Opening the Kimono: Intel Details Nehalem and Tempts with Larrabee
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 17, 2008 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Nehalem will support 2-way SMT (two threads per core), much like the Pentium 4 did before it. With a shorter pipeline than NetBurst and a greater ability to get data to the cores, there's more opportunity for increased parallelism (and thus performance) thanks to SMT on Nehalem than on Pentium 4.
The cache subsystem of Nehalem is almost entirely changed from Penryn. While Nehalem has the same 32KB L1 instruction and data caches of Penryn, the L2 and L3 caches are brand new. Each core in a quad-core Nehalem now has a smaller 256KB L2 cache, which Intel is calling "low latency" (potentially lower latency than Penryn thanks to a smaller cache size). While ditching the shared L2, Intel equipped Nehalem with a large 8MB fully-shared L3 cache that can be used by all cores.
This setup seems very similar to AMD's Phenom architecture, obviously built on Intel's Core 2 base however - the major difference here is that the cache hierarchy is inclusive and not exclusive like AMD's. The inclusive architecture means that each level of cache has a copy of data from the lower cache levels.
Nehalem effectively includes the only remaining advantages AMD held over Intel with respect to memory performance and interconnect speed - you can expect a tremendous performance increase going from Penryn to Nehalem because of this. Intel is expecting memory accesses to be around twice the speed in Nehalem as they are in Penryn, which thanks to its aggressive prefetchers are already incredibly fast. If you think Intel's performance advantage is significant today, Nehalem should completely redefine your perspective - AMD needs its Bobcat and Bulldozer cores if it is going to want to compete.
Intel has also added a new 2nd level TLB in Nehalem, similar in approach to its new 2nd level branch predictor. The first level TLB does a good job of keeping the cores fed quickly, but if there isn't a physical/virtual address mapping found in the first level TLB Nehalem can now look in the second level TLB instead of looking in the cache to keep performance high and latency low.
The TLB enhancements in particular look to be particularly great at server workloads, we suspect that Intel may be looking to really take on Opteron with Nehalem.
Above you see examples of the first Nehalem platforms - they should look very familiar to block diagrams of AMD K8 platforms we've seen for years now. The first high end desktop Nehalem parts will have an integrated 3-channel DDR3 memory controller supporting DDR3-800, 1066 and 1333.
On the server side you'll see registered memory support from Nehalem's IMC.
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dreddly - Monday, March 17, 2008 - link
Am I the only one who finds this headline offensive to women? Japan's gender relations are bad enough without another western male-dominated site using the sexualized asian women as a standard trope to talk about 'exposing' new information.AcaClone - Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - link
Wow, I am really impressed how easy some people get offended - but then I am Danish ;-)However, your state of mind is entirely ungrounded and based on a lacking understanding of Japan - some people might get offended by such lacking knowledge about cultures. Kimonos are worn by BOTH sexes - I know for sure, as I have worn one often both when visiting and working in Japan.
Kjeld Olesen
dreddly - Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - link
So would 'Up the skirt' be an equally appropriate headline?Skirts and kilts are also worn by men, so if the image was replaced by a man in a skirt and 'Up the skirt' was the headline would it still be appropriate?
The point is that the headline and the image have nothing whatsoever to do with the accompanying article.
It is inappropriate on a technology site to equate the release of a new processor with the exposure of a asian women's body (would the reference be as titillating if it was an white north american woman?). If this was maxim, this would be a different story, but there is a long history of western society stereotyping asian women as submissive sexualized objects, that this headline yet again reproduces.
masher2 - Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - link
> "would the reference be as titillating if it was an white north american woman?"Would you be as offended if it were? As for your nonsense about the headline "stereotyping asian women as submissive sex objects", sounds like you have too much time on your hands to me.
The world has *real* problems. This isn't one of them. Men like women...so what? Go to any beach in the world and you'll see women intentionally exposing far more than this picture...or was suggested by the headline.
dreddly - Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - link
> Would you be as offended if it were? As for your nonsense about the headline "stereotyping asian women as submissive sex objects", sounds like you have too much time on your hands to me.My point was that the absurdity and offense would be doubly obvious. The rest of your point was a non-sequitur.
>The world has *real* problems. This isn't one of them. Men like women...so what? Go to any beach in the world and you'll see women intentionally exposing far more than this picture...or was suggested by the headline.
Then why wasn't the picture one of women on a beach - or any instance where a woman was obviously choosing to disrobe? The point is that this type of thinking breeds environments that are hostile and objectifying to women. I hope that your organization doesn't run into any litigious women down the road, because this type of thinking breeds situations ripe for lawsuits. If that isn't a 'real problem' for you, you must be better off than most...
masher2 - Wednesday, March 19, 2008 - link
> "The point is that this type of thinking breeds environments that are hostile and objectifying to women"Ah, so now a picture of a woman in a kimono is now responsible for causing rape and abuse of women? Thank god you're not a member of the movie censorship board, or we'd all be watching nothing but reruns of "Lassie" and 'The Ghost and Mr. Chicken".
> "Then why wasn't the picture one of women on a beach - or any instance where a woman was obviously choosing to disrobe?"
You believe the woman in that picture was kidnapped and forced to wear that kimono? I see, I see...interesting theory!
dreddly - Wednesday, March 19, 2008 - link
Perhaps more disturbing is the fact that you think 'hostility and objectification' EQUALS rape and abuse. I made no such implication, and you seem to be exposing a hostility towards women of your own in such a statement.The image is irrelevant and immaterial to the article. It should be removed at that basis.
The woman on the beach would be choosing an objectification of her body. The image of the woman in the Kimono was making no such implication, and it was the accompanying headline that insinuated that idea.
If there were no other undertones, then we should all agree that a man wearing a kilt (lets say Gibson from Braveheart) could be pictured with the headline 'Up the skirt' and it would be interpreted the same way.
masher2 - Wednesday, March 19, 2008 - link
> The woman on the beach would be choosing an objectification of her body. The image of the woman in the Kimono was making no such implication"The woman in the photo chose to have her picture taken. Or are you again reverting to the wild idea she was somehow forced against her will to model?
> "The image is irrelevant and immaterial to the article"
It's a metaphor, equating Intel's openness to the intimacy generated during a sexual encounter. Get it? A valid literary technique, sadly misinterpreted by a few priggish bible-thumper wannabees.
> "you seem to be exposing a hostility towards women of your own in such a statement. "
You're seriously reaching with such nonsense.
jasongg06 - Wednesday, March 19, 2008 - link
"The woman in the photo chose to have her picture taken. Or are you again reverting to the wild idea she was somehow forced against her will to model? "The woman may have had her photo taken, but do you honestly thing it was for this article?
"It's a metaphor, equating Intel's openness to the intimacy generated during a sexual encounter. Get it? A valid literary technique, sadly misinterpreted by a few priggish bible-thumper wannabees. "
The metaphor/analogy or w/e you want to call it, was made with bad judgment and is inappropriate. Why you're still defending it, I don't know, but you should seek some help. The fact that you think stuff like this is acceptable tells us something about your character, or your lack of.
masher2 - Wednesday, March 19, 2008 - link
But no one here has successfully advanced any argument as to *why* you believe this is objectionable. Except for a few vague mutterings about "objectification" which are wholly unconvincing,Yes, the headline subtly interjected sex into the article context. Was it "tasteless"? I won't offer an opinion, but it certainly was not "insulting to women" -- or even worse, "all Asians". In fact, I find a comment singling out a certain race to be racist in itself.
As for my personal views on the subject, they correspond perfectly with those of feminist Camile Paglia, a woman whose been called 'the Smartest Woman in America'. Most men enjoy sex. A slightly smaller percentage of women do as well. Using a sexual metaphor to sell a story isn't in itself "objectifying" women. I saw nothing in the headline which "perpetuated any stereotypes" of submission, dominance, or sexual exploitation.
> "The woman may have had her photo taken, but do you honestly thing it was for this article? "
Why do you think it would even matter?