Preview of Intel's Dual-Core Extreme Edition 289
ThinSkin writes "Intel let ExtremeTech.com sneak behind the curtain of its anticipated Dual-Core Pentium Extreme Edition processor for a full performance preview with benchmarks. Bundled with essentially two Prescott cores on one die, the Extreme Edition 840 processor clocks at 3.2GHz and contains a beefed-up power management system to keep the CPUs running cool during use. Expect Intel's dual-core line to hit the streets sometime this quarter. No word on pricing yet." Update: 04/04 17:26 GMT by T : Timmus points out FiringSquad's preview, too, writing "The benchmark results are mixed, with a few applications taking advantage of the new CPU, and some that don't." And Kez writes in reference to this article to say: "Our article on HEXUS.net, covering the P4 EE in detail, states the price as £650 (that's what we're looking at in the UK anyway, not sure about the U.S.)."
Ketchup (Score:2, Interesting)
But, who knows? Intel seems to be shipping first. And we all know, Real Artists Ship.
Would I need the "Pro" version of XP? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cool?!? (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't forget the 50 Gigawatt power supply!
The processor alone consumes (last I heard) about 100 watts and if it's essentially two processors in one, will require a really really good power supply. That means to use this proc, you'll instantly need 100 extra watts out of your power supply.
If they have to have power management to keep it from meltdown, just how much more computing CAN you get out of it anyway? To me the second core would be running at about 20% duty cycle to keep it from catching on fire.
On the plus side, they could always mod the case to throw off that heat like a space heater. Coffee warmer in the summer, foot warmer in the winter.
Re:Like, Extreme, to the, like, totally max! (Score:3, Interesting)
Which probably has a lot to do with the success of the Dilbert strip.
This morning, on the way in to work, the BBC World Service had another feature on managment (flavor-of-the-day) trends. I suppose marketting does the same thing, but nobody has actually put their finger on it, yet.
Re:Would I need the "Pro" version of XP? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's just irritating.
Buuuuut (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ketchup (Score:1, Interesting)
Too true. I read an article on www.tomshardware.com the other day comparing Intel and AMD's dual core approaches and it said that AMD had always designed the Athlon to be dual core since 1999...they just never put the second core on yet.
Re:How about (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How about (Score:5, Interesting)
So cpu 2 and cpu 3 could talk and not get in the way of cpu 1 and the memory bus. Yes, there is "northbridge" for memory but there still is a memory bus. The Intel cpus have no dedicated bus and ALL talk over the same bus.
Not having either combo of boxes I can't tell you which is faster but usually AMD is much faster than Intel just on the pure "not being a Ghz pusher".
Tom
Re:How about (Score:2, Interesting)
Long term solution? (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple n Oranges (Score:2, Interesting)
WWDC perhaps?
Short term flop (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree that the expectation is double the core, double the power. This test processor is dismal in that regard. I guess we will all have to wait until AMD releases their product results, so that Intel can see how it's supposed to be done.
Re:Gamers won't be interested (Score:3, Interesting)
We walked into a computer shot and a sales guy jumped on us in no time. We let him show us around and do his schtick for a bit and then I asked him why they didn't have any machines slower than 1Ghz for my wife who just browses the web but mainly user her PC to write reports. This guy straight faced says --oh because the games. You can't play games on those old machines.
Well my wife is a rather stern businesswoman and she wasn't even going to bother responding to this idiot. She just gave him one of those you are a worm looks and turned away. I said look man, in all confidence I can assure you my wife is not into video games. So, can you get me something like say right around 1Ghz or maybe half that, that costs a few hundred bucks less than these other models. I knew he couldn't and we weren't planning to buy anything anyway, but I just wanted to see what he would say. Sure enough, he goes right back to the game plan --well that stuff we just don't sell it because it . . . well you can't play games.
When we left the store my wife was genuinely impressed. She couldn't believe that the sales drone has been so single-mindedly obsessed with gaming. What had happened to the PC market that grew up around the IBM PC standard? You know, what happened to the B in International Business Machines. The IBM PC is dead. Now we seem to be dealing with IGM which apparently stands for International Gaming Machines, but who is this company? If we wanted games, we could get just a PS2 after all.
But even if PC gaming was an absolute must and folks like my wife were the tiny minority, this new Intel EE looks like a loser. As the parent post points out, lowering the clock speed is not going to be a selling point for gamers. And power management? This does not look well at all for Intel.
Of course what would I know. Once I got MAME going years ago on my 400MhzK62 I figured I had no reason to every upgrade again because I had basically reached nirvanah right here on Earth. Gaming, shit, I got more games than I should ever need long ago.
I don't get Intel. I never did though. I just wish Via Epia was a bit cheaper and easier to find.
Re:CPU and GPU on One Die (Score:3, Interesting)
There may be a niche market for this, handheld devices and the likes, but not for the general computing market.
No AMD comparo, funny that (Score:4, Interesting)
This lack of comparison indirectly tells me that AMD's dual core solution is going to wipe the floor with Intel's, even more so than the current AMD performance advantage over Intel on single core procs.
I wonder how big a gun Intel put to their head. I also wonder how much AMD is pissed off at being "scooped", when they've been working at this for a much longer time.
jh
Re:Gamers won't be interested (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason they don't make 1 GHz CPUs is because they would never sell enough of them for proportionally-lower pricing to make sense. Chip manufacturing is full of sweet spots. This is why Mini-ITX boards with the slower Centaur processors are actually significantly more expensive than commodity Intel/AMD boards. They amount to a low-volume niche product with no economies of scale to speak of, so you won't save any money just because you're buying a slower CPU. You are paying for the privilege of not having a fan.
Die vs. core (Score:3, Interesting)
You are correct. A "two die module" would have two separate pieces of silicon, interconnected through one of several techniques.
But this is /., where you're supposed to cheer for
AMD and mock everything Intel ever does.
Just remember this, and you can get lots of 'Informative'
mod points, even if you don't understand even the
most basic terms of chip manufacturing. At
least that's what I can figure by looking at what
gets modded up around here.
Yawn... (Score:3, Interesting)
even the Extreme Edition dual core CPU only has an 800MHz effective FSB, not 1066MHz
It doesn't make much sense to put two processors on the same bus, and then lower the bus speed. And, as the benchmarks showed, single-threaded applications ran slower on the dual-core processor than on the regular P4
I understand "dual core" has a certain market appeal - much like faster clock speeds. Never mind the fact that bus bandwidth and hard drive speed have a greater overall effect on system performance.
Those who want dual cores would be better off buying a computer that was designed to support multiple cpu's - for example, a UNIX workstation. It doesn't matter how many cores you put on a chip if your memory bus can't feed them:
- An P4 can theoretically execute 2 instructions every clock cycle.
- Make that 4 instructions/clock for a dual core.
- Each instruction averages 4 bytes of data access. Since we'll consider the instructions to be cached, we'll ignore the memory access for them, for now. So we're up to 16 bytes of throughput per clock cycle.
- At 3200 MHz, times 16 bytes/clock, we're up to 51,200 MB/s theoretical throughput.
- Yet, the 800 MHz FSB (which transfers 8 bytes/cycle) can only do 6400 MB/s throughput.
Granted, 6.4 GB/s is very fast - But even a single core P4 can saturate the memory bus. What point is there in adding another core (aside from marketing hoopla), when the bus can't run fast enough to support it!It seems to me that Intel added the power management features to the chip because they knew that the second core was going to be idle most of the time.
Re:Yawn... (Score:2, Interesting)
Wouldn't more RAM and better Net connections make (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously, what's the point?
Nothing wrong with dual CPU servers, heck, I've got two Linux dual-CPU boxen sitting at home, but in terms of ROI, it would make far more sense getting better bandwidth or just giving the machine more RAM or better disk access, than it would wasting all that money on the CPUs.
Re:Would I need the "Pro" version of XP? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cool?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
With Dell, it's pick any two day. Well, actually, pick one.
We have a dual g5 tower that you can't tell is on and it crunches numbers faster than the intel xeon preceision 650's from dell. Which are Loud! and Hot!.
The air is barely warm at the back of the g5.
That's not a "Hey ! Look at me!" featurism. It's a "Hey! I was designed properly and you can ignore me!" featurism.