Topic: one for the computer people Intel to dump new products

[Khalee]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4923373/

[Javora]

What a bunch of bull, this has a lot more to do with Longhorn than heat issues.
 

[TB613]

I think this has less to do with Longhorn than keeping parity with AMD. While Intel is the much larger company they have become the one reacting to what the AMD does instead of forcing AMD to react to them as it was only a few years ago.  

[James_Smith]

Quote:
I think this has less to do with Longhorn than keeping parity with AMD. While Intel is the much larger company they have become the one reacting to what the AMD does instead of forcing AMD to react to them as it was only a few years ago.  

Agreed. AMD has been talking about their dual-core Opteron CPU's a lot recently, and I guess they must have rattled Intel somewhat. I think AMD may have worried them now, considering how Intel have had to ramp up their clockspeed at very high levels in order to compete.  

[IKV Nemesis D7L]

My thinking is that AMD has derailed Intels plans.  

Now intel is adding AMD64 support, those new designs were probably too late in the develpment process to add it.  

They are also looking into adding a on chip memory controller (again following AMD) and again likely too late in the process to add.  

The chips were already obsolete and don't fit into the new plans.

Intels plans don't seem to have included the concept of AMD being able to execute their plans.  Fortunately it appears that Intel is wrong.  Much better for competition in the market place.  

[Praxis]

It's quite pathetic.

Out of the major competition, the Pentium 4 has the worst performance, generates the most heat, and (I think) costs the most.

Compare the three:

Dual 2 GHz G5...(the G5 is designed to be in dual processor machines, which is why I use it that way)...it costs as much as an Alienware with a 3.2 ghz P4 and smaller hard drive...yet generates less heat and less fan noise, and usually outperforms the P4.

AMD Athlon 64 always outperforms the P4, and also generates less heat, and costs less.

(can't compare the G5 processor costs because its very hard to buy the processors alone).

Why pay more for something that is outperformed, and generates more heat, requiring a louder fan?

[James_Smith]

Quote:
It's quite pathetic.

Out of the major competition, the Pentium 4 has the worst performance, generates the most heat, and (I think) costs the most.

Compare the three:

Dual 2 GHz G5...(the G5 is designed to be in dual processor machines, which is why I use it that way)...it costs as much as an Alienware with a 3.2 ghz P4 and smaller hard drive...yet generates less heat and less fan noise, and usually outperforms the P4.

AMD Athlon 64 always outperforms the P4, and also generates less heat, and costs less.

(can't compare the G5 processor costs because its very hard to buy the processors alone).

Why pay more for something that is outperformed, and generates more heat, requiring a louder fan?  

Thing is, if you can put up with even more heat - the P4 series will overclock to something silly. Over 4 ghz is quite possible using water-cooling, close to 5ghz possible if you go a little more exotic (phase-change for example). Personally, I just overclock an AMD64-3200+ to 2.3ghz and laugh as my mate's P4 3.06 tries to keep up.

[David Ferrell]

OK, admittedly I'm an Intel fan boy, and apparently some here are AMD
FBs:

Could it be that Intel is just really pleased with the HT chips they already
have on the market?

Does AMD have any dual core chips on the market yet?  

Oh well, don't want to start a flame war here, just a couple random
thoughts.

Thanks,

Dave

[IKV Nemesis D7L]

Quote:
OK, admittedly I'm an Intel fan boy, and apparently some here are AMD
FBs:

Could it be that Intel is just really pleased with the HT chips they already
have on the market?

Does AMD have any dual core chips on the market yet?  

Oh well, don't want to start a flame war here, just a couple random
thoughts.

Thanks,

Dave  

At present HT is mostly hype.  There are some programs that benefit but most don't and some lose performance.  You also need (unless MS has provided a patch for XP Home) the PRO versions of windows that are capable of multiprocessor use to gain access to HT functionality, or Linux of course.  

Microsoft resisted HT and only reluctantly added the ability.  Intially each HT CPU was detected as 2 CPUs.  Which required that you buy a much more expensive version of windows to use HT than non HT versions. Which for single CPU HT systems in a business setting was not too bad as most businesses seem to use the PRO version of Windows even on single CPU systems.  For dual or higher CPU systems the expense of doubling the effective CPU count is much higher.  Fortunately MS caved in on this and activates HT without counting it as a CPU for purposes of pricing Windows.  The Linux ability to use it by default seems to have influenced MS on this.

Does Intel have a dual core chip on the market?  No.    

Intel has announced that they are working on dual core, but with the heat of the single core Prescott chips just released they need to do some substantial reworking before that can be achieved or they will have to use the "Centrino" laptop chip as the basis for multi core operations.  Combine that with adding AMD64 capabliity and  an integrated memory controller (both of which they have announced) and you have a major overhaul in a relatively short time to get to the dual core level.  If they do go the Centrino route they also have to dump their entire megahertz is everything advertising campaigns.  

Dual core like HT requires the PRO version of windows or any linux to access the extra power.  Even then many programs would not gain anything.  SFC as I understand it is not multi threaded and therefore would not gain.  Two cores in one chip would not double performance even for those programs that can use it as they will share the same memory bandwith, which is also a problem with XEON multiprocessor computers.  

Does AMD have a dual core chip on the market?  Also no.  

When Intel announced their multi core work AMD announced that the Athlon 64/Opteron had been designed with dual core capability from the ground up.  So adding the 2nd core is or should be easy, providing that they can make a dual core chip that does not have heat problems.  The only other thing that they would need to add is SSE3 ability, which is currently just hype for virtually all uses.  Since SSE3 is (I believe) merely an extension of SSE2 that should be easy.

AMD has announced that they will ship a Dual core Opteron in 2005.

Dual core Athlon 64/Opterons like HT or dual core P4's (or Centrinos) need an OS capable of dual CPU access, again the PRO versions of Windows or any Linux.  Like the proposed Intel products only those programs which are created multi threaded will be able to access that power.  Also like the Intel the 2 cores will share memory bandwidth which will limit performance.  

One thing that AMD has announced that gives them an advantage is that dual core Athlon 64/Opterons will be socket compatible with existing 940 pin socket motherboards.  The only revision that they may require is a bios update.  Whether AMD can achieve this we will have to wait and see, but I would expect that motherboards made once manufacturers have access to engineering samples will have the ability.

Some additonal comments:

An advantage of the Opteron is that it is designed for NUMA (non uniform memory architecture) which allows each CPU in a multi CPU system (but not each core in a dual core chip) to have its own memory.  This allows a multi CPU system to not be bandwidth choked and gain a greater performance boost with each additonal chip than the XEON with shared bandwidth does.  Combine this with dual core and AMD based Opteron systems with 2 processors x 2 cores ought to make a real dent in the Intel server and workstation market.   AMD has announced improvements that should allow the efficiency of multi CPU systems to increase even further, how this will affect dual core single CPU systems I can't say.

Xeon systems can use NUMA as well, but it is not directly supported by the CPU and is harder to design for than with the Opteron so you seem to see it less.  NUMA seems to be the default configuration with Opteron motherboards as non NUMA is for XEONs.  The only disadvantage is that you need more memory for NUMA.  However the price savings in Opteron vs XEON processors levels that out to a great degree.  

AMD also created hyper transport (not to be confused with hyper threading even though both are abbreviated HT) which is used in multi CPU systems to allow the CPUs a high speed interconnect for coordinating their activities independently of the memory access systems.  This can and will be used in dual core chips for communications between cores.  As far as I am aware Intel leaves this up to the chipset and it takes some of the systems memory bandwidth to achieve, so they will have to create a similar function from scratch for their dual core chips.

As a small caveat the only dual CPU systems I have used are AMD Athlon MPs (more accurately Athlon XP's adjusted to detect as MPs).   So I could be wrong on the prevalance of non NUMA XEONS compared to NUMA.  
 
Am I an AMD fanboy?  No, I do like good design and go for the "best bang for the buck".  At present that is AMD for my purposes.  

My first non intel CPU was an AMD K6-2 400 mhz and that was chosen because I could upgrade the motherboard and memory  at one time then replace the Pentium 90 chip later.  Incremental upgrades is what I needed at the time, to go to a Pentium 2 I would have needed to replace the motherboard, memory, CPU, case and powersupply, it was not in the budget.  The motherboard and memory boosted the Pentium 90 performance dramatically, Norton utilities rated it as performing like a Pentium 177 (up from being rated at 105 before the motherboard swap).  

[James_Smith]

Quote:
OK, admittedly I'm an Intel fan boy, and apparently some here are AMD
FBs:

Could it be that Intel is just really pleased with the HT chips they already
have on the market?

Does AMD have any dual core chips on the market yet?  

Oh well, don't want to start a flame war here, just a couple random
thoughts.

Thanks,

Dave  

AFAIK, AMD haven't shipped any dual-core CPU's yet. But they have been doing the rounds with them, showing them off and giving interviews about them, which may have hastened Intel's decision. Or maybe it didn't, and Intel planned this a while back - their roadmap could have been a ruse to try and throw AMD a bit.

Intel's P4 still has an edge where clockspeed counts (repetitive tasks, media encoding etc). Trouble is, with their pipeline length they have great trouble doing anything very complicated unless there's a lot of cache on the chip (if they get something wrong, they have to go a long way back to restart the calculation, more cache means more data near the CPU rather than having to go back to memory for it). Hence the extreme sh*tness of Celerons, and why you have the ridiculous situation where a 1.6ghz Duron is faster than a 2.6ghz Celly. You can see it in the benchmarks hardware sites do - Intel takes a lead in the synthetic benchies and Encoding tasks, AMD beats them in Gaming and similar operations.

On my last upgrade I considered an Intel setup, but then realised that for the same money I could go to an AMD64 setup and have a faster system for slightly lower cost as well. Made the decision fairly easy - and I'm very happy with this AMD64 setup.

[Praxis]

Quote:
OK, admittedly I'm an Intel fan boy, and apparently some here are AMD
FBs:
Could it be that Intel is just really pleased with the HT chips they already
have on the market?

HT isn't that big a deal.

It would be useful on a Mac, and a little useful in Photoshop and a few other pro programs in Windows, but nothing more.

HT gives a minor speed boost to any program designed to take advantage of multiprocessors.  Guess what...most programs aren't :P

Mac OS X is multithreaded and can spread itself over two processors, but Windows isn't- so Windows will only use one processor, and with HT will show no difference.

Almost all games for Mac or Windows are one processor only, so HT won't make a difference.

Most programs are single threaded, so HT won't make a difference.

Maybe it'll help a little on Photoshop, but if the OS itself (Windows) isn't multithreaded, photoshop can only take so much advantage of it.

[Khalee]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4923373/

[Javora]

What a bunch of bull, this has a lot more to do with Longhorn than heat issues.
 

[TB613]

I think this has less to do with Longhorn than keeping parity with AMD. While Intel is the much larger company they have become the one reacting to what the AMD does instead of forcing AMD to react to them as it was only a few years ago.  

[James_Smith]

Quote:
I think this has less to do with Longhorn than keeping parity with AMD. While Intel is the much larger company they have become the one reacting to what the AMD does instead of forcing AMD to react to them as it was only a few years ago.  

Agreed. AMD has been talking about their dual-core Opteron CPU's a lot recently, and I guess they must have rattled Intel somewhat. I think AMD may have worried them now, considering how Intel have had to ramp up their clockspeed at very high levels in order to compete.  

[IKV Nemesis D7L]

My thinking is that AMD has derailed Intels plans.  

Now intel is adding AMD64 support, those new designs were probably too late in the develpment process to add it.  

They are also looking into adding a on chip memory controller (again following AMD) and again likely too late in the process to add.  

The chips were already obsolete and don't fit into the new plans.

Intels plans don't seem to have included the concept of AMD being able to execute their plans.  Fortunately it appears that Intel is wrong.  Much better for competition in the market place.  

[Praxis]

It's quite pathetic.

Out of the major competition, the Pentium 4 has the worst performance, generates the most heat, and (I think) costs the most.

Compare the three:

Dual 2 GHz G5...(the G5 is designed to be in dual processor machines, which is why I use it that way)...it costs as much as an Alienware with a 3.2 ghz P4 and smaller hard drive...yet generates less heat and less fan noise, and usually outperforms the P4.

AMD Athlon 64 always outperforms the P4, and also generates less heat, and costs less.

(can't compare the G5 processor costs because its very hard to buy the processors alone).

Why pay more for something that is outperformed, and generates more heat, requiring a louder fan?

[James_Smith]

Quote:
It's quite pathetic.

Out of the major competition, the Pentium 4 has the worst performance, generates the most heat, and (I think) costs the most.

Compare the three:

Dual 2 GHz G5...(the G5 is designed to be in dual processor machines, which is why I use it that way)...it costs as much as an Alienware with a 3.2 ghz P4 and smaller hard drive...yet generates less heat and less fan noise, and usually outperforms the P4.

AMD Athlon 64 always outperforms the P4, and also generates less heat, and costs less.

(can't compare the G5 processor costs because its very hard to buy the processors alone).

Why pay more for something that is outperformed, and generates more heat, requiring a louder fan?  

Thing is, if you can put up with even more heat - the P4 series will overclock to something silly. Over 4 ghz is quite possible using water-cooling, close to 5ghz possible if you go a little more exotic (phase-change for example). Personally, I just overclock an AMD64-3200+ to 2.3ghz and laugh as my mate's P4 3.06 tries to keep up.

[David Ferrell]

OK, admittedly I'm an Intel fan boy, and apparently some here are AMD
FBs:

Could it be that Intel is just really pleased with the HT chips they already
have on the market?

Does AMD have any dual core chips on the market yet?  

Oh well, don't want to start a flame war here, just a couple random
thoughts.

Thanks,

Dave

[IKV Nemesis D7L]

Quote:
OK, admittedly I'm an Intel fan boy, and apparently some here are AMD
FBs:

Could it be that Intel is just really pleased with the HT chips they already
have on the market?

Does AMD have any dual core chips on the market yet?  

Oh well, don't want to start a flame war here, just a couple random
thoughts.

Thanks,

Dave  

At present HT is mostly hype.  There are some programs that benefit but most don't and some lose performance.  You also need (unless MS has provided a patch for XP Home) the PRO versions of windows that are capable of multiprocessor use to gain access to HT functionality, or Linux of course.  

Microsoft resisted HT and only reluctantly added the ability.  Intially each HT CPU was detected as 2 CPUs.  Which required that you buy a much more expensive version of windows to use HT than non HT versions. Which for single CPU HT systems in a business setting was not too bad as most businesses seem to use the PRO version of Windows even on single CPU systems.  For dual or higher CPU systems the expense of doubling the effective CPU count is much higher.  Fortunately MS caved in on this and activates HT without counting it as a CPU for purposes of pricing Windows.  The Linux ability to use it by default seems to have influenced MS on this.

Does Intel have a dual core chip on the market?  No.    

Intel has announced that they are working on dual core, but with the heat of the single core Prescott chips just released they need to do some substantial reworking before that can be achieved or they will have to use the "Centrino" laptop chip as the basis for multi core operations.  Combine that with adding AMD64 capabliity and  an integrated memory controller (both of which they have announced) and you have a major overhaul in a relatively short time to get to the dual core level.  If they do go the Centrino route they also have to dump their entire megahertz is everything advertising campaigns.  

Dual core like HT requires the PRO version of windows or any linux to access the extra power.  Even then many programs would not gain anything.  SFC as I understand it is not multi threaded and therefore would not gain.  Two cores in one chip would not double performance even for those programs that can use it as they will share the same memory bandwith, which is also a problem with XEON multiprocessor computers.  

Does AMD have a dual core chip on the market?  Also no.  

When Intel announced their multi core work AMD announced that the Athlon 64/Opteron had been designed with dual core capability from the ground up.  So adding the 2nd core is or should be easy, providing that they can make a dual core chip that does not have heat problems.  The only other thing that they would need to add is SSE3 ability, which is currently just hype for virtually all uses.  Since SSE3 is (I believe) merely an extension of SSE2 that should be easy.

AMD has announced that they will ship a Dual core Opteron in 2005.

Dual core Athlon 64/Opterons like HT or dual core P4's (or Centrinos) need an OS capable of dual CPU access, again the PRO versions of Windows or any Linux.  Like the proposed Intel products only those programs which are created multi threaded will be able to access that power.  Also like the Intel the 2 cores will share memory bandwidth which will limit performance.  

One thing that AMD has announced that gives them an advantage is that dual core Athlon 64/Opterons will be socket compatible with existing 940 pin socket motherboards.  The only revision that they may require is a bios update.  Whether AMD can achieve this we will have to wait and see, but I would expect that motherboards made once manufacturers have access to engineering samples will have the ability.

Some additonal comments:

An advantage of the Opteron is that it is designed for NUMA (non uniform memory architecture) which allows each CPU in a multi CPU system (but not each core in a dual core chip) to have its own memory.  This allows a multi CPU system to not be bandwidth choked and gain a greater performance boost with each additonal chip than the XEON with shared bandwidth does.  Combine this with dual core and AMD based Opteron systems with 2 processors x 2 cores ought to make a real dent in the Intel server and workstation market.   AMD has announced improvements that should allow the efficiency of multi CPU systems to increase even further, how this will affect dual core single CPU systems I can't say.

Xeon systems can use NUMA as well, but it is not directly supported by the CPU and is harder to design for than with the Opteron so you seem to see it less.  NUMA seems to be the default configuration with Opteron motherboards as non NUMA is for XEONs.  The only disadvantage is that you need more memory for NUMA.  However the price savings in Opteron vs XEON processors levels that out to a great degree.  

AMD also created hyper transport (not to be confused with hyper threading even though both are abbreviated HT) which is used in multi CPU systems to allow the CPUs a high speed interconnect for coordinating their activities independently of the memory access systems.  This can and will be used in dual core chips for communications between cores.  As far as I am aware Intel leaves this up to the chipset and it takes some of the systems memory bandwidth to achieve, so they will have to create a similar function from scratch for their dual core chips.

As a small caveat the only dual CPU systems I have used are AMD Athlon MPs (more accurately Athlon XP's adjusted to detect as MPs).   So I could be wrong on the prevalance of non NUMA XEONS compared to NUMA.  
 
Am I an AMD fanboy?  No, I do like good design and go for the "best bang for the buck".  At present that is AMD for my purposes.  

My first non intel CPU was an AMD K6-2 400 mhz and that was chosen because I could upgrade the motherboard and memory  at one time then replace the Pentium 90 chip later.  Incremental upgrades is what I needed at the time, to go to a Pentium 2 I would have needed to replace the motherboard, memory, CPU, case and powersupply, it was not in the budget.  The motherboard and memory boosted the Pentium 90 performance dramatically, Norton utilities rated it as performing like a Pentium 177 (up from being rated at 105 before the motherboard swap).