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Intel Hardware

New Xeon CPU Hot and Underpowered 293

Posted by Zonk from the more-tweaking-needed dept.
Kasracer writes "Web Sites The Register and GamePC received several of the new dual-core processors from Intel, dubbed 'Paxville', and ran a battery of tests on them. What did they find? From the article: 'There's no doubt about it, Intel's dual-core Xeons are their most power hungry Xeons to date ... Even when idling, two dual-core Xeons consume nearly 400W of power at any given time, which is amazingly high, even by Intel's standards ... their new dual-core chips (while powerful in their own right) simply are bested across the board by AMD's dual-core Opteron processors. Even worse, the Opterons typically perform much better while running at slower clock speeds and only having half the amount of on-die L2 cache to utilize.'"
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New Xeon CPU Hot and Underpowered More

New Xeon CPU Hot and Underpowered

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  • oh my god. (Score:3, Funny)

    by imsabbel ( 611519 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @06:36AM (#13851579)
    The _last_ intel CPU a few days ago was already found hot and underpowered by gamePc.
    That means this _new_ intel CPU really must be craptastic...
    • Unless I'm missing some sarcasm here, the article is referring to the same GamePC article posted on /. the other day. The only new thing this time round is the review by the Register.

      While I expect the benchmark results to be fairly accurate, news sites and games sites don't really strike me as the best for reviewing chips for the server market.
      • The only new thing this time round is the review by the Register.

        Which isn't new, it just quotes the GamePC article.

      • RTFA.

        It's not a new review. It's the Register commenting on the GamePC article.

        From Article: "GamePC got its hands on some of the Xeons - code-named "Paxville" - and put the chips through a battery of tests."

        The original poster didn't RTFA either, and made the same incorrect claim as you did.

      • Re:oh my god. (Score:2, Funny)

        by kjots ( 64798 )

        > While I expect the benchmark results to be fairly accurate, news sites and games sites don't really strike me as the best for reviewing chips for the server market.

        That's a nice sentiment, but I would prefer to believe that Intel has lost it (It's just more entertaining this way!).

        The King (*cough*intel*chough*) is Dead, Long Live the King (*sniff*amd*cough*)!

    • Oh my god indeed! Anyone else here notice that gamepc has been hacked, displaying our old friend goatse?

      Safe link (start at page 2) [gamepc.com]

  • oh well (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Janek Kozicki ( 722688 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @06:37AM (#13851582) Journal
    Dell wants dualcore to sell, so they have it.

    how long before they realize that it was a fatal move?

  • AMD's new ad campaign (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, 2005 @06:40AM (#13851588)
    Paris Hilton looking an Intel Inside sticker and saying "That's hot."

  • 400W? (Score:5, Funny)

    by danharan ( 714822 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @06:41AM (#13851590) Journal
    That's going to be the SUV of its category. Big, ugly, inefficient design catering to those who desperately need the ego boost.

    It will hopefully die (yeah, bad pun) a very prompt death.

    • Re:400W? (Score:2, Funny)

      by gringer ( 252588 )


      All it needs is to be powered by gasoline, and it'll be sold quicker than a 6th generation iPod.

    • Re:400W? (Score:5, Funny)

      by FlopEJoe ( 784551 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @09:22AM (#13852011)
      I think it would be cheeper to buy a t-shirt that says, "I have a small penis."
      • I think it would be cheeper to buy a t-shirt that says, "I have a small penis."

        You know what's funny, the only people who bring up dick size are the ones whining about other people driving SUVs. Makes you wonder who is really the one trying to compensate for something.

  • Heat (Score:5, Funny)

    by titla1k ( 875330 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @06:42AM (#13851592)
    So they're a little bit hot, I see that as a good thing. Now you can cook breakfast on your case, without ever having to move!
    • So they're a little bit hot, I see that as a good thing. Now you can cook breakfast on your case, without ever having to move!

      That's nice, Intel could use reasons their power consumption might be considered a good thing.

      If they get a good enough set of them, perhaps they can adopt a more descriptive name for the CPU, like "Oxyacetylon".
    • Now you can cook breakfast on your case, without ever having to move

      Yeah, the original Pentiums did require you to remove the side first. :)

      Kinda makes you wonder about the whole 'low-power' thing that supposedly attracted Apple, though, doesn't it?

  • Correction (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, 2005 @06:45AM (#13851597)
    The Register didn't test anything. They're just providing a short and more to the point commentary on the GamePC review, who appear to have adopted a more diplomatic tone so as to receive Free Crap To Review in the future as well.

    These things are apparent when you Read The Fucking Article, you know? The thing you're supposed to do before submitting? Gah.
    • The Register has a long history of telling it how it is. They called complete crap on WAP. They called complete crap on Itanium (Itanic as they called it). Also, they're British. As Winston Churchill said "They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst."*

      That makes their opinion on what GamePC said valid. GamePC has a vested interest in not pissing off Intel too much. They publish the numbers and then say "but it's all good" so Intel will send them their next

  • This should change (Score:5, Informative)

    by ottffssent ( 18387 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @06:46AM (#13851599)
    The situation (Intel's, not necessarily the difference) should change RSN when Intel's 65nm process comes online. Looking at the huge lead AMD has right now, I don't see how Intel can beat them in both power and performance anytime soon unless they're willing to add a few hundred more pins to their sockets to accomodate on-die memory controller(s). I doubt Intel will do that. I also doubt they'll come back a bit from the 150W/CPU these Paxville chips crank out, so they'll be using the process headroom for higher clocks and/or larger caches.

    Ultimately an on-die memory controller is the only way to bridge the increasingly large gap between the CPU and RAM. Intel's managed amazingly low latencies to RAM given that they've got an entire extra bus and chip to run through, but they're still ~50% higher than AMD's. The netburst architecture was supposed to be insensitive to RAM latencies but Intel is not keeping up in the bandwidth department either, and it's clear that these CPUs are suffering from a lack of RAM bandwidth (twice the processing power per chip, but no increase in bandwidth).

    • The situation (Intel's, not necessarily the difference) should change RSN when Intel's 65nm process comes online.

      Yeah, but Intel has been depending on technical solutions to cover for their designing flaws. AMD can use yesterday's cheaper fab technology to achieve the same performance through superior design.

      Eventually, Intel won't be able to make a smaller die, and then they'll have to go back to the drawing board and start over to make something that can compete in the marketplace.

      I'm assuming that lithog

      • Re:This should change (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ottffssent ( 18387 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @08:21AM (#13851820)
        It's less a matter of design flaws as marketing flaws, I think. The P4 sucks in a lot of ways, but it's also very well-done in a lot of ways. The big problem is not so much netburst as it is Intel's inertia. Intel's working on a way to transition their product matrix from netburst on the desktop and in server space to something based on the pentium-M. The faster pentium-Ms beat the fastest P4s hands down in most benchmarks, but there are no good desktop chipsets for it yet, etc. Eventually Intel will release a dual-core P-M-based design, hopefully with an on-die memory controller, and then the Opteron will finally have some real competition.

        Even if Intel eventually hits a process wall, they'll still be able to rest on their huge manufacturing capacity. For the past 5ish years, Intel has been building bigger chips than AMD, mostly in terms of L2 cache. It's not necessarily the best way to improve performance, but it's fairly easy, and leverages Intel's manufacturing strengths. Intel can afford to crank out dies 50-100% larger than an equivalent AMD die, and still make money at it, and still not run out of capacity. The reason Intel has been having shortages of late in the chipset arena is not lack of capacity but bad capacity management. They mis-read the market 3ish months ago and are paying for it now.

        Anyway, here's hoping AMD's 65nm transition goes as smoothly as their 90nm one.
    • AMD developed their CPUs to beat Intel on a clock cycle for clock cycle basis. But isn't it about time both companies show new architectural wonders? Of course, they don't want to quit the market immediately after all the investment to make dual core processors running almost 4 GHz but Intel is reaching the limits of power consumption so what else is coming?

      • Re:This should change (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, 2005 @07:54AM (#13851748)
        I'll give you a quick hint: the K8 (I.e. Opterons and Athlon 64 and X2 series) is a freaking marvel of technology. The dual-core variants even more so.

        Intel's dual core chips are just two chips pasted on the same die. Take a look at a proper description of an X2 some time -- there's cache sharing, an inter-cache on-chip hypertransport bus and all that nice shit that Intel just doesn't have. It's not far-fetched to say that at the moment, speaking from a microarchitecture point of view, AMD is a generation ahead of Intel.
    • so they'll be using the process headroom for higher clocks and/or larger caches.
      Haven't we already hit the point of diminishing returns on bigger caches? It's just a simple way to use up transistors. I think I rather have more cores instead.
    • Read this article:

      http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20051007/a_sneak_p eak_at_intels_65nm_pentium_4-11.html#power_consump tion [tomshardware.com]

      In short, decreasing the die size has allowed Intel to reduce power consumption a bit, but it's also increased thermal density to such a degree that they can't clock them as fast as even the current crop of 90nm processors. Why upgrade to these chips?

  • 400w?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, 2005 @06:47AM (#13851603)
    Sweet zombie Jesus, the heatsink must have fins like a '57 DeSoto! At 400w and using it 24/7 will make the cops think you're running a grow-op.

  • Note to self (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ChrisMroz ( 907669 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @07:02AM (#13851633)
    Rules of successful businesses. 1.) Listen to consumer 2.) Don't lie to consumer 3.) Make decisions based on companies largest comodity, not companies largest stock holders 4.) Don't ignore competition

  • Prescott? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @07:20AM (#13851670) Homepage
    (Disclaimer: I haven't read the entire article in depth yet, and I don't know **** about chip design)

    I assume that this chip is basically derived from the Prescott P4, which (in spite of all the hype) has been considered by some commentators to be a dead-end in chip design and a mistake on the part of Intel.

    There are rumours that Intel are now using the Pentium M (ironically, a chip which supposedly owes at least as much to the Pentium III design as to the Pentium 4(*)) as their "reference" design instead of Prescott. Bearing in mind that the Pentium M has been praised for providing performance approaching that of the P4s with *much* smaller power requirements and minimal cooling needed, this wouldn't surprise me. In fact, I've read several articles (including one via /.) promoting the Pentium M as a desktop chip (IIRC passive cooling was possible with a reasonably-sized desktop heatsink).

    (*) And I don't know if that was the previous-gen P4; it's been said by some that Prescott was different enough to warrant the "Pentium 5" name. At any rate, the Pentium M isn't simply a power-efficient Pentium 4.
    • "Pentium 5"?? HAHAHAHA

      Seriously, Intel should start thinking about a new name before the next version bump.

      • "Pentium 5"?? HAHAHAHA

        Seriously, Intel should start thinking about a new name before the next version bump.

        Kinda silly when you think about the latin root; but you knew what I meant. Anyhow, is the use of the name "Pentium D" replacing that of "Pentium 4"? (Obviously they won't use this for the single cores, but in the not-so-distant future all Intel's x86 chips will likely be multiple core anyway).

        Strikes me that after they get past a certain point, most companies seem to like to move away from version n

  • Intel catching up with 65 nm? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by miffo.swe ( 547642 ) <daniel@hedblom.gmail@com> on Saturday October 22, 2005 @07:22AM (#13851675) Homepage Journal
    I cant see how Intel is going to catch up without a redraw of the whole CPU structure and mem controller. Simply going for smaller die wont solve the performance problem. I really think Michael Dell was wrong in thinking that 65 nm is going to get Intel in par with AMD. This is really and interesting moment, will dell stick to Intel and deliver less performance than HP/Intel/Sun etc? At some stage they will have to start selling AMD and i suspect it will be a horrific moment for Dell. To date they always state that they use Intel because they are better but really how long can they put that charade up?
    • I wonder what the problem is with Dell and AMD. A Dell system with AMD inside might be referred to in short as D-AMD.
      • I dont think the problem is between AMD and DELL. Id rather believe the incentive for DELL is big juicy rebates on Intel CPU's. Its really something the DOJ and EU should take a look at.
        • I suspect the opposite: AMD won't be bullied by Dell. In the past AMD may have been willing to cut a deal, but Dell would have been correct that the volume and performance weren't there. HP is Intel's Itanium partner and the biggest (only?) supplier of Itanic systems and they don't seem to have a problem with selling AMD systems. Given HP's recently deposed CEO, if Intel was offering killer deals I would expect HP to be Intel only. It could also be that Michael Dell is a stubborn bastard. He wouldn't be the
        • > Id rather believe the incentive for DELL is big juicy rebates on
          > Intel CPU's.

          Rebates which would vanish were Dell to buy any AMD parts.

  • 400 Watts idling? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Bueller_007 ( 535588 )
    I realize that 400 W while idling isn't typical of Intel processors, but still, didn't Apple choose Intel because of their supposedly low power consumption?
    • You might have a point if this was a laptop chip, but it's not. You should have stopped after "isn't typical of Intel processors"
      • He does have a point, even if this was about a laptop chip. The PPC970FX has a full-load (the spec sheet says they couldn't find a program more strenuous than the one they used to test it) heat dissipation of 24.5W. The Pentium M has a "real life usage" heat dissipation of 27W and a theoretical maximum of 34W. So, yes, it is typical of Intel processors, and no, Apple didn't choose Intel for their low-power-consumption chips.
    • Isn't the 400W while idling for TWO Xeons (4 cores) and the rest of the system? That works out to 100W per core, which isn't bad for a modern CPU under load.

      • Re:400 Watts idling? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Bloater ( 12932 )
        > Isn't the 400W while idling for TWO Xeons (4 cores) and the rest of the system?

        "while idling"

        > ... which isn't bad for a modern CPU under load.

        "under load"

        What kinda crack you smokin'? I want some!

        BTW, when you look at what an Opteron can do, yeah, that's bad for a modern CPU. For a ten year old computer with that processing capability it is very very good indeed but this is 2k5 here and we expect a little better. I know I do, but I've got used to AMD64.
        • I didn't read the article. Is this ONE Xeon using 400W? That would be rediculous. How can they do that? I have a dual core Pentium 4 820, which UNDER LOAD uses about 130W. The Xeon has a few extra features, but is really not that different. How is it so much less efficient?

  • Becoming a consumer issue? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cliffski ( 65094 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @08:24AM (#13851833) Homepage
    How long till CPU power requirements become a buying factor? Like many people I leave my main PC on most of the day, and also use a laptop which a distressingly short battery life (sony vaio). These days, apart from the old game of battlefield 2, I rarely find any need tor a maxxed out CPU. I'd be much more interested in a PC that would consume noticeably less power. 400W is like having 4 brightly lit rooms all day long, its just wasteful.
    For laptops its already a big issue, as anyting that can stretch out the meager battery lfie is good, but even for desktop PCs now, we should be hitting the point where people start asking how much it costs to run a new PC all day.
    • It is slowly happening. One the adds for Sun's Opteron servers lists "cooler" as a selling feature. About six months ago Intel stated that the next generation of cpu would emphasis operations per watt. Intel has known for a while that the power requirements of the P4 architechture was not sustainable, but it takes a while to develop new chips. These Xeons were released as a stop gap to keep investors and Dell happy.

    • Re:Becoming a consumer issue? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by WuphonsReach ( 684551 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @12:14PM (#13852646)
      Yeah, it's already started. I'd say about 2 years ago.

      The first wave of it was folks starting to harp about the amount of noise that most PCs make. While the Mini-ITX folks were already using fanless systems to reduce noise in specialized application, I think the fanless iMac gave momentum to the movement. At least, that little acryllic cube was cool enough to generate lots of press about being nearly silent.

      Then there were the folks that started buying laptops instead of desktops due to the noise / form-factor / lifestyle choices. Laptops are easier to hide away, can be setup anywhere in the house on a whim, and laptops used to be pretty quiet.

      Hard drive manufacturers switched over to fluid bearing drives a few years ago. At first, it was a marketing thing that allowed them to differentiate themselves from the pack. Now, I don't think you can find too many drive makers who are still making noisy ball bearing drives.

      Energy costs have also gone up in the past few years. My electricty bill has gone from ~$40/mo up to ~$120/mo and I'm starting to consider whether I really want 4 servers, 3 desktops and a laptop running all the time. (And whether I can pack more storage into fewer watts.) Plus the heat issues that all of those systems cause.

      PCs are also continuing to move further and further out of the office. As you moving into the living room / kitchen, folks start paying closer attention to noise / power / heat issues. And PCs have gotten powerful enough over the years, that they are "fast enough" for a lot of tasks. They're starting to compete against things like VCRs / DVD players / DVR & PVR (devices which are typically dead-quiet, low-power, and low-heat).

      Dell even started selling "quiet" PCs a few years ago (most quiet PCs are also lower energy and lower temperature). Those are nice in an office setting for lowering the ambient noise level (which leads to a less-stressful environment).

  • Whatever happened to their new mantra 'Performance/Watt over Clock Speed'? [anandtech.com]
    • That doesn't get a "dual core" CPU that everyone seems to feel is the be-all, end-all in preformance now. Intel needed something for that particular hole in the market, and they needed it quick. They stumbled a bit on this one. Of course, no oher company who's led the game for decades has ever made a single sub-par product, eh? Look at The early 80's Ford Mustang, the Cadilac Catera, the Mercedes C230 Kompressor, etc for automotive examples, or look at most of Microsoft's products (maybe focus on Bob if
  • FFS. I've got enough speed in my P4 2.6GHz. What I need is a lower (by today's metric, but still damn fast) clock speed with much less power consumption and heat production. Where is it?
    • I've got enough speed in my P4 2.6GHz. What I need is a lower (by today's metric, but still damn fast) clock speed with much less power consumption and heat production. Where is it?

      It's in the shop that sells "Pentium M" CPUs.
    • Pentium M. AMD.

      Or if you're really hardcore about low power consumption, VIA C3.

  • Bring on the winter! (Score:5, Funny)

    by WidescreenFreak ( 830043 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @08:41AM (#13851888) Homepage Journal
    I don't understand what all of the fuss is about. With systems that generate this much heat, I want to buy one just because it will probably be cheaper to heat my house with a dual Xeon system than with heating oil, considering current fuel prices! I can simultaneously have the benefit of running one hell of a Battlefield 2, Half-Life 2, or SETI@Home system! Then when summer arrives I can switch back to my cooler AMD X2 system, thus saving money on cooling bills as well!

    AND after playing BF2 for an hour or so the top of the case will be ready to cook up some chicken and steak tips! Introducting the new Intel, dual-Zeon, charcoal-less hibachi system!

    Come on! You guys need to look at the positives of having such hot CPUs!
    • Next up: The George Forman Lean Mean, super-processing, grilling machine!

      It knocks out the fat, and your breaker switches!

      "With my new machine, you can cook your food in half the time--and compile your kernel in no-time flat! My new Lean Mean, Super-Processing, Grilling Machine knocks out the fat, and the compile time!"

      But seriously... What the hell is wrong with Intel? They have a perfectly good model (AMD) to base their business model off of... What do they do? They take one good part, implement it half-a
  • But Intel released details of there future plans for much lower power processors accross the board earlier in the year, so... what's the big deal?
  • I'm sure all of you that complain about this Intel system using 400W when an AMD system would use perhaps 200W are also energy conscious in other ways, right?

    You turn on power saving nodes (Intel's Speedstep, AMD's Cool n Quiet)?
    You use 55W fluorescent torchiere lamps instead of 300W halogen ones, right?

    http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/torchi ere-SMUD.html [lbl.gov]

    You could easily save as much power on lighting in your house as you do on computing costs.

  • recheck the links (Score:3, Informative)

    by stuartkahler ( 569400 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @01:28PM (#13852986)
    It's time to drop the gamepc link. Apparently they don't like the extra page views that /. is sending them.
  • those pentium M cpus to perform on par with athlon64's.

    their massive 2MEGABYTE l2 caches make up for the fact that they suck without them.

    the turion64 and athlon64 cpus perform as well with 512KB cache, hence the much lower cost of those cpus in relation to pentium M's.

    ever wonder why notebooks with "centrino" and PM cpus cost a whole lot more than equivalent systems?

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