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Intel Hardware

Pentium 4 6XX Sequence and New EE P4s Launched 198

Posted by timothy from the james-bond-stole-this-stuff-in-1963 dept.
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."
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Pentium 4 6XX Sequence and New EE P4s Launched More

Pentium 4 6XX Sequence and New EE P4s Launched

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  • 'lagging a bit' (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eatmorecake ( 858982 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @06:24AM (#11727825)
    "It's no secret that Intel has occassionally been playing a bit of catchup this year in the desktop and workstation processor arena"

    No kidding. Nintendo had a 64 bit processor back in like, '96.

    • Re:'lagging a bit' (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      YOU ARE DENSE
    • > 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 ...

    • Re:'lagging a bit' (Score:2, Informative)

      by Grounded0 ( 703575 )
      MIPS R4000 and Alpha 21064 were 64 bit processors back in 1992.
      • Actually the R4000 had problems with its early revs that could not execute the whole 64bit instruction set. So the R4000s were not used in 64bit mode much.

        It came earlier than the alpha though, so for all intents and purposes the R4000 was the first commercial 64bit RISC micro.

    • Forests, not trees (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fm6 ( 162816 )
      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]

      • Here's a little rule of thumb. If you think a post is stupid, look at the moderation. If it has been moderated "Funny", think to yourself "maybe this isn't a serious post and shouldn't rebut it on a factual basis".

        -B
        • Or it may be that a particularly lame post simply made a moderator laugh.

          What you're really saying is this: you think you understand what the poster was thinking better than I do, and that the moderators back you up. My response: whatever. Get back to me when you finish that ESP course. I'm too lazy to assume that post says anything except what it says.

      • Your own post is pretty misleading.

        The Itanium didn't offer drastically improved performance for the price, and AMD processors don't sacrifice much performance for x86 compatibility.

        <blockquote>As in the past, backward compatibility won out over superior technology, and AMD has been winning market share from Intel.</blockquote>
        Not true at all. Price/Performance won out. In this case, the better performer for the price, just happens to have better backwards compatibility as well.

  • At least (Score:4, Interesting)

    by reassor ( 817660 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @06:25AM (#11727832) Homepage
    "older" P4 will have a price drop,which will be good for People saving 50$ on a new System.
    • Let me ask... does this pentium support DMA in 64 bit mode.. I've heard the xenon's don't.

  • Windows XP 64-bit (Score:5, Funny)

    by AnimeEd ( 670271 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @06:29AM (#11727848)
    and just in time for Windows XP 64-bit!
    how lucky!

    • Re:Windows XP 64-bit (Score:5, Funny)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @10:10AM (#11728278)
      But that version will cost you twice as much. Since 64 bits is like 2 32 bit processors, you'll have to get a 2 processor license.
    • Yep, the question is, why are intel and microsoft still in bed? Microsoft is in complete control of the Microsoft-intel relationship, or at least it should be. If intel vanished tomorrow, the PC world would continue with AMD processors and it would hardly notice, except that prices would begin rising until VIA figured out how to make fast CPUs. (Maybe they'd do dual-processor quad-core machines; the power consumption would probably still be less than a P4.) If Microsoft vanished tomorrow, intel would appare

  • Non-dupe certification (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 20, 2005 @06:30AM (#11727850)
    I certify that I, anonymous coward, have reviewed this article in comparison to other recent articles and have found it to NOT be a dupe.

    This certification provided 'as is', all guarantees and warrantees are disclaimed.

    This has been a public service posting.

    • Re:Non-dupe certification (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Wait a few hours.

    • Oy! (Score:3, Funny)

      by ggvaidya ( 747058 )
      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.

      • Re:Oy! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by nuclear305 ( 674185 ) *
        "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]...

  • Erm Wait . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @06:33AM (#11727857) Journal
    Shouldn't they of released their space heaters at the *beginning* of Winter?

  • An additional reference (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The Tech Report also has an excellent writeup <URL:http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q1/pentium4 -600/index.x?pg=1>

  • Compatibility with AMD64 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chefren ( 17219 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @06:40AM (#11727877)
    "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.

    • Re:Compatibility with AMD64 (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Binaries are interchangeable. The only differences are certain platform features which have always been different between AMD and Intel.

      In other word, you could say it's 100% compatible. Or 100% ripoff. :-)

    • 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.

      On Windows (I haven't looked into the issues, if any, on *nix), yes. 64-bit executables on Windows utilize the PE32+ format which can be flagged with a machine type. Up until AMD64/EM64T the most common machine type was IMAGE_FILE_MACHINE_IA64 (for Intel's Itanium architecture). But AMD64/EM64T compilers emit images with the machine type

  • still (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Foo2rama ( 755806 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @06:41AM (#11727881) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • Ehm, though not exactly "SpeedStep(TM)" all Pentium4s can be throttled by software. My MythTV system -running a Celeron 2.4GHz- drops to 300MHz when idle. Support for this has been in the Linux kernel for some time now, though not that long. It is called "Intel Pentium 4 clock modulation".

      Basicly you set an upper bound to the hardware throttling built into the Pentium 4.
      • there's little advantage to speedstep/clock modulation though, at least on desktops. it doesn't really save you any power.

        why? because if you use linux or similar OS which halt the processor in idle, you're already placing the CPU in the lowest power state it can possibly be in -- totally halted in most cases.

        and when you're using the processor, you're going to want to run it 100% speed anyway -- there's no point in running it 50% speed because it will take 50% longer and thus the same (or more) power to
        • I'm throwing away my mod points to respond to this.

          What you are saying is simply false, you haven't done the experiment yourself.

          My desktop AMD64 system runs at 35C when throttled with cool'n quiet at 1GHz (equiv speedstep) and at 54C when unthrottled at 2GHz, even when idle. The cpuspeed daemon under Linux does what you describe, as soon as the load goes up it sets the CPU at full speed, so there is *no* downside.

          These techs are *very* useful. You can set cpuspeed to only allow the CPU to run at the low
          • i should have been more clear.

            it does nothing for desktop p4's.

            i have one. it has clock modulation. the clock modulation works.

            however there is zero difference on idle between lowest speed and highest speed. it does nothing for temperatures. zero. nada. zilch. this is in fact what several review sites found and reported, much to their suprise.

            because when the p4 is HLT'd, you can't go any slower than that -- the cpu is stopped utterly and completely.

            as for being useful by allowing the cpu to run at the
            • OK I stand corrected for desktop P-IVs, however I have a hard time believing you for P-M.

              With clock modulation on, laptop endurance is much longer. This is only obvious since max speed is limited and so are consumption and temperature.

              Clock modulation is still useful for desktop because hardware underclocking usually requires at least rebooting, if not twidling with jumpers. With software throttling you can completely and safely stop the fan if what you want is watch TV or listen to music, which would be
              • if the processor in your laptop is able to overheat under any circumstances, then imo the laptop is flawed and defective.
    • I can't understand why Intel doesn't do more with the Pentium-M. I mean, if they would crank up the clock and add 64-bit support, they would be very close or better than the Athlon64/Opteron line in terms of heat and performance.

      The Prescott core sucks. It always has. They need to dump that thing and move on.
      • No one knows if Intel will do more with the Pentium-M or not. Just because they have new P4s out doesn't mean the P-M core is dead. With its vastly shorter pipeline and decreased die area it's still a more efficient chip. There will be serious cooling problems with multi-core P4s, but a multi-core P-M might not be too bad.

  • The most intriguing part... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 20, 2005 @06:44AM (#11727886)
    ... of this new CPU is how little power it uses compared to older Prescotts:

    http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-263-11. htm [hardcoreware.net]

    http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2005q1/pentium4- 600/index.x?pg=16 [techreport.com]

    Load temperatures are the same levels as idle temps on the old prescotts!

  • Still catching up to Athlon wrt games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aendeuryu ( 844048 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @06:51AM (#11727904)
    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.
    • Games like Doom3, and HL2 were practically DESIGNED around the Opteron, so Intel's lagging behind because of optimization at this point.

      But, gamers, if you really want to save some money, please buy the AMD. At this point, I'd wait for the next release of the 6XX line before buying one.

  • Nothing really about 64 bit performance (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GreatDrok ( 684119 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @07:08AM (#11727934) Journal
    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!
    • These tests show that 64 bit generally is slower than 32 bit, so I am anxiously awaiting 16 bit applications because that should be even faster.

      (yes, yes, I am kidding)
    • Exactly, it's stupid. The Windows 64-bit binaries take up more RAM, and the 32-bit apps they use don't take advantage of any of the new instructions, so it's basically a waste of time.

  • Intel fanboys? Biased Journalism? (Score:5, Informative)

    by inflex ( 123318 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @08:06AM (#11728041) Homepage Journal
    Normally I don't pay much attention to these reviews, but damn this review smacked of Intel fanboyism and anti-AMD'ism. In summary, the comments fell into two catagories:

    1. If Intel beat the AMD in a test
    "Once again it's game over for AMD"

    2. If AMD beats Intel in a test
    "AMD struggles to keep ahead of Intel in this test"

    I thought at first it was just a one off comment - but the almost all of the evaluations were like that.

    Obviously we each tend to have a preference for one brand over another but please can we have consistent commenting.

    Paul.

  • Intel the leader in 64 bit extensions? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by diegocgteleline.es ( 653730 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @08:21AM (#11728062)
    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.
    • 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.

  • HotHardware.com (Score:5, Funny)

    by ralinx ( 305484 ) <ralinx@gmail.com> on Sunday February 20, 2005 @08:26AM (#11728072)
    wow... the name really does reflect the stuff they cover

  • From the article:

    "Certain viruses that compromise a system can create buffer overflows by swamping a system processor with code."

    Does this refer to a standard buffer overflow attack of giving longer input that the program expected, or does it describe another type of attack ? I really can't tell :(...

  • Been planning a new system for a while. Got a dual PIII from 1998 right now, and waiting for the prices to drop.
    Just needed the next "trendy new marketing development that really adds nothing" from Intel or AMD to push down the price of the chips I really want.
    • ...and waiting for the prices to drop.

      Sh*t or get off the pot.
      If you've really been waiting for the prices to drop, you'll be the one obsolete by the time you get a new model. Buy what you can afford now and worry about the next great model later when you think it's time to get a new one.
    • Sorry, but AMD64/EM64T is really much more than just a fancy addition. To once again get into a situation where your virtual address space is totally superior to the amount you really need is positive. This is not without cost, though, as the memory bandwidth and space requirements increases.

      8 more general purpose registers will do well to most code.

      SSE3 in Prescott was an addition with very little real usage so far. The 64-bit x86-based ISA is a prime example of what you'll hate yourself for not having

  • 64-bit GPUs (Score:3, Interesting)

    by G3ckoG33k ( 647276 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @09:59AM (#11728254)
    If I'm not totally incorrect we may see 64-bit GPUs in the next few years (2007?). IIRC, there was some remark from some ATI/nVidia guy somehere. Perhaps it was relating to the upcoming Unreal 3 technology, I really don't remember. Or, was it 128-bit colours? Hrrrmmm...

    • Re:64-bit GPUs (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fgb ( 62123 )
      IAPWATB (I am probably wrong about this but...) I thought most GPUs were 64-bit and even 128-bit processors.

      • Re:64-bit GPUs (Score:5, Informative)

        by cnettel ( 836611 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @12:14PM (#11728783)
        You're wrong. Or, rather, "bitness" is a very silly measure. In a general purpose chip, you can measure the maximum word size for single operations.

        Then, you realize that the current SSE/3Dnow etc stuff will actually handle 128-bit data.

        Then, you can think that you should measure the bandwidth of the memory bus. With dual channels, that's generally 128 bits now for CPUs, but for Intel, the memory bus is of course still a part of the chipset. Most GPUs top out at 256, with lower counts and basically the same architecture for the cheaper models. The front-side bus in Intel chips is 64-bit, but running on a higher frequency. Also, most accesses, IIRC, are aligned to be the size of one cache line - 64 bytes or 512 bits. Also, note that the 8088 was an 8-bit CPU and the 80386 sx a 16-bit CPU by this definition. Obviously not what we want.

        Finally, we can measure it by the addressing model. This makes some sense and then we also get to the result that AMD64 was the first x86-like ISA to achieve 64-bit flat space addressing. The "flat space" requirement is important, as we want to consider the 8086 (/8088) 16-bit and not 20-bit (16-bit segment + 16-bit offset with locked segment spacing). In this area, many GPUs are tailored to their actual memory capacity. Why should we waste addressing bits and consequentially lines on stuff we can't use?

        By this definition, a modern GPU isn't "even" 32-bit, but why the heck should we care. The number of bits as a performance metric is stupid unless one has to take extra measures to avoid the boundary. That was the case in 16-bit x86 code, and is currently the case in some heavy-iron 32-bit code. The number of bits "of" a GPU is not a relevant metric.

      • IIRC, the bus widths are today 64, 128, or even 256-bits. But, the graphics still remain 32-bits.
    • 128bit colors would be a waste since the human eye can only see up to 36bit color ;)

      ..of course, I'm "color blind" so I only see the world in 16bit color :P

  • Thermal Characteristics & Power Consumption (Score:3, Informative)

    by cyclocommuter ( 762131 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @10:21AM (#11728310)
    Over at X-bit labs, they have a more comprehensive review of these chips' Thermal characteristics and power consumption [xbitlabs.com]. You will still need a big PSU and a good HSF if you are going to multitask or play games on these puppies.

  • After reading a few other articles about the 600s (Score:4, Insightful)

    by doormat ( 63648 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @11:15AM (#11728542) Homepage Journal
    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".

  • It figures (Score:3, Funny)

    by angle_slam ( 623817 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @12:58PM (#11728991)
    Literally 3 days after I ordered a processor, Intel comes out with a new one. I haven't even received the other one yet, and it is obsolete. ;-)

  • Worthless Review (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ZephyrXero ( 750822 ) <zephyrxeroNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Sunday February 20, 2005 @04:33PM (#11730205) Homepage Journal
    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?

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