Intel On the Offensive: Roadmap Details and Analysis
by Kristopher Kubicki & Jarred Walton on June 14, 2005 4:33 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Server Side of Things
With the exception of Yonah showing up where Xeon should be, there is very little new for servers.Dual core is inevitably moving toward servers, and the chip that will spearhead that launch is Dempsey. Dempsey is similar to Smithfield, but at the same time, it offers HyperThreading support, 1066FSB, Demand Based Switching and Vanderpool Technology. Expect Dempsey to show up around Q1'06. The enterprise version of Dempsey, dubbed Paxville, will act as the enterprise large cache version of Dempsey, but at a slower 800MHz front side bus. Expect Paxville at about the same time as Dempsey. Intel makes specific note on the roadmap that the processor brand name for Paxville and Dempsey is TBD - maybe Xeon has had its end?
Intel Single Core Volume Server Lineup LGA775 |
|||
Chipset |
FSB Clock |
Cache Size |
Launch |
Xeon 3.6GHz |
667MHz |
2MB L2 |
Q4'05 |
Xeon 3.4GHz |
667MHz |
2MB L2 |
Soon |
Xeon 3.2GHz |
667MHz |
2MB L2 |
Soon |
Xeon 3.0GHz |
667MHz |
2MB L2 |
Soon |
Xeon 2.8GHz |
667MHz |
2MB L2 |
Q3'05 |
Until dual core shows up on servers, we have to settle for Iriwindale (Prescott 2M) server chipsets. Since Nocona 3.8GHz and 4.0GHz were canceled, there hasn't been much news on the server lineup. All new 3.4GHz and faster Irwindale chipsets will receive support for DBS (Demand Based Switching), but otherwise remain identical in core to their slower alternatives. Potomac and Cranford have all of their SKUs announced until Paxville comes along next year.
Dempsey and Paxville will need a new platform to run on. As in chipsets past, there are two next generation chipisets for server motherboards: Greencreek (the successor to E7535), and Blackford (the successor to E7520 and E7320). Blackford and Blackford VS are the base chipsets supporting dual core server processors. Blackford will support 4 FBD channels, 3 PCIe x8 segments and a total of 64GB of memory. Vanderpool Technology is supported on the motherboard as well as iAMT. Greencreek differs slightly by using two of its PCIe x8 segments for an x16 PCIe graphics slot and a snoop filter. Both chips also support 64bit PCI-X and PCI.
Closing Thoughts
There are clearly some interesting things moving forward inside Intel. The Sossaman project is probably one of our more favorite tidbits - four core Yonah blades would certainly pique our attention. The slightly lower clockspeed has us concerned about whether or not Yonah will really be able to compete with similar offerings from AMD and even Pentium D processors at the same time, but the incredibly low power requirements are enough to impress anyone.The unified Broadwater family scheduled to replace 945P and 955X a year from now also has our attention. There was some speculation several months ago about Intel unifying their Xeon and Itanium socket design within the next year or so. While the roadmaps certainly don't indicate anything like that, unifying the desktop chipset families first might be a step toward that sort of unification.
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mino - Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - link
ONE IMPORTANT QUESTION:(mostly to autor)
WILL YONAH BE 64-bit ????
please tell us.
every glimpse appreciated;)
mino - Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - link
My "typing" is becomming even funnier sometimes, unfortunatelly ;)mino - Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - link
Finally intel execs came to their senses. people should applaud them all at once! They are evidently going to get rid of those super-trooper power drainers they are producing for last 2 yrs.BTW you all seeing performance parity arise just remember tah if AMD needs it even wouldn't need K9 to compete with Merom(unless it will be some miracle chip). They could yust release quad-core server chips plus some 3.2-3.4 desktop K8+ dualies and be done with it !
It's becomming so funny that first chips able to really axploit potential of DDR2(666+),technology som much tooted and pushed by Intel, will be 65nm X2's.
Ironic, isn't it?
Zebo - Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - link
Merom Merom Merom Kris! is the only thing Intel has I'm waiting for since I dont use notebooks. Does'nt quite sound as nice does it.:PI just can't see the extra cache doing much for the 9xx series, much like the 6xx did'nt do squat.. So the only thing that remains to be seen and potentially exciting is power draw and overclockabilty of the 65nm desktop chips.
Calin - Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - link
But on a much more serious note, I think VT would be good if it would work with very little or no OS support. I remember horror stories with Windows and Linux partitions, and I really don't want to find out how much Windows on VT can destabilize the rest of operating systems running on virtual partitionsCalin - Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - link
Executive series of mainboards probably have air conditioned as standardShintai - Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - link
Hmm..I think people have too high expertations after the few last years of gigahurtz.I think 65nm will give us affordable AMD64 X2s maybe a speedbump to 5000 and 5200. But I think it will be more focused on quad cores, cheaper manufactoring and lower power consumption.
P4 65nm. I think we might see the 4Ghz now. But else the same thing as with AMD, cheaper dualcores, lower power usage.
Yonah is abit different, size the manufactoring cost of Yonah wont increase that much compared to a P4/X2 dualcore. But yonah sports SSE3, some 20-30% faster speed at the same frequency. So Yonah will be desktop and server attractive. More than Dothan is now. Plus it keeps its low powerusage. Also a speedbump is likely here.
But remember people, building an X2 or P4D is alot more expensive than a singlecore. So 65nm is not the "Yiiihah" speedbumpage. But more like the 1100$ AMD 4800 X2 down to 3-500$ thing.
So I wouldn´t really expect much other than more cores and alittle tweak here and there until K9 and Meron/Conroe.
Furen - Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - link
If I ran two operating systems at once, I'd basically idle on one while working on the other one. So my overhead for running to OSes would mostly be memory. It'd be like dualbooting without the booting, you just switch your active OS whenever you wish to. It'd be great for those of us who prefer *nix OSes but NEED windows for specific tasks *cough*games*cough*.The problem, of course, will end up being how much additional software will be needed to do this (not to mention how much it will cost ^^), I'm guessing it wont be just installing both OSes and then booting them.
dotdotperiod - Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - link
Seriously why are you guys concerned about clock speed, as everyone has reported clock speed does not equate to a significant increase in performance. BTW who in the hell needs to run four operating systems at once?? I mean it reallY?? Glad to see intel in finally going to stop making two of the same chipset and giving them different names. I almost fell asleep looking at all the different cpu's seems like the same stuff just a different day. I dont run a multi billion dollar company but Intel should seriously simplify and stop getting there teeth kicked in by AMD.Eug - Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - link
I'm surprised that so many people are complaining about the 2.16 GHz Yonah when it's dual-core and so low power. It's only about 35 Watts people.