The Consequence of Waking Up a Sleeping Giant: Intel Roadmaps Inside
by Kristopher Kubicki on January 25, 2005 7:44 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Anand and I got particularly antsy this month to get an Intel roadmap up - this month's changes look nothing short of spectacular. When we look at some of our other Intel roadmaps in retrospect, there are very few new developments outside of the Smithfield and Yonah announcements. This month looks completely different however; new processor announcements and details in Q1'06, chipset information and - for the first time in a very long time - most of Intel's processor roadmap has moved up, ahead of schedule.
It takes time to realign a huge corporation such as Intel, and we can guess that the recent roadmaps have been the proverbial "calm before the storm". Intel doesn't normally make a lot of noise about major changes in the public as that can lead to reduced sales of current products. However, with AMD making some inroads against Intel and the lackluster retail reception of current 915/925 chipsets, that may not be as much of concern right now. Another possibility is that Intel was working feverishly on some new products and they are now confident enough of their release dates to add them to their roadmaps.
The recent corporate shuffles in Intel must have made the company more aware of their consumer position or more lean to deal with it. Either way Intel is still the 800 pound gorilla; we don't need to look much past their last quarters earnings in relation to AMD's to verify that. If you thought Intel was aggressive before their regrouping last year this year ought to be impressive - to say the least.
Chipsets
First let's take a look at the chipset side of things. It was no surprise that the first generation Socket 775, DDR2, PCIe chipsets Alderwood and Grantsdale faced delays, production problems and poor saturation. Unfortunately such is the life of a first generation chipset. The second generation usually does better, and it looks like Lakeport and Glenwood should be no exception. Actually we no longer need to refer to the next generation DDR2 chipsets by their code names as Intel has cheerfully dubbed the two core logics as 945P and 955X respectively. Even though the launch is yet another month away i945 and i955 news will flood headlines in the upcoming weeks without question.
Before we go under NDA for the launch, here are a few tidbits about 945 that we already know:
- First platforms for dual core support (915, 925 won't support dual core)
- Both platforms support 1066MHz FSB
- 945G will have Intel GMA 950 graphics
- Both platforms support 667MHz DDR2
- 955X will support 8GB of ECC DDR2
For much further details you will probably have to wait for the launch next month.
We also have the upcoming launch of the 915PL and 915GL chipsets, but there's nothing exciting there. 915PL is the new budget 915P, and it drops HD Audio and DDR2 support, as well as limiting the chipset to 1 DIMM per channel with a maximum of 2GB of RAM. The 915GL is similar and falls roughly between the 915GV and 910GL in terms of features. DDR2 support is dropped, but both 533 and 800 FSB support remains. Performance enthusiasts will want to stay away from any of the GL/GV platforms, as usual.
The latest iteration of the roadmap also paid a peculiar amount of attention on Vanderpool Technology or VT. Intel simply refers to this first generation of VT as "the first step in Intel's long term Virtualization roadmap." VT is supposed to take virtual machine applications and allow them to run simultaneously on the same hardware with the same processor - if we are to believe Intel's IDF keynote. Rather than setup two different machines for Linux and Windows, VT aims to unify them both in the same computer. However, the catch seems to be that the processor, chipset, BIOS and software all have to be aware of this process and it isn't a transparent, free upgrade.
Vanderpool won't show up right away however. Intel claims the technology will start showing up in Itanium configurations by the second half of this year, with the mass production server launch date by Q1'06. This almost implies that we will not see any steps forward with this technology until the next processor launch for Xeon, but that's another story in itself. Desktop processors, starting with the Prescott 2M, will get the feature sometime in 2H'05.
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Postoasted - Sunday, January 30, 2005 - link
Heat dissipation and power consumption are my main concerns.GiantPandaMan - Sunday, January 30, 2005 - link
Oops,Anyhow I was just gonna say, who cares who comes out on top?
Without AMD we'd be using Pentium 166's?
Without Intel we'd be using Apples.
I hope both AMD and Intel are around for a very long time and they keep pushing each other to make better processors faster and cheaper. Same as Nvidia and ATI.
After all, what's gonna power Doom 6 and Half-Life 4?
The PS3 Cell "4.6" Ghz processor?
GiantPandaMan - Sunday, January 30, 2005 - link
JarredWalton - Sunday, January 30, 2005 - link
^^ Don't we all, AtaStrumf?Don't underestimate Intel, though. AMD's power usage on 90nm was substantially less than their 130nm. Part of that is almost certainly due to the lower clock speeds, but regardless we can be sure that Intel isn't going to be underestimating power/heat concerns.
Prescott 2M is really the first major redesign of a 90nm core since the release of the Prescott. Dothan has shown that Intel can get very good power and heat results, and I'm certainly curious to see how Prescott 2M compares to the original. We might assume that it will use more power and produce more heat, but depending on what other tweaks have been made, it may not be so bad.
There's a LOT going on at Intel right now behind the scenes (including some serious consideration of Pentium M on the desktop, I think). Don't just blindly stick with a company because of one or two good products, but wait for actual availability before coming to a conclusion. Also, don't just blindly hate a company for one or two mistakes. If we all did that, AMD would have never even lasted this long. K6 and earlier CPUs were thoroughly outclassed by Intel chips. Only K7 and K8 have been competitive designs, and only K8 has truly beaten Intel's counterpart.
To draw a parallel, look at the GPU market. The FX line was a disaster for NVIDIA, and the R3xx ATI parts completely outclassed it. The latest NVIDIA chips, however, are arguably the better chip - not in small part due to their actual retail availability. These are two competitors that are very close together in price, performance, and market share. The AMD/Intel match-up is not nearly as close. If NVIDIA could make a "comeback" if sorts, how much easier would it be for a company with the resources of Intel to address some of their problems?
As we've said before, only time will truly answer that question.
AtaStrumf - Sunday, January 30, 2005 - link
OMG, how much hype over even more power leaking, room heating, inefficient transistors. If you think 65 nm is gonna be any better/easier/faster transition than 90 nm was, you're, well, khm, how do I put it ... WRONG. It'll be even worse! I see nothing for me from Intel in 2005 or 2006. If they offered me Dothan in desktop, then maybe I’d think about it, but MORE preshott, no thanks!!!Nice to see Intel in action once again though. Hopefully it will get AMD off their arses and start putting out something NEW. They seem to have fallen asleep since Intel got themselves in Prescott trouble. I wonna see high volume 2nd generation 90 nm SS SOI chips with SSE3, with dual core following shortly thereafter.
fitten - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
Actually, AMD doesn't have plenty of headroom on frequency as seen by the major overclocks only reaching 2.7GHz. If you think that clock frequency is tied to process technology (as in 90nm means that the Athlon can hit 3.8GHz just like the P4) then I'd suggest some study in processor/circuit design. Just a little food for thought is that some P4s have double clocked adders (2.6GHz P4 has a 5.2GHz adder, for example).karlreading - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
BTW, scuse the typos, thats cause me mum braught me a nasty TRUST keyboard for xmas, ill have to sneek a decent one in the house soon. as for the spelling, poor british education LOLkarlos
karlreading - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
I use mainly AMD processors, i would almost call myself a slight fanboi!! but i cant help but deel thers some amd fans on here showing themselves up.personally i dont understand why intel do continue with netburts. 65nm might help them get some more frequency from it, prhaps 4.2ghz? but generally i dont see that helping much. AMD64 (em64T) is welecome, but i doubt we will see the benefits of 64bit till all the software developers pull ther fingures out. IMHO pentium M is very strong, overclock one a bit on a oldskool platform i.e AGP4x / pc2700 / 400fsb) and it can frighten a athlon fx55. If i was intel id be binning netburst and getting the pM acheteture ramped up and on the desktop ( althouhg i know the design dosent scale well per core variation, its not ment to )
one last thing, yes, intel going for non compatibility on current chipsets regarding smithfield dose allow them to bring platform / performance benefits, whils amds upgradable stance does allow for a cheaper alternative. this dosent have to be seen as a weekness for AMD. Remeber, Intel wanted the whole world and his dog to go 64 bit there way, via Itaniums EPIC archetecture. EPIC on optimised code can probably cain x86-64 hands down. But AMD pushed x86-64 and eventually one the day. Why, ease of upgrade, cost effectivness. so by allowing opteron / a64 users a cheap dual core upgrade, all AMD are doing is repeating a act that has previously done them well.
Lets face it, to lead the desktop market into x86-64, make the 800IB gorilla conceed and bring out a product, push a product ( EM64T ) that a few month ago they even denide a said they would never consider, is a achievment AMD should be proud of.
as for these road maps, very good, certainly better than i expected for 2005, thaught it would be stagnent, but, more Pentium M actio is whats needed form intel.
karlos
justbrowzing - Friday, January 28, 2005 - link
I read these roadmap articles and gosh they always sound like intel/amd is just about to launch sliced bread in Q-X of 200Y--and occasionally they do. Northwood and Athlon 64 were great products. But this time you kinda wonder just when (if ever)it'll pay off like that with all these prescott iterations.Seems like waiting for the sweetspot--when to upgrade an intel platform for performance & longevity from the intro of Prescott & into the foreseeable future--is & will be a very long, confusing wait indeed.
StriderGT - Friday, January 28, 2005 - link
What really strikes me is why intel keeps trying to keep the clearly sinking P4/netburst afloat... ? More cache, more FSB, more DDR2 more laughable stuff, that would really benefit database servers... and power bills.I can not understand the reason they do not promote dothan/derivatives as their desktop solution and put there all their latest hype/duo letters. The only reason I can think of is that they might be working on something bigger for dothan, like on-die controller (ala AMD) and keep it under wraps for a later launch
PS1 Dual core in, HT out for the desktop or to put it otherwise: our HT did fail miserably...
PS2 Those lads that bought the 925, well you need to upgrade in less than 6-9 months (dual), because intel is always thinking with the customer in mind and changes the chipsets/sockets like T-shirts. Don't you love to change T-shirts?:-)
PS3 Same applies to DDR2, why don't they launch tech stuff when they are ready to be launched?!? What is the point of having a memory tech we do not take advantage of.
What would be the difference if they launched DDR2 with the 955 or the next chipset, where it could actually make some difference? Answer:
Pure marketing hype...