Pentium 4 6XX Sequence and New EE P4s Launched

Mojo-Dog writes "Today Intel took the wraps off their new Pentium 4 Processors with EM64T extensions for 64-bit computing. The Pentium 4 6XX Sequence and Pentium 4 3.73GHz are based on Prescott 2M cores with a full 2MB of on-chip L2 cache as well. HotHardware.com has a full review with benchmarks posted of these new P4s, many of which also offer Intel's SpeedStep technology for power savings and improved thermals, which has been available in Pentium Mobile CPUs for some time now."

Re:'lagging a bit'

[lord_rob the only on]

> No kidding. Nintendo had a 64 bit processor back in like, '96. Do you mean the Nintendo 64 ? So the PS2 had a 128 bits processor. NO all those consoles had only a 32 bits processor, but a 128 bits bus, because in consoles, there are many processors dedicated to a special task. So the bus could transport datas to the various processors ...

Compatibility with AMD64

[chefren]

"EM64T is nearly completely compatible with AMD64 technology"

Wow, nicely said. Is this close enough to make binaries interchangable or are they two separate platforms? Either way I am 100% sure that things are exactly as they are.

still

[Foo2rama]

Runs hot, still going to be a cooling nightmare... And we all knew intel was putting a 2mb on die cache to speed up the proc. The only mysteries are why the 64 but extensions which look to prove pretty worthless in the long run, have been added (lic from AMD). And what took Intell so long to put the speed step tech on the desktop p4's? I mean come on it is a great way to cool those p4 heat pigs, people have been screaming for it for about a year, kinda a no brainer.. gg Intel still catchup. Not being a fan boy or anything but I will still save my money and get the AMD chips, and deal with slower excel benchmarks, since that extra 4 seconds I waste every few hours will really add up.

Still catching up to Athlon wrt games

[aendeuryu]

Quick summary for gamers:

This P4 still lags behind the Athlon FX-55 and 64 4000+ for Doom3, HL2, UT2004, and the general 3dMark benchmark. Pricewatch has the FX-55 at 900$ US and the 64 4000 at 620$, which is cheaper than the best chip of the bunch at 999$. Granted, video cards are probably the biggest system decision for gamers, but if CPUs figure into your decision, you might want to consider the comparisons.

Nothing really about 64 bit performance

[GreatDrok]

I have been trying to find out what the performance of the AMD and Intel chips is really like with 64 bit apps on a 64 bit OS and have yet to find anything that covers it. This article as usual goes on about 32 bit apps on a 64 bit OS which really doesn't help. I want to know if the Intel implementation is as efficient as AMDs and this would be easy enough with Linux but none of these reviews ever consider running on Linux. Just saying that 64 bit support isn't an issue at the moment doesn't cut it, I want to know now!

Intel the leader in 64 bit extensions?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Sure, AMD invented those extensions, but Intel has 80% of the desktop processor market (amd only stole them a 2% in the last 6 months). This should mean that soon most of the desktop processors with 64 bit extensions will the ones from intel, not the ones from amd.

Re: EM64T Extensions - 64-bit computing?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. 8 registers increased to 16 (it still sucks compared to SPARC's 128).

Intels have many more internal registers and use register renaming. Basically that means you don't optimize by using a bunch of registers but instead try to keep the processor pipeline full enough so the out or order loads and stores from memory, which is hopefully in cache, have zero cost. But you do that naturally when you program, don't you?

Re:64-bit GPUs

[fgb]

IAPWATB (I am probably wrong about this but...) I thought most GPUs were 64-bit and even 128-bit processors.

Re:Oy!

[nuclear305]

"Get out and get a LIFE, man! Slashdot isn't so important! Sheesh, with the number of posting I see by you, it's obvious you haven't left your computer in years."

I'm sure you see the irony here [slashdot.org]...

After reading a few other articles about the 600s

[doormat]

Its quite easy to see how biased the HotHardware review is towards Intel. You wonder how much intel paid them for that review, or let them break NDA early or something. Its a shame /. is giving them traffic for that bullshit "review".

Forests, not trees

[fm6]

As usual, somebody focuses on one data point and thinks that's the whole story. The MIPS 4300i in the Nintendo is not in the same class as the IA-32 [wikipedia.org] processors in PCs, even if it does have a wider data path. If you'd been following the Intel-AMD processor wars, you'd know that the big issue is how we evolve beyond the IA-32. It's obvious that the successor will be 64-bit, but that's only one particular feature.

Intel and HP chose to work together on a development effort to produce a totally new processor [wikipedia.org] that offers drastically improved performance, but doesn't execute IA-32 code very well. AMD chose to emphasize IA-32 support [wikipedia.org] instead of overall performance. As in the past, backward compatibility won out over superior technology, and AMD has been winning market share from Intel.

Intel is doing a course correction for its 64-bit strategy -- not suddenly moving into the 64-bit world.

Worthless Review

[ZephyrXero]

Is it just me, or do you feel like you wasted your time reading (even skimming) that article? How can you compare Intel's new 64bit chips to an Athlon64 on a non 64bit OS. These "hot-hardware" guys obviously don't know much about computers to be testing 64bit chips in Windows. 64bit Windows XP will probably come out AFTER Longhorn....they are a long way away from figuring it out. Linux (and maybe BSD?) is the only way to really get an accurate test of these chips....sure running "legacy" 32bit apps is worth a look, but not the whole damn article. When will people learn that computers are about constant change and quit trying to be little fanboys of just one thing?

Hello - This is 10 years ago calling!

[Anonymous Coward]

The RISC vs CISC debate is over. Modern x86 CPU's are RISC with a frontend that translates any CISC. In addition, the percentage of the transistor budget needed to implement the old CISC stuff is negligible nowadays, so your "CISC uses more transistors so RISC can have more cache" argument is so obsolete its dangerous.

Re:Intel the leader in 64 bit extensions?

[bani]

in the meantime, ia64 continues to be a black hole for billions of intel revenue.

intel has been beating this dead horse for over a decade and it hasn't lived up to a single one of its design goals, and has never been profitable.