Details of Intel 45nm Processors Leaked

DCC writes "TechARP has gotten some juicy news from Intel. This time, it's the top secret details of the Intel 45nm desktop processors, both Yorkfield and Wolfdale with benchmarks and pricing included! 'As promised earlier, Intel will launch their 45 nm processors by the end of this year. In fact, we have been told that the launch date had already been set at November 11, 2007, so mark your calendars. [...] Code-named Yorkfield XE, the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 will be a quad-core processor built from two 45 nm Wolfdale processor dies. It will displace the Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (Kentsfield) processor as the top desktop processor model until Q3, 2008'"

Was This An Accident?

[Nom du Keyboard]

Was this an accident, or FUD to put the brakes on AMD sales prior to the official release of the Intel processors? This way Intel get the news out without collecting the grief that comes from pre-announcing their next moves themselves.

I sort of don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the fossil fuel/greenhouse warming effect of a computer is in the manufacturing process. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/9100/28876/01299692.pdf [ieee.org] That becomes more dramatic when one takes into account that the internet uses something like 6% of our electricity. I don't know how much it is, but manufacturing computers must spew a whole pile of greenhouse gases if they use so much electricity in operation.

My current motherboard is more than five years old. It runs Ubuntu Feisty Fawn fast enough to keep me from grumbling (I don't play games).

I realize that Vista needs some serious horsepower but I'm avoiding it. Lots of people and businesses are doing the same. Have we reached the place where most people and businesses don't have to upgrade every couple of years? Will environmental concerns put a brake on new computer sales?

Re:Still FSB and dual dual-core

[RightSaidFred99]

Skulltrail and 4x4 are for bragging rights only - pretty much nobody will buy either except a few uber-rich people who don't care about money. That said - the numbers will belie your impression. Skulltrail will score almost identically to 4x4 because it's all about SLI/Crossfire. In terms of raw computing power, Skulltrail will be superior to Barcelona simply because Barcelona, which is a good core, will only ship at 2.0GHz or _maybe_ 2.5GHz this year.

This really isn't a good time to be an AMD fanboy, I'm afraid - not like a few years ago when their products were better in pretty much every way than Intel's.

Re:Still FSB and dual dual-core

[TeknoHog]

I don't get this alleged superiority of "true" quad-cores vs. dual dual. I used to think that two discrete CPUs should outperform a dual-core, because the latter must share the external communication channels, other things being equal. Now I'm not so sure of it, because of things like shared cache and hypertransport, which may improve performance in certain situations, but it's not obvious. The difference between a dual dual and a quad is much more subtle. Would you prefer a "true" octal-core to your dual-quad contraption?

Better value than a moderatly OCed Q6600 SLACR?

[funkdancer]

Just wondering if anyone here thinks the new CPUs will deliver better value than the Q6600 SLACR, which only costs around ~A$350 (US$315) and will easily reach 3ghz with virtually nill effort. Put a little bit of work in it and it will reach 3.4ghz or even 3.6ghz with just a little bit more, on a good air cooler

Whilst the running costs would be lower due to the lower energy usage, I'm just wondering if any of the new CPUs will come anywhere close to the absolutely fantastic performance/value that is currently represented by the SLACR.

I'm looking to buy a new CPU & motherboard for my Zalman HD160XT HTPC case in the next month or so. I already have a Q6600@3GHZ in my self built desktop (based on Asus Blitz Formula in an Antec Nine Hundred w/2GB of RAM) and it is supreme in desktop usage with lots of apps running in Vista, just totally outclassing the Core2Duo 2.67ghz WinXP desktop (IBM IntelliStation M Pro 9229/also 2GB of RAM) which I have at work.

Re:Yep

[therufus]

LOL, mod parent up funny!!!

Wait... you mean that wasn't sarcasm?

Look, to start with I'm an AMD fanboy (I guess), mainly due to the fact they call a spade a spade and don't lie to their (marketing zombie) customers about what their chips actually are. Intel are a marketing company first, a CPU manufacturer second. If you want to believe that the Q-series CPU's from Intel are actually quad core, you can take your ill-informed self to your nearest retailer and buy your double-duel-core CPU with your hard earned cash. Thats what your master... I mean... Intel want you to do.

But 4 cores on the one chip, a quad core does not make!

As long as data has to jump on the bus and take a trip down pipeline lane in order to see the neighbour next door, it's NOT A QUAD CORE! If you were to classify it, it's a 4-core CPU. With AMD's design, all 4 cores have equal access to data and can split and share properly.

There are even some applications out there that run SLOWER on an Intel 'quad core' CPU due to the constant bus hopping going on.

Why can't AMD 'keep up' as you say? Well, it's simple really. Because Intel market the crap out of an average product, they sell more units based on lying and deceiving customers. Not to mention the kickbacks and underhand tactics with your tier one OEM's (Dell, HP, etc). Sell more CPU's and you'll get more money. AMD have taken the noble road. They're suffering for it now, but they'll be on top again, just as they were with the first 1000MHz CPU (beat Intel to that cherry) and the first 64-bit desktop CPU (oops, Intel lucked out again). Come to think of it, the Athlon X2 was out before the Pentium D if I recall correctly (that seems to be the trifecta).

(sarcasm)Oh yea, AMD sure can't think things up before Intel.(/sarcasm)