It’s finally here. The successor to Conroe, the Intel Core 2 Duo processor that started Intel on this unrelenting march towards success. AnandTech and The Tech Report have great writeups and benchmarks on the new Intel architecture. They’re fast little processors, but as it stands: these chips are for the high end user.

As impressive as these performance gains are, the affordable and “mainstream” line of Core i7s are scheduled for mid-2009 launch. While the current crop of Core i7’s will be using the LGA-1366 socket interface, the upcoming mainstream line will be outfitted for LGA-1156 sockets.

So then I will wait.

By that time DDR3 memory should cost a little less which hopefully means I will be able to go triple channel without much fuss. I’m also hoping Intel will be very kind with the pricing. After all, this new architecture is making AMD look very silly and slow.

We know Intel’s upcoming Nehalem is going to fairly speedy. A lot of people have gotten their hands on early silicon and it’s safe to say that it will be provide a good performance bump. One nagging question though: What will be called? Core 3? Nope.

Core i7

The logo looks nice and the name is alright, but what I completely forgot about was the fact that this new architecture will be using DDR3 memory. The more expensive DDR3 memory. The prices aren’t too shabby at the moment. In fact, I used to pay $200+ CAD for just DDR2 memory. And I’m sure the prices will fall.

So with pricing a non-issue, I just need to find a real reason to upgrade my hardware.

Well it’s technically not a “GPU”. It’s actually something like this:

Well, it is important to keep in mind that this is first and foremost NOT a GPU. It’s a CPU. A many-core CPU that is optimized for data-parallel processing. What’s the difference? Well, there is very little fixed function hardware, and the hardware is targeted to run general purpose code as easily as possible. The bottom lines is that Intel can make this very wide many-core CPU look like a GPU by implementing software libraries to handle DirectX and OpenGL.

So it’s not really a GPU by default, but this upcoming Intel processor can run GPU code. Great, isn’t? This is a small step towards what could be Intel’s official move into the GPU market. It isn’t happening for another year or so, but it’s worth checking out if you’re interested.

AnandTech has a technical writeup explaining what and how Larabee will work. This could be the beginning of something spectacular.

What I found most interesting is how Intel is re-using re-tooled Intel Pentium processors for this new CPU design. They’ve managed to squeeze in about 10 of these original Pentium cores into the same die space of a Core 2 Duo.

So after seeing how competitive the Radeon HD 4870 was, I bet it was getting awfully difficult for NVIDIA to price their new video cards at $649.99 USD and $399.99 USD respectively. NVIDIA’s only course of action was a hefty price cut. NVIDIA cut the Geforce GTX 280’s price down to $499.99 USD and the 260’s price to around $329.99 USD.

In other news, Intel is apparently planning to cut prices on its processors as well. The details of the cuts are non-existent, but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re shopping for a new PC in the near future.

Intel’s Atom based devices are slowly rolling out, but what about AMD? They have nothing at the moment. We’ll have to wait until 2009 for AMD’s contribution to this up and coming processor market. As for details, check out this quote:

“This new report still doesn’t mention a name for the chip, but it says AMD will base it on a 65nm K8 core clocked at 1.2GHz. That mostly corroborates the leaked slide, which mentioned a 1GHz AMD64 CPU with 256KB of cache, a built-in DDR2-400 memory controller, an 8W power envelope, and a 27 x 27-mm ball-grid-array package. AMD will supposedly attempt to undercut Intel’s Atom with lower prices.”

Cheaper than Atom? Not bad. Consume more power than Atom? Ooo…I don’t know about that.

Intel has been on top of the CPU performance world for awhile now. Ever since their Conroe architecture hit two years ago, we’ve been blessed with some of the greatest processors ever. Now it’s time for Intel to show that their “tick-tock” strategy works.

It works and AnandTech has a great sneak preview of the 8-threaded monster. Here’s an abbreviated summary:

• Native quad-core design
• Hyper-threading enabled for each core. (4 physical cores + 4 logical cores = 8 threads)
• Integrated memory multi-channel (not dual channel) controller (Uses three 64-bit DD3 channels)
• 20 - 30% performance improvement over its predecessory (Penryn)
• Power consumption only up by approximately 10%
• Will require a new socket: Socket LGA 1366

Completely new CPU with Nehalem? Why not? I’m in no rush.

Ludicrous. A 140W CPU? Obviously this is catered towards the enthusiast, but one hundred forty watts for a CPU?! That’s just insane. ASUS doesn’t seem to think so since they have plans to accomodate such monstrosities.

There’s focus smaller and less power hungry processors though with news of an Intel Atom dual-core processor running at 1.6 GHz and consuming a measily 8 watts of power. That’s impressive. So impressive that NVIDIA wants to get into the small CPU space and make their own processors.

Atom is a big deal. With the success of the Asus EEE PC and Apple iPhone, the desire for more performance in smaller form factors is slowly ramping up. Imagine a handheld device like the iPhone, but with the power to run a game like Unreal Tournament 2004 and all the other typical PC applications with no slowdowns. Imagine the headache engineers must be endure in order to squeeze so much power into such a small form factor with current processor offerings.

The new Intel Atom architecture is hoping to achieve all that.

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I recall the days of single core to dual-core transition. I hopped onto the bandwagon rather early because I saw and experienced the benefits first hand through the multi-threaded nature Hyper Threaded Pentium 4’s.

Dual-core is awesome and benefitial, but what about quad-core? Great for encoding, but overkill for a desktop. Most single applications have yet to fully utilize dual-cores. Even if you are running multiple CPU intensive tasks, dual-cores should suffice. That is, unless you insist on encoding 2 movies at the same time while playing World of Warcraft.

So why is Intel bringing a six core processor in the second half of 2008? For servers and those who multitask with the power of 3 persons of course. Just because we don’t need six cores, doesn’t mean Intel should stop pushing the boundaries.

It’s hard to imagine Intel going out of their way to create a processor for anyone, but themselves. However, it appears that Intel is making a habit of taking custom processor orders - specifically from Apple. It started out small with a custom Dothan processor for the Apple TV and then a custom Merom processor for the recently announced MacBook Air.
 
None of these custom orders have been drastic, but they are not typical of Intel. Typically, Intel sells a platform (ie: Centrino) or a chip to its customers and then they would do their best to accomodate Intel’s products into their own. Even the original Xbox’s processor was an “off the shelf” Intel Pentium III based design. Not even the almighty Microsoft could sway Intel for a specially catered design for its first console.

But times are changing.

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