Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Intel Hardware

Intel Prescott Released 205

Posted by Hemos from the yet-another-CPU dept.
daemonslayer writes "The nondisclosure agreement on Intel's long awaited new Pentium 4, codenamed Prescott, has just been lifted. So can it beat its predecessor, the Northwood? Find out at Anandtech, Tom's Hardware, or any of the other thousand review sites." Or HotHardware, PC Magazine, XBitLabs, or HardOCP. Basically, looks like it's faster, but still not the fastest in all areas. Tide goes in, tide goes out.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Intel Prescott Released More

Intel Prescott Released

Comments Filter:

  • Increased cache latency. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eddy ( 18759 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:00AM (#8157555) Homepage Journal

    The most interesting characteristic of these new P4's is IMHO:"

    "On the other hand, Prescott is looking at some massive increases in latency, the access latency for the Level 1 cache has quadrupled, and the Level 2 cache accesses are approximately 50% slower." -- Lost Circuits [lostcircuits.com]

    Intel better ramp up that clock and/or have everyone optimizing for SSE3 if they want to dominate the benchmarks.

    Suggested mod-limit: 3, Interesting

    • Intel better ramp up that clock and/or have everyone optimizing for SSE3 if they want to dominate the benchmarks.

      In reality, x86 benchmarks have become all but meaningless. They're all within a short distance of each other, and each chip is faster for some things, slower than others. There hasn't been a real breakway technology CPU in a long time.

  • Readable review (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ed Avis ( 5917 ) <ed@membled.com> on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:01AM (#8157558) Homepage
    Could someone suggest a review site that doesn't split every article across 20 web pages?

    • Re:Readable review (Score:4, Informative)

      by Emil Brink ( 69213 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:36AM (#8157688) Homepage
      You can click once more at Anand's [anandtech.com] to get a Printer-version, which is really nice. It's how I usually read their content. Can't direct-link you (I think), since it's a JavaScript thing. Scroll down, and click on "Print this Article".

      • Page info (Score:2, Informative)

        by after ( 669640 )
        Actually, you can link [anandtech.com] it. Its still a large ammount of information to take in though. Good midnight read, I guess :|
        • Indeed you can. That's weird, because I actually am geek enough to read the JS-link, and to guess that it should be possible to paste together, but when I tried something that my memory tells me was identical to what you've posted, it failed. I guess my memory sucks, then. Good job!

    • Yeah, I'll have a very good review up later this week on The Jem Report [thejemreport.com], and I'll be testing in FreeBSD and GNU/Linux as well as Windows. I'll have some very interesting (possibly /.-worthy) things to write about if all of my testing goes as planned.

      And... most importantly, I will be using retail product, not pre-release samples like all of the reviews posted above. That means you get the real review, not prototype results.

      -Jem

    • 16 pages, but they're properly labeled and you can always jump to the conclusion.

      Linkie [tech-report.com]

    • Re:Readable review (Score:3, Informative)

      by Rufus211 ( 221883 )
      both xbit's and anand's have nice Printable versions that are all on one page.

  • Thoughts. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) * <mark&seventhcycle,net> on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:01AM (#8157559) Homepage
    In case you don't want to read the article, here you go from Anand:

    If you're looking for nothing more than a purchasing decision let's put it simply: if you're not an overclocker, do not buy any Prescott where there is an equivalently clocked Northwood available. This means that the 2.80E, 3.00E, 3.20E are all off-limits, you will end up with a CPU that is no faster than a Northwood and in most cases slower.

    I figured as much before the NDA was lifted. After all, with a 31 stage pipeline, the Prescott was bound to be clock for clock slower than it's previous incarnations.

    This only makes me wonder. If a 4ghz Prescott is going to be much like a 3ghz Northwood, is AMD going to adjust its PR Rating to the new cores that Intel has? This will only end up confusing things, as a newly rated A64-3400 will be faster than a "Higher numbered" intel version.

    Great... Just what we need. More PR confusion.

    • Re:Thoughts. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by The One KEA ( 707661 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:08AM (#8157592) Journal
      My biggest beef with Prescott is that Intel rather foolishly lengthened the pipleine and monkeyed with the core design without making the subsequent changes needed to increase clock speed. AMD had it right all along - efficient IPC and low clock speed.

      This situation is shaping up, in my eyes, to be a repeat of the release of the Willamette P4 - an inefficient IPC coupled with a low clock speed nearly killed the P4 before Intel could increase the clock speed. The same thing is happening here - another inefficient IPC design with a clock speed equal to the current Northwoods, with subsequent losses in performance. And like another poster here said, the A64 3400+ still beats the Prescott in a number of benchmarks, or ties evenly with it. Despite Anand's statements about how higher clockspeeds increase the efficiency of the Prescott core, I still think that this processor is an expensive upgrade that doesn't do very much.

      If Intel can't get the clock speed up on Prescott, I have a feeling that it's going to tank until the LGA775 packaging is finally brought out, which is going to mean more business for AMD and a lot of eggs on Intel's face.

      • Re:Thoughts. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Epistax ( 544591 )
        The problem is the number of pipeline stages grows as the product is implemented. By the time it's obvious thtat the problem can't be avoided, it's too late to fix it at the low level it needs to be.

        I'd really like to address this question fully but I'm currently working on an Intel processor. It hurts me not to type what I want but I know better. ;-)

      • Re:Thoughts. (Score:5, Informative)

        by ameoba ( 173803 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @10:05AM (#8157907)
        You make it sound like Intel is stupid & trying to screw over the consumer with this product. I'm by no means an Intel fanboy, but you're kinda off base.

        If you look at the benches, the Prescott cores generally aren't too much slower than Northwoods and the areas where they lag the most are the ones that SSE3 looks like it should alleviate.

        The Prescott delivers respectable performance and will end up costing less at the same clock speeds than Northwood. We're not looking at an event like the original P4 launch where the new chip was not only slower but also more expensive & required hardware upgrades to use.

        The Prescott is not being marketed as an upgrade to Northwood systems; while I'm sure Intel would love you to replace your 3.2C with a 3.2E, they're not suggesting it be done. They're just introducing it now so they can ramp up production before the Northwood gets phased out.

        As far as the 775 socket goes, Athlon64 is also kinda waiting for a new packaging to reach its full capabilities; the A64 & A64FX lines are going to be moving to a unified socket that'll give the A64 access to dual-channel memory.

        • Re:Thoughts. (Score:3, Informative)

          by Hoser McMoose ( 202552 )

          ... the areas where they lag the most are the ones that SSE3 looks like it should alleviate.

          I don't anticipate that SSE3 will have much of an effect on performance, certainly not like SSE2 does. It's really just filling in a few holes, instructions that probably should have been included in SSE2 but weren't for whatever reason. Some odd special-case scenarios might see a big boost, but for the most part I would throw out a guess of 0-5% max for most programs, with the majority falling closer to the 0%

      • Re:Thoughts. (Score:2, Informative)

        by philthedrill ( 690129 )

        Anand mentioned this, but the decision to add pipeline stages, whether it be 1 or 11, wasn't done on a whim. In fact, just to go through with the design, verification, and implementation processes would take over a year (probably closer to two).

        Even when you add one pipe stage, you have to worry about creating new hazards/bugs and making sure that the chip is functionally correct. In fact, I'm surprised that Prescott is even considered a P4 core. To me it seems like a radical design change.

        My guess is t

        • In fact, I'm surprised that Prescott is even considered a P4 core. To me it seems like a radical design change.

          I do agree that the Prescott should be a Pentium 5, seeing as it's a redesign, and it has a new revision of SSE (Intel DID get away with Katmai being a Pentium III, after all - I think Katmai should have been the P2B, but...)

          The performance that Northwood is achieving right now would probably be much more difficult to hit on a Pentium 3 core.

          Do you mean a Tualatin core, or the P6 core that is

      • Re:Thoughts. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 )
        AMD had it right all along - efficient IPC and low clock speed.

        Of course you don't see any AMD chips that are *clearly* head and shoulders above Intel in benchmarks, though. Maybe a few percent faster here, a few percent slower there. It's all just noise.
      • My biggest beef with Prescott is that Intel rather foolishly lengthened the pipleine and monkeyed with the core design without making the subsequent changes needed to increase clock speed. AMD had it right all along - efficient IPC and low clock speed.

        You don't read slashdot do you? This post links [slashdot.org]to some very recent research that claims lengthening the pipeline is actually the right thing to do.

        Another armchair architect.

    • Re:Athlon Performance Ratings (Score:5, Informative)

      by naztafari ( 696863 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:36AM (#8157693) Homepage

      "is AMD going to adjust its PR Rating to the new cores that Intel has?"

      I don't think so. AMD Athlon PRs are not measured against Intel Chips.

      AFAIK, the AMD Athlon PR numbers are the newer CPUs' (Athlon XPs, 64s) ratings against the older Athlon Thunderbirds which were the last ones that were labeled and sold in MHz/GHz.

      So roughly, an Athlon XP2600+ would be akin to an Athlon Thunderbird that was theoretically made to run at 2.6GHz

      Remember, a 1.33GHz Athlon Thunderbird stacked up pretty well against a 1.7GHz P4 back then, and only lost out on SSE optimizations.

      • Re:Athlon Performance Ratings (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Dan Ost ( 415913 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @10:42AM (#8158279)
        The way it works is that an XP2600+ is 2.6 times faster than a 1GHz Duron,
        a 3000+ is 3 times faster than a 1GHz Duron, etc.

        This is according to "PC Hardware in a Nutshell" 3rd edition (O'Reilly).

        Can anyone back this up with a reference from AMD?

        • They got it the other way around, but that's more or less correct.

          A 1GHz Duron is roughly the same speed as a 1GHz Athlon Thunderbird since the 1GHz Duron was the then newer "Morgan" cores (which came out with the Athlon XPs). Benchmarks then showed that 1GHz Morgan Durons ran more or less at the same speed as the older 1GHz Thunderbird Athlons.

          The increase in performance mostly came from the additional SSE instructions present in the 1GHz Morgan core Durons. Yep, especially since Quake III makes heavy

        • " The way it works is that an XP2600+ is 2.6 times faster than a 1GHz Duron, a 3000+ is 3 times faster than a 1GHz Duron, etc.
          This is according to "PC Hardware in a Nutshell" 3rd edition (O'Reilly).
          Can anyone back this up with a reference from AMD?"

          Nope, but I can happily dispute it. According to this [amd.com] document from AMD's site, it's based on the performance that would come from a 2.6GHz Athlon processor. The specific core to which it's compared is not detailed, however it would only make sense from a marke

    • Re:Thoughts. (Score:3, Informative)

      by JollyFinn ( 267972 )
      Prescott was faster at some benchamarks, and prescott is cheaper to manufacture, presscot is currently PACKAGING limited in clock speed. [Those damn little pins cannot handle enough current to feed the beast, especially with REDUCED voltage.] The performance, as overall the 3.4Ghz prescott should be slightly better buy than 3.4Ghz northwood as it scales a LOT better in clock speed. Basicly if cannot move enough power to the die you cannot clock it high, so thats the new packaging that will unleash the power
    • If a 4ghz Prescott is going to be much like a 3ghz Northwood, is AMD going to adjust its PR Rating to the new cores that Intel has?

      My guess is, no. Despite what may seems intuitive, the AMD PR rating is not scaled against the P4. The baseline measurement for AMD's PR system is a 1GHz Duron. IE: My Athlon 2600+ is supposed to perform 2.6 times faster than a 1GHz Duron would. Hope that clears things up for you some.
    • Actually, I've heard that the AMD performance ratings are against the Duron 1.0GHz, meaning that THAT CPU performs approximately like a Northwood.
    • That's the thing though. In general, it isn't clock-for-clock slower than Northwood, giving generally equivalent performance at 3.2 GHz.

      This is what amazes me about the chip... Intel has done a really good job improving branch prediction and other parts of the core to keep the pipeline filled as much as possible. Being able to increase the pipeline length by over 50% and not have a large decrease in IPC is just amazing.

      And when you consider that a 3.2 GHz processor runs up to at least 3.8 on air cooling n

  • Will this work? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by after ( 669640 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:02AM (#8157563) Journal
    Can I overclock it to 5 HGz [tomshardware.com] ?
    • Generally, when you get a new chip like this, the first ones aren't going to OC well at all; production is still in the early stages & they're lucky to get chips that make the higher speed bins. It's generally when the processor gets more established & good processors are marked down to lower grades than they're good for that you find good OCers.
    • Can I overclock it to 5 HGz

      No. Overclocking leads to read errors from the keyboard buffer.

  • Slower!!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by PhrozenF ( 205108 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:03AM (#8157570)
    Why don't you go check benchmarks before you say faster....Most sites say it is slower than the earlier Pentium 4 because of the increased number of stages in the pipeline. And obviously, it's beaten blue by the AMD A64 3400+ in more than half of the real-world benchmarks.

    Sure, the increase in cache helps, but the increase in pipeline stages really kills intensive non-repetitive computing tasks...

    and oh...i think I got first post!

    • Re:Slower!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sbennett ( 448295 ) <spb.gentoo@org> on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:20AM (#8157631)
      It's marginally slower now, but the margin is less than when the original P4 came out, and for much the same reasons. But then again, the original P4s were designed to run above 2GHz, so they were slow at 1.4GHz. I'd suggest that Prescott is probably designed to be running in excess of 4GHz, so it is slower now than the Northwoods. That'll change once they start ramping up the clock speeds, and the effects of a longer pipeline become less significant.

      • Re:Slower!!! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by maraist ( 68387 ) * <michael.maraistN ... m ['AMg' in gap]> on Monday February 02, 2004 @11:12AM (#8158578) Homepage
        That'll change once they start ramping up the clock speeds, and the effects of a longer pipeline become less significant.

        I disagree.. I think that the performance enhancements were due to factors other than the lenghtened pipe and fast clock.. The clock merely compensates (currently badly) for the added [wasteful] buffers, longer latency, and deminishing marginal return on a single enhanced variable (clock-speed).

        Intel needs to create a market for it's higher priced CPUs.. So by having a nominal performance chip, they can increase the other variables (cache performance being a big one), and thus charge an enormous premium.

        I believe that they could go a long way to enhance the performance of their existing P4 archtecture, but they need more marketing power.. They don't want to waste time/money advertising Pentium 5. Additionaly, the "extreme-edition" moniker on a similarly clocked CPU is going to be a hard-sell. Thus they will make the most money on clock-enhancements.

        AMD has the potential to capitalize on this by getting a higher benchmark rating, virtually for free, so I don't really see this as a big win.

        The only issue is that it's cheaper to design a CPU with more stages than to optimize a lower-stage-count to get more Instr/sec. So AMD might not be in a position to get a truely faster cpu out any time soon, and relabeling their existing CPU's won't go over very well.

  • from the amd information minister... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:03AM (#8157572)
    Our INTEL says Opteron is faster =)
  • Basically, looks like it's faster, but still not the fastest in all areas

    Hemos, damn you, I was about to read the articles and you spoiled the end ...

  • 2 Jags Prescott (Score:4, Funny)

    by reality-bytes ( 119275 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:18AM (#8157624) Homepage
    Its only people from the UK who will know what I'm talking about but every time I hear 'prescott', an overweight, drink-laden scruffy politician with a McDonalds voucher in his pocket springs to mind.

    This also conjours up an impression of the Intel Prescotts being in ineffecient, environmentally-unfriendly and handling code in an annoying accent.

    Why oh why couldn't Intel have called them something else, like Intel Bloody Powerful chips?

    • Re:2 Jags Prescott (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:22AM (#8157636)
      Its only people from the UK who will know what I'm talking about but every time I hear 'prescott', an overweight, drink-laden scruffy politician with a McDonalds voucher in his pocket springs to mind.

      Intel markets it as the TedKennedy core in the US.

    • But on the other hand, it could also suggest that the new processor packs a punch [bbc.co.uk].

    • Well my initial thought when I saw the /. headline was: it may not be environmentally-friendly (but it if you watned that you'd go with Transmeta (Linus's old employer) CPU's), but it will go as fast as two jags.

      BTW, the town were the punch-up incident happened (that the BBC article calls a "tourist resort") is just round the corner from me, and is not the kind of place that it is unheard of for punch-ups to happen in. It has been voted worst town in Britain several times in a row. Also, my mates who li

  • Prescott will be like the P4 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gumbysworld ( 470849 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:22AM (#8157635) Homepage Journal
    Prescott will be like the P4. It will be slow in the begining as they milk every mhz stepping they can but will slow start to shine when they pump up the MHZ.

    Its a shame but that is how it goes and went with the P4 it need more speed to be able to show it true worth.

    It would be nice if they said screw it and just released it a 4.0

    • Re:Prescott will be like the P4 (Score:4, Informative)

      by ameoba ( 173803 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @10:20AM (#8158056)
      First off, Prescott -is- a P4.

      Now, I'll assume you're talking about the initial P4 launch (Willamette). This is nowhere near as embarrasing as that was. The Prescott is only a few percent slower than the Northwood at the same speeds and works in (most) existing motherboards. The Willamette, OTOH, when it was launched, required new motherboards & RAM and was getting beaten horribly at benchmarks by chips with a significantly lower clock speeds.

      While upgrading from a Northwood rig to a Prescott rig would be silly unless you're making a significant clock speed jump too, the Northwood looks respectable. If you consider that projected prices on them are somewhat lower than Northwood, it all balances out.

  • More Reviews (Score:5, Informative)

    by RedSynapse ( 90206 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:24AM (#8157641)
    Tech-Report [tech-report.com] Prescott Review
    accelenation [accelenation.com] Prescott Review
    Ace's Hardware [aceshardware.com] Prescott Review
    Gamers Depot [gamersdepot.com] Prescott Review
    HardTecs4U [hardtecs4u.com]
    Hexus [hexus.net]
    K-Hardware [k-hardware.de] Prescott Review,
    Legit Reviews [legitreviews.com] Prescott Review
    LostCircuits [lostcircuits.com]
    MBReview [mbreview.com] Prescott Review
    VR-Zone [vr-zone.com]
    X-bit labs [xbitlabs.com] Prescott Review
    XtremeSystems [xtremesystems.org] Prescott Review
    Extreme-tech [extremetech.com] Prescott Review

  • Ironically (Score:2, Funny)

    by shayera ( 518168 )
    When viewing the article at Anandtech, I'm pestered with ads for the AMD64 Opteron..

  • Will software catch up? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by erick99 ( 743982 ) * <homerun@gmail.com> on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:33AM (#8157672)
    Intel marches steadily on with new chips and planned obsolescence for the old chips. I tend to feel that software is lagging in terms of taking advantage of more powerful and faster processors. I suppose some programs such as PhotoShop can take advantage of faster chips when rendering large and complex files. Still, I think the processors are, by and large, way ahead of software.

    Happy Trails,

    Erick

    • I don't like the mentality that just because CPUs are faster that means software should bloat itself up more and more so that you HAVE to have the fastest chips just to run your OS. What crack are you smoking man? The fact that software isn't keeping up is a GOOD thing IMHO. I mean think about it, it means that we can do everything we need to do and have plenty of room to spare. This leads to greater multitasking as you can do many many things at once and not get bogged down. It means you games will run smo
      • Actually, I think software should take advantage of this. Perfect example -- my Transmeta-based laptop hardly ever runs at more than 300 Mhz as reported by Longrun. Occasionally it spikes up at full speed at 933 Mhz. Even playing a DVD or an MP3 requires no more than 300-500 Mhz. Heck, even with other programs running in the background!

        My point is that unless the software takes advantage of the extra speed, the extra speed is meaningless in most situations. Most applicaitons won't feel any different betwee
    • Intel marches steadily on with new chips and planned obsolescence for the old chips. I tend to feel that software is lagging in terms of taking advantage of more powerful and faster processors.

      Faster processors have enabled more dynamic higher-level languages like Python, Erlang, and Smalltalk to shine. This results in more robust software, software that's also quicker to implement.

      (In reality, the proper approach would be to design a CPU to run Python or Erlang or Smalltalk directly. Ericsson prototyp
      • If Erlang changes you'd have to change the hardware. This might be acceptable for stuff that never gets upgraded or changed, but otherwise, nah.

        There are many good reasons for the abstraction layers between a programmer's chosen programming language and the CPU.

        If Language X goes out of fashion you can still use something else.

        Plus, with the abstraction layers it is easier to have programs originally written in Language X AND Language Y AND Language Z on the same CPU, all executing at a decent speed.

        Unl
    • If a CPU is too fast for you just add compression and/or encryption and more data.

      There are tons of other areas you can think of where the CPUs just aren't that fast.

      With a fast enough CPU enough people may decide that performance would be acceptable in most cases to implement SSH servers in a reasonably sane+popular language just to avoid buffer overflows in what should be security software.

  • What market is it for? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MountainMan101 ( 714389 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:41AM (#8157730)
    You have to ask the question!

    With the Athlon 64, IA64 and G5 vying for the 64bit market, and Athlon offering native supports of 32-bit binaries. Why would anyone want a new series of Pentium 4E?

    Is Intel feeling that Athlon may be about to make leaps and bounds in the small business/desktop market?

    • Re:What market is it for? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Because there's *no* reason to buy a 64-bit chip unless you're running a server or development. Windows currently is not 64-bit and that being the market dominance why would you release a chip that 95 percent of the home users can't use till possibly 2006?

      It's like trying to sell the orcs of mordor solar powered cars. They won't work till the return of the king. :)
      • "It's like trying to sell the orcs of mordor solar powered cars."

        ARGH! I just hate car analogies when discussing processors! ;)
      • Uhh, Microsoft is planning on releasing WinXP for AMD64 processors in Q3 of this year (to coincide with the release of SP2 for WinXP IA32). Windows is already 64-bit, and has been for a while, but only for IA64 (Itanium).

        MS will also bring out a 64-bit/AMD64 version of Win2003 Server at about the same time. Hardly 2006.

  • British Politician (Score:4, Informative)

    by anaplasmosis ( 567440 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:47AM (#8157772)
    Intel did realise that "Prescott" is a much lampooned British politician, didn't they? Official bio here; http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1376.asp Highly entertaining game here; http://www.urban75.com/Punch/prescott.html

  • Just suck it up Intel, GIve us what we want!! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OlivierB ( 709839 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:49AM (#8157783)
    Is it just me or does anybody have the felling Intel is completly lead by Marketing GHZ frills? Looks to me like they didn't make the most efficient chip, they just designed a straight shooter for 4/5 GHZ. We all know their current P4 Extreme are real Power hogs and not all that efficient. Thus my question, why can't they focus on delivering a 9nm version of the Pentium M? With it's low consumption and heat they could have surely clocked this big boy in the 3.2GHz area and taken care of AMD. All these benchmarks won't make a difference as Mom & Pop will go to COMPUSA and be this computer is Faster-than-3Ghx-because-it's-a4-Ghz. Time to get some AMD stock

    • ...delivering a 9nm version...

      9nm??!! The quantum effects would be crippling! Oh, you mean 90nm. Whew! :-)

    • They don't want to admit that P6 will last a VERY long time. In their opinion, P6 should have died the day the first Williamette was released, and possibly earlier. P6, however, was the only option for a mobile CPU. I don't think that Banias OR Dothan could have hit 3.2GHz without insane cooling, but they could easily hit a "4000+" rating on either the AMD Duron 1.0-based scale or a Northwood or Prescott-based scale.
    • We all know their current P4 Extreme are real Power hogs and not all that efficient.

      Reflecting on the recent SUV craze in the USA, this really isn't hard to understand. However, markets do change--just look at the newer generations of station wagons labeled "crossover" SUVs. People are realizing that they never really wanted a 10,000lb SUV all along, and we're moving back to the early 80's super-practical family mover.

      One thing that hasn't penetrated in the computer markets is that 100W CPUs really can

  • Linux (Score:5, Interesting)

    by millahtime ( 710421 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:55AM (#8157827) Homepage Journal
    Has anyone done a test of the AMD64 running a 64 bit OS vs P4 running a 32 bit OS? Say Linux. To see the difference when they full power of the chip is taken advantage of. Especially with rendering. It may be a little like comparing Apples and Oranges but comparing these 2 chips can be that way. And to throw in a 32 bit OS on the AMD64 chip isn't really fair to it's power. It's not really using the full potential of the chip.

  • Origin of the name Prescott (Score:3, Interesting)

    by andy666 ( 666062 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @10:11AM (#8157958)
    Prescott is the assistant to the navigator in Moby Dick, and he is known for being excellent at making rapid computations.

  • Their marketing prolicies are really sucks..... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by deconvolution ( 715827 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @10:36AM (#8158227)
    It seems that both AMD/Intel are trying to double everything in a single CPU, such as L1, L2, even DDR to DDRII :). I just wonder why they have lack product lines of dual-CPU systems for main consumers? Their SMP solutions are either very high-end not going to face main consumers, or fading to the market because of slow enough (both of them always have unresonable prices).

    For most people, the most areas Pentium4/Althon XP take advantages are 3D applications, data servers, and some scitisfic applications. However, a SMP system with two main stream processors also can achieve the simpilar(just slower a little bit) scores. Those applications always can be implemented through parallel approaches. (I believe it already have done this during the designing time....).

    For example, for SMP solutions, I have to choose between Operton and Althon MP, but in actually I want a dual-althonXP with the double prices. I think that such system is what many other people really want to buy insteading of investing massive money on new processor/cooling system for better performance.... I believe there is not a big technical matter for this just trying to force us follow their single processor upgrading ways....
    • I think you're pretty much off base here. The Athlon MP is an XP with SMP support, much as the Athlon FX is essentially a 1xx series Opteron. If you want SMP, you're going to have to spend more as the extra transistors needed to handle SMP don't come free. As it stands, an Opteron 240 runs about $215 and a board for it's going to cost your anywhere from $200 on up.

      I think the biggest point that you're missing is the fact that increasing the number of processors in a system does not linearly increase the
      • Actually, the extra transistors on the MP are already there on the XP, it's just a bridge on the XP isn't filled, so it doesn't identify as an MP.

        Also, the extra transistors are on the pre-Tualatin Celerons. Ever heard of the ABIT BP6? A dual-S370 board from when S370 was only used by Celerons.

  • Still 32 Bit... (Score:3, Funny)

    by axis-techno-geek ( 70545 ) <rob&goshko,ca> on Monday February 02, 2004 @10:56AM (#8158409) Homepage
    That is just so 90's ;)

  • It's the early Pentium 4 all over again. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @11:00AM (#8158450)
    Does anyone here remember the early Pentium 4 1.4 and 1.7 GHz chips built on the Socket 423 form factor? With only 256 KB of on-die L2 cache and few programs (at that time) that could take full advantage of the Pentium 4's SSE2 multimedia extensions, small wonder why the CPU was much-disliked originally. It wasn't until Intel came out with the newer Pentium 4's with the 512 KB L2 cache and software that fully took advantage of SSE2 extensions that the CPU finally took off in popularity.

    I don't see the Prescott-core CPU's become popular until software catches up with supporting all the functions of the CPU; we may see that with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and later builds of the Linux 2.6.x kernel.
    • My first response was to say that the OS isn't really going to care about the new instructions, but then I looked to see what was actually in SSE3...

      Hyperthreading specific instructions?

      Anyone got any real info on them; from what I've read so far, the specifics of what SSE3 can do are kinda fuzzy...

    • SSE2 vs. SSE3 (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )
      SSE2 *had* to be used in many apps to get decent performance, since the FP performance sucked. SSE3 on the other hand are very few instructions - and if you look at the DivX 5.1.1 benchmarks that supposedly is using the new LDDQU instruction, it can't even beat the equivalent Northwood.

      The rest also sounded like "special interest" functions, much like many of AMDs 64 bit extensions. Great for specific uses like scientific calculations and cryptography, not that much for general computing. Cache is already

      • Re:SSE2 vs. SSE3 (Score:3, Interesting)

        by EMN13 ( 11493 )
        There were some figures on power consumption that suggested Prescott runs quite a bit warmer than Northwood and the same clockspeed.

        That's not really surprising either: A feature-size shrink (such as the move now from 130nm to 90nm) lowers the power per transistor, however, it increases the power per unit area (IIRC proportionally to the sqrt of the shrink).

        Of course - a different processor layout could completely counteract these effects, and a change to 31 stages instead of 21 stages would qualify as su

  • speed vs design (Score:3, Interesting)

    by john_uy ( 187459 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @11:45AM (#8158943)
    it is quite interesting that the new prescott core has a lower latency for the caches and higher stage pipeline.

    but given the fact that a big percentage of decrease in latency from existing northwood cores and big increase in pipeline does not reduce the speed *significantly.* it can still compete with the current northwood with a small drop in performance on a clock per clock basis.

    given these things, i think the cpu may be designed quite well given its current performance with numerous internal slow downs. i'm sure in their next core, they will be able to reduce the latency by significant amounts and increase the branch prediction system thereby causing their future cpus to perform better than current iteration.

    i believe the current purpose of prescott is to do a couple of things. first, refine their 90nm processing of the cpu. they will be able to iron out manufacturing bugs (like yields.) they will also be able to improve in the design of the cpu (to put minor revisions to improve the manufacturing or even performance.) they will be able to earn more (since 90nm should product more yields for them.)

    probably, i believe that in around 1 year's time, just like their transition from williamete to northwood, their cpu will be much faster. they should be able to solve the latency of their cache. they may already adopt a very good branch prediction unit that will reduce the effects of a very long pipeline.

    also, this year will be a transition year of technologies. so pretty much everything you buy not will almost be worthless by next year. the cpu packaging will be changed to lga. slots in the computer will feature pci express. i/o will be standardized with usb. storage devices will be sata. intel will be prepping up for speed wars next year. (i think this usually happends every other year where there is a speed war and there is a slow increase in speeds by both sides.)

    • Re:speed vs design (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Loki_1929 ( 550940 )
      Who's feeding you this stuff?

      "given these things, i think the cpu may be designed quite well given its current performance with numerous internal slow downs."

      So.... new CPUs are supposed to run slower than those they are replacing? I see...

      "i'm sure in their next core,"

      Which won't be just a core; it'll be a whole new CPU running the Tejas core, and will probably be marketed as a Pentium 5 or thereabouts. It's due out some time early next year.

      " they will be able to reduce the latency by significant
      • So.... new CPUs are supposed to run slower than those they are replacing? I see...

        i am not looking at the marketing aspect. i am just analyzing it from a technical perspective.

        What latency? Where? How much of a latency redction are you expecting to see that you refer to it as "significant"? Do you have information sources with which to back this up, or is this something you gathered from an in-depth conversation with Ms Cleo at $4.99/min?

        its just like what happened with the transition from willamett

  • Prescott (Score:2, Funny)

    by HogynCymraeg ( 624823 )
    So can it beat its predecessor, the Northwood?

    With a swift left jab, a Prescott can beat anything. Even egg throwers from Wales.

  • 89-103 Watts max power dissipation

    Ick. That's gonna hurt.
    • 89-103 Watts max power dissipation

      Ick. That's gonna hurt.

      And this is the big issue with the Prescott and x86 architecture in general. Sure, Moore's law, blah, blah, blah. But diminishing returns kick in hard if power consumption goes up at the same rate, and we're seeing some scary numbers now. It already looks like we'll be past 150 watts by the end of the year. How long can this continue?
      • IMO the x86 stuff plays a very minor role if at all in terms of power dissipation issues.

        If you look at the various chips in spec.org (Sun SPARC, POWER, PRIMEPOWER, Alpha ) many of them dissipate about the same amount of power given the same performance level.

        Design and fab methods seem to play a bigger part nowadays. e.g. SOI or not SOI. More cache or less, cache 100% active all the time or not, etc.

        The highest performance PowerPC chips are lower power than the x86 equivalents, but the other chip vendor
        • x86 or not seems rather irrelevant to power consumption.

          The difference is that the x86 line represents the processors used by businesses and individuals in desktop machines. If the the power requirement doubles, then this is significant. It used to be that the monitor was the biggest source of power, but this is no longer true now that LCD displays are becoming standard.
  • when and where the technical resources for SSE3 will be released?

  • Huh? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Loki_1929 ( 550940 )
    "Basically, looks like it's faster, but still not the fastest in all areas."

    Just what definition are you using for the word "faster"? To my eyes [aceshardware.com], it's slower than the older Northwood core in the majority of real-world situations, clock-for-clock. If you're talking about absolute performance, then it's significantly slower than, say, the AthlonFX CPUs. Even the biased-as-hell airbags at Tom's didn't have much good to say about this CPU. That's not to say that it wont see strong performance gains as applica
  • Is a varying multipler new or has that been done in processors before? The multiplier is listed as "14-16"! In low-speed (3.2Ghz - 3.4Ghz) I see that is uses 16 multiplier. But in the AnandTech overclocking test they got it up towards 3.7Ghz and it was using a 14 multiplier. A shame, because in that test, the FSB was over 1Ghz! At a 16 multiplier would have resulted in speeds close to 4.2Ghz.

    Can somebody fill me in on what's going on?
  • The thing that I'd like to know is what motivated intel to increase the length of the pipeline. Intel generally doesn't go off half-cocked when they change the core. There is usually a reason they do what they do irregardless of the implementation which may perform poorly.

Slashdot Top Deals

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

Close