between an AMD or Intel 486 (or was it a 386? too
far away to remember) and the prices.

I recall having some debates with some of my friends and relatives in
Bangladesh recently about why software piracy is so prevalent over there.
They gave the usual reasons about it being a poor country which really can't
afford the high prices charged by Microsoft and others. Then I asked if the
price of that software is too high, then why the hell don't they migrate to
Linux and Open Source? The only answer they could come up with is they want
to have all of the things that the rest of the world also has. Basically,
beggars trying to be choosers.

I told them, they'll never get past third world status if they keep
following western trends verbatim. They have to develop their own solutions
inhouse, for their own problems. What the Western world does is appropriate
only for the Western world.

Similar reasons for why so many of them want to have Intel processors rather
than AMD ones over there. They believe that the rest of the world prefers
Intels, therefore they want to be like them too.

I would assume that kind of sentiment is quite similar whether it's
Bangladesh or Sierra Leone or wherever.

While I agree branding is important, but unless the price parity is
non-existent, for 3rd world income levels, the price should win most
of the time. People would rather be able to brag about quantity they
already are familiar with, i.e. "my cpu (Sempron) runs at 1.8Ghz and
has 80GB of ram! Yours only 1Ghz and 256MB! hahaha loser!"

Bragging about having an Intel vs a AMD might not work well,
especially if the Shelton develops the same reputation as the Celeron.
Till this day, I still meet plenty of people who will insist on
getting a Intel despite a tight budget BUT refuse adamantly to even
consider a Celeron.

Well, it's likely that the Celeron developed a bad reputation in the western
world, and people in the developing world heard about all of the bad press
that Celeron got in the west and then they automatically amplified that
sentiment and adopted it for their own. "If it's not good enough for the
West, then it's not good enough for me."

I think if Intel keeps the Shelton out of the Western store shelves, there
will be no direct comparison possible to the West, and most of the
third-worlders will remain happy with a Shelton due to ignorance.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Interesting to hear you think it is worth more than Linux.

Well, you have to pay for those Microsoft programmers somehow.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

At that point will people opt for price plus features and run Linux
instead? It now has some brand name recognition as the #2 desktop o/s
in the world.

Yes, the name Linux has now been heard by quite a few people in the world.
But it's still considered to be a Pepsi, and Windows is a Coke. Similarly,
quite a few people have now heard of AMD, but it's still a Pepsi. Namely,
what that means is that people have heard of Pepsi, but if there is Coke
also available at the same place, then most people will go for Coke.

In another posting, I was mentioning how people would prefer to pirate
Windows than go for a legitimate free copy of Linux.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Grumble]

I'd say a good price for Windows would be $10, maybe $15 at the
uppermost. That's Canadian dollars I'm talking about too. Pretty much
nothing more than the cost of the CD and its case. Since Microsoft
doesn't provide tech support anyways, therefore that's all Windows is
worth.

Let's say Microsoft sold Windows XP Light for $15 in Asia. How could
they prevent an opportunistic entrepreneur from re-selling the software
in Europe and North America?

Is it illegal to re-sell legitimately purchased software?

 

[Tony Hill]

http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/20040811-4091.html

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=17790

Apparently it's based on a Celeron 90nm running at 1Ghz with no cache
(presumably no L2 cache rather than L1). I assume that this means that it's
a P4-based Celeron rather than some P-M-based Celeron. Designed to take on
AMD Sempron in emerging markets.

How about neither of the above cores? Maybe it's based off the old
PIII core? Intel is still pumping out PIII core chips (essentially
Celerons) for Microsoft's XBox, maybe these are some sort of failed
update for the XBox?

It certainly doesn't sound like this is going to be a big volume
product, probably designed to compete with VIA's C3 chips as much as
anything else.

 

[Never anonymous Bud]

Let's say Microsoft sold Windows XP Light for $15 in Asia. How could
they prevent an opportunistic entrepreneur from re-selling the software
in Europe and North America?

They'll probably find a way to clone the cheap CPUs now.

 

[Alex Johnson]

Well, because they mentioned that it was based on the "_older_ Celeron core
using 90nm". The older 90nm Celerons are P4-based, I believe.
<cut intervening text>
But if we assume that the Pentium-M is the latest
evolution of the P6 architecture, which started with the Pentium Pro and
went upto the Pentium 3 previously, then looking back at the first Celerons
which were P6-derived (cacheless Pentium 2's running at around 300Mhz)

There you go. You just told me you believe it is P4-based because P4 is
the _older_ Celeron, but right away turned around and told me the
_oldest_ Celeron is from the P6-line, as is Pentium-M. By deduction,
the _older_ Celeron is the one from the P6-line, and thus the crippled
Pentium-M.

I don't think a
cacheless P6 is going to be any more or less competitive than cacheless P4.
Now put a small amount of cache (let's say 64K) on a P6, and it will
immediately come to life, which you can't say about a P4-based system. But
at zero K cache, neither P6 nor P4 will have any life in them.

It's not 0k cache, it is without the L2 cache. The P-M still has
Harvard L1 caches: 32k I, 32k D if I remember correctly. So it already
has your 64k it needs to come to life.

Alex

 

[chrisv]

Let's say Microsoft sold Windows XP Light for $15 in Asia. How could
they prevent an opportunistic entrepreneur from re-selling the software
in Europe and North America?

Is it illegal to re-sell legitimately purchased software?

Don't think for a moment that they are not prevented from doing so by
the M$ license.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

Don't think for a moment that they are not prevented from
doing so by the M$ license.

M$ would _like_ to prevent resale. Whether they can is not
determined. When I powered up a factory-fresh HP box recently,
it didn't even ask me to click "I agree" to anything.

Nor is it by any means certain that any such click creates
an enforceable licence. I got the sw (and paid ~$90) when
I bought the box. That's the contract. Anything afterwards
may simply be judged as "over-reaching".

Or it might be upheld. Do you side with M$?

-- Robert

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Let's say Microsoft sold Windows XP Light for $15 in Asia. How could
they prevent an opportunistic entrepreneur from re-selling the
software in Europe and North America?

Is it illegal to re-sell legitimately purchased software?

If Microsoft tried to sell XP Lite for $15 in Asia, then it would have no
choice but to sell that in North America. Nobody in Asia would buy it, it's
still way too expensive. North Americans and Europeans would find it an
incredible bargain.

Yousuf Khan