The Inquirer has some news about Intel’s roadmap and upcoming processors to look forward to. One of the most exciting bits of news is the planned release of Dual Core Processors by early 2006.
The Inquirer wrote: The first dual core Smithfields will be dubbed the 840, the 830 and the 820, look they're going to be released at the end of Q2, and will be displaced by the Presler processor in Q1 next year. These Presler chips are 65 nanometre processors. Preslers are likely to clock at 3.6GHz and above.
Unlike the current “hyperthreading” technology, Dual Core Processors physically house two dies on one grid array making it a true dual-processing machine.
I have also read terrible stories of how the heat dissipation of the dual core CPU's reaches 130 watts which is "too high" to put it in a politically correct manner.
Also, there are differences between dual cpu machines. Consider the fact that a dual cpu machine that has dedicated memory banks will have performane advantages over motherboards not having that at all (like the BP6). similarly, if the dual cores don't have dedicated cache's then you will have a disadvantage compared to a regular dual cpu machine.
For me it will be AMD all the way. I think their technology is impressive and better than Intels, but I would go with their stuff anyways because I don't want a PC with a dual core dissipating 130 watts of heat in my house!
2x533MHz@544MHz, 2.0V
640MB PC100 memory
Realtek RTL-8139 NIC
Maxtor 6Y080L0 80GB hdd
Debian Linux stable with 2.4.8 kernel
purrkur wrote:
Also, there are differences between dual cpu machines. Consider the fact that a dual cpu machine that has dedicated memory banks will have performane advantages over motherboards not having that at all (like the BP6). similarly, if the dual cores don't have dedicated cache's then you will have a disadvantage compared to a regular dual cpu machine.
Good point. AFAIK at least AMD said their dual core cpus would run on current socket 939 boards and they would only require a BIOS update. The would mean: No dedicated memory banks. Probably the cache question os even more important.
For me it will be AMD all the way. I think their technology is impressive and better than Intels, but I would go with their stuff anyways because I don't want a PC with a dual core dissipating 130 watts of heat in my house!
IIRC Intel set themselves a limit of 150W per CPU. But AFAIK Intel and AMD calculate the power consumption in a different manner, so take the numbers with a grain of salt. Still a mighty difference, current Winchester core Athlon64's only take up to 67 watts and only 3 watts(!) when they're idling and cool'n'quiet is enabled. Impressive!
Wolfram wrote:Good point. AFAIK at least AMD said their dual core cpus would run on current socket 939 boards and they would only require a BIOS update. The would mean: No dedicated memory banks. Probably the cache question os even more important.
I personally don't believe that we will ever see a dual core machine with dedicated memory banks. I think that will be left for the real dual/multiple CPU machines instead. I think the dual core setup will be the poor mans dual CPU setup.
Wolfram wrote:IIRC Intel set themselves a limit of 150W per CPU. But AFAIK Intel and AMD calculate the power consumption in a different manner, so take the numbers with a grain of salt. Still a mighty difference, current Winchester core Athlon64's only take up to 67 watts and only 3 watts(!) when they're idling and cool'n'quiet is enabled. Impressive!
So true! You can never trust these figures unless they release specifications on how they actually do their testing. chances are that the companies are using testing methods that serve their purposes best. I do remember though that AMD has said that their dual core setup would not dissipate more than a single core setup. I guess they might be telling the truth considering that a single core Intel dissipates 115W (IIRC) so a dual core Intel doing 130W isn't much of an increase. I have read though that this is nearing the limits of what their construction is capable of and I don't like living on the limit like that. Besides, I do firmly believe that Intel's chips run much hotter than AMD's. The reason for this is (as everyone knows) that increased frequency results in increased loss in the transistors which leads to more heat. Intel has almost 1 GHz more than AMD on their top CPU's.
2x533MHz@544MHz, 2.0V
640MB PC100 memory
Realtek RTL-8139 NIC
Maxtor 6Y080L0 80GB hdd
Debian Linux stable with 2.4.8 kernel
purrkur wrote:So true! You can never trust these figures unless they release specifications on how they actually do their testing. chances are that the companies are using testing methods that serve their purposes best. I do remember though that AMD has said that their dual core setup would not dissipate more than a single core setup. I guess they might be telling the truth considering that a single core Intel dissipates 115W (IIRC) so a dual core Intel doing 130W isn't much of an increase. I have read though that this is nearing the limits of what their construction is capable of and I don't like living on the limit like that. Besides, I do firmly believe that Intel's chips run much hotter than AMD's. The reason for this is (as everyone knows) that increased frequency results in increased loss in the transistors which leads to more heat. Intel has almost 1 GHz more than AMD on their top CPU's.
Wonder what comes after the Pentium IV. Maybe the Pentium M will take over, it's clearly the better design. And Intel's marketing guys should have got used to selling cpus with less MHz but more power by now.
This is very interesting. Intel Press Release indicates Multi-Cores by 2nd quarter, this year. Pentium® processor-class, including the Pentium® processor Extreme Edition. Extreme Edition will include Hyper-Threading Technology (hmmm...).
Here's another older link from anandtech about Multi-Core. It has information about Multi-Bus development (How did I missed that news!). Plus, this article has all the latest "code names" we have been reading about over the last 6 to 12 months. Nice to have them all in one spot.