Curse

Lord Sojar · Feb 11, 2009, 03:58 AM // 03:58

Intel seems to be gunning for AMD; gunning for the kill. They have cancelled Core i5 45nm processors (Auburndale and Havendale). Oh noes right? Ah, quite the opposite.

These processors were originally slated for release mid 2010. However, Intel has ramped up their P1268 32nm fabrication development, and has slated Core i5 32nm processors (Clarkdale and Arrandale) for an early Q4 release.

This is a very fast, extremely aggressive move for the market. These processors were not slated for release until the same time 2010. This is a full year earlier, and we will be seeing Intel's new baby, P1268.

What does this mean to you? Well, it means buying should absolutely be held off until this release. The technology leap will be enormous, and pricing should reflect the near 50% reduction in production costs Intel will see from moving to 32nm.

In addition to just the die shrink, the move to 32nm will also be the time at which Intel will release Hyper Threading (HT) 2.0. The new version of HT will allow a full 2 threads per core to be run in parallel, increasing Intel's performance lead just that much more. In addition, their second generation integrated memory controller will debut <font color="FireBrick">paired with an integrated graphics chip</font>. Yes, you read that correctly: Fusion, but not by AMD...

Article discussing this can be found HERE

In addition to this radical move, Intel has stepped up production of their new chipsets, which are well featured and cool running. Q57 (Piketon) is being targeted at the business community, while P55 (Kings Creek) is targeted at the performance and mainstream consumer market.

You can read about that HERE

But that isn't the end of this story...

Nehalem's successor has been unveiled for all to see. Say hello to Gulftown. Gulftown features a whopping 6 cores, but with HT 2.0, that effectively makes it 12. In addition, clock speeds may purge 3.6GHz. Gulftown will use the x58 chipset, and Intel may release the x68 chipset mid 2010, featuring USB 3.0, SATA 6Gbps, and PCIe 3.0.

Read that article HERE

So, in summary.... Intel + axe + hammer + death beam + nuclear bomb = dead AMD. AMD will have to work a miracle into their roadmap in order to stop the juggernaut tactics Intel is using. Unfortunately for AMD, Bulldozer may come 8 months too late.

Discuss?

kvndoom · Feb 11, 2009, 05:38 AM // 05:38

Pretty scary. Lot of people who were system building in the 90's remember > $1000 CPU's when Intel had no real competition. Nobody wants to see that again, and I'm not the only one who's scared. Good competition brings better products and lower prices.

That said, AMD has no one to blame but themselves. They didn't push their advantage hard enough when they did have the better product, and now it's biting them in the ass big-time. I hope their infusion of money from foreign investors and the new fabs keep them in the game, but the next few years are probably going to be very hard on them.

deluxe · Feb 11, 2009, 06:13 AM // 06:13

I always like the underdogs, and I think it's a smart move from AMD that they bought ATi.
Since that's where they can compete with nVidia.
I'm afraid AMD will lose the battle with Intel.
AMD's 1st Phenom could not compete with the Core2, and idk about the Phenom II.
We'll just have to see what's AMD going to do.

Divinity Sword · Feb 11, 2009, 08:32 AM // 08:32

Heh such expensive pieces of hardware that you will barely ever use xD. Even people with quad cores hardly use 50%. No, 50 internet explorers open at once doesn't count as "l33t". For that matter some games don't even know how to handle more than one or two cores. If your FPS is 800, you should seriously consider buying something more usefull

. Sure those numbers are high and mighty but it's debatable that the human eye can even see that many fps lol.

Lord Sojar · Feb 11, 2009, 02:52 PM // 14:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divinity Sword

Heh such expensive pieces of hardware that you will barely ever use xD. Even people with quad cores hardly use 50%. No, 50 internet explorers open at once doesn't count as "l33t". For that matter some games don't even know how to handle more than one or two cores. If your FPS is 800, you should seriously consider buying something more usefull

. Sure those numbers are high and mighty but it's debatable that the human eye can even see that many fps lol.

While Core i5 will no doubt have amazing performance being based on the 32nm fab, it is still a mainstream processor.

There is a lot more to a CPU than just sheer number of cores. i5 and i7 are entirely new architectures that streamline data better, manage threading better (thus utilizing their cores better), run faster and cooler, use less power, and provide a smoother computing environment. The next iteration (Core i5 32nm) will also contain 6 new instruction sets dedicated to encryption and decryption of data for security. That is a big big benefit.

In addition, these new CPUs have an integrated graphics processor on chip, meaning that they will eliminate overhead commonly found in low end PCs for standard users. BluRay acceleration (as the format has reduced in price substantially in the last 4 months) might actually work for once on an Intel IGP.

Burst Cancel · Feb 11, 2009, 05:32 PM // 17:32

Bloomfield runs cooler? Cooler than Prescott, maybe. i7 has higher performance/watt, but as any overclocker will tell you, these babies get toasty.

There's no point in holding off for new architectures; something new is always coming out. You buy what you need, when you need it, at the lowest prices you can find at the time. If you don't need it right this second and there's a price cut coming around the corner, maybe you can delay for a month or two. But if you can wait an entire year to build a machine, that's a good indication that you don't even need a new machine to begin with.

Right now, Phenom II's are price-competitive with Core 2 Quads, and they work off of existing socket AM2+ mobos. Overclocking headroom is reportedly quite good as well. i7 doesn't make sense for mainstream consumers given its cost of entry (x58 mobo + DDR3) and lack of compelling performance increases in mainstream applications.

refer · Feb 11, 2009, 06:20 PM // 18:20

And here I am still on P4...

Hammer Drawn · Feb 11, 2009, 06:33 PM // 18:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

There's no point in holding off for new architectures; something new is always coming out. You buy what you need, when you need it, at the lowest prices you can find at the time. If you don't need it right this second and there's a price cut coming around the corner, maybe you can delay for a month or two. But if you can wait an entire year to build a machine, that's a good indication that you don't even need a new machine to begin with.

Could not have said it better myself.

There will always be bigger, better and badder hardware 5 seconds after you buy "cutting edge".

snaek · Feb 11, 2009, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by burst cancel

There's no point in holding off for new architectures; something new is always coming out.

sure, sumptin new is always commin out...
but this one is a pretty big deal

its not like updating from a wolfdale e8200 to a wolfdale e8600

personally i think its pretty good timing
(be)for the release of windows 7
which is when i next plan on buildin a new system

tho i would like to see wut amd has in store for later this year

Lord Sojar · Feb 11, 2009, 08:53 PM // 20:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

Bloomfield runs cooler? Cooler than Prescott, maybe. i7 has higher performance/watt, but as any overclocker will tell you, these babies get toasty.

There's no point in holding off for new architectures; something new is always coming out. You buy what you need, when you need it, at the lowest prices you can find at the time. If you don't need it right this second and there's a price cut coming around the corner, maybe you can delay for a month or two. But if you can wait an entire year to build a machine, that's a good indication that you don't even need a new machine to begin with.

Right now, Phenom II's are price-competitive with Core 2 Quads, and they work off of existing socket AM2+ mobos. Overclocking headroom is reportedly quite good as well. i7 doesn't make sense for mainstream consumers given its cost of entry (x58 mobo + DDR3) and lack of compelling performance increases in mainstream applications.

Normally I would agree. However, what Intel is doing is pushing a processor design out 1 year ahead of schedule. The 32nm Core i5 chips are going to be cheap, powerful, and efficient. Core i7 chips get no hotter than Core2 Quads running at equivalent clock speeds (though there are very few C2Qs that can run at i7 top speeds)

When Intel moves down to 32nm, it will allow them to produce their processors at half the current cost, and with HiK tech as progressed as it will be, we are talking huge price reductions. Core i5 is worth the wait, because this is technology we shouldn't be seeing until later in 2010. Intel is being very aggressive, and it is odd.

Core i5 is not a cutting edge technology, it is mainstream. This chip is Core i5, but made cheaper, more efficient, and now... better. There won't be any big leaps in technology until Sandy Bridge comes out now because of this move. Intel is aggressively pushing 32nm to market to make oodles of money off it until they release Sandy Bridge. One reason they are doing this is to recoup R&D costs (which is somewhere around 7 billion now?) The next big leap in processor technology won't be until 2011 (late 2010 = AMD Bulldozer + Torrenza and Fusion, which is their LAST HOPE)

On the note of AMD; that is the big issue. They literally have NOTHING to show against Core i5, muchless Core i7 (and that was assuming 45nm Core i5s) With 25%+ performance/clock increases on Core i5 because of the move, AMD will not be able to compete. You realize AMD is already bleeding huge amounts of money going toe to toe against Intel, right?

AMD is producing chips that are around 33% larger (based on transistor count and chip layout of Phenom II vs Q9500 and Q8300), and selling them cheaper? While this is really good for we, the consumers, it isn't helping AMD's money situation. Once PhenomII X3 releases, AMD will bleed even more as X3 is much larger than the E7200 it will attempt to vanquish.

Of course, that was assuming Intel would be releasing higher priced chips based on their 45nm tech... which is no longer true. I think some of you are overlooking the fact that Intel just made a market move that would equate to something like this:

Apple releases the iPhone 2.0. Research in Motion releases the Storm 4 weeks later. Apple announces they are cancelling the iPhone 3.0, and replacing it with a supercomputer that gets 100 hrs of battery life, the iPhone 4.0, capable of 1080p video, and holds 5TBs of data. Research in Motion stands there drooling on themselves wondering what in the hell they are going to do.

Does that help?

Burst Cancel · Feb 11, 2009, 09:11 PM // 21:11

If your point is that things are bad for AMD, this thread was a complete waste of time. Everyone knows AMD is hemorrhaging cash and can't compete with Intel's halo products. Pretty much anything Intel does right now short of standing absolutely still will be hailed as a deathblow. Thanks, we know.

My point is that, from a consumer standpoint, none of this should impact buying decisions today. All of those gamers that waited on building Core 2 Duo/Quad systems because Nehalem was coming in a year cheated themselves out of a year of upgraded performance just so they could pay exorbitant early-adopter fees for a system architecture that wouldn't produce substantial gains in the applications they normally use.

The CPU industry has a very real problem right now: convincing mainstream consumers that new products actually matter. Given the choice between the Core 2 system you could have had at the beginning of last year, or the Core i5 system you might have at the end of this year, I would have jumped for the Core 2 every time.

Something a lot of people don't take into account when playing the whole waiting game is the opportunity cost of not having upgraded system performance immediately. Every month of waiting is another month you don't get to use your new machine. Again, the only people able to rationally discount the waiting cost are the people who don't need a new system to begin with.

moriz · Feb 11, 2009, 09:17 PM // 21:17

i think the point that rahja is making, is not just these new intel chips will be fast, but will also be very CHEAP, hence making the whole waiting deal economical also.

he's also coming from the standpoint of you owning a core 2 series CPU already, and is looking for the next step up.

Lord Sojar · Feb 11, 2009, 10:13 PM // 22:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

If your point is that things are bad for AMD, this thread was a complete waste of time. Everyone knows AMD is hemorrhaging cash and can't compete with Intel's halo products. Pretty much anything Intel does right now short of standing absolutely still will be hailed as a deathblow. Thanks, we know.

My point is that, from a consumer standpoint, none of this should impact buying decisions today. All of those gamers that waited on building Core 2 Duo/Quad systems because Nehalem was coming in a year cheated themselves out of a year of upgraded performance just so they could pay exorbitant early-adopter fees for a system architecture that wouldn't produce substantial gains in the applications they normally use.

The CPU industry has a very real problem right now: convincing mainstream consumers that new products actually matter. Given the choice between the Core 2 system you could have had at the beginning of last year, or the Core i5 system you might have at the end of this year, I would have jumped for the Core 2 every time.

Something a lot of people don't take into account when playing the whole waiting game is the opportunity cost of not having upgraded system performance immediately. Every month of waiting is another month you don't get to use your new machine. Again, the only people able to rationally discount the waiting cost are the people who don't need a new system to begin with.

It does impact buying decisions. These 32nm chips are not what was going to be released. They are an entire year ahead of schedule. You are getting a 2 year technology vs a technology that isn't even supposed to be released yet, and for the same prices! Early adoption fees apply with GPUs and with cutting edge CPUs, but not mainstream product. i5 will be priced aggressively, thanks to the fab shrink and thanks to Intel's pricing schedules.

While your assumption of waiting cost versus upgrade cost is accurate if this were a minor or even semi major upgrade, it isn't. Core i5 will DOUBLE the performance of current Core2 product lines. My god... if that isn't worth waiting for, what is? 100% performance increases are unheard of in most modern day component releases. Core i5 represents hardware synergistic with software (ala Windows 7). Waiting would be the most sound economic and rational decision. Buying a Core2 system at this point considering the move up... well that would be just downright silly.

kvndoom · Feb 11, 2009, 11:34 PM // 23:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by refer

And here I am still on P4...

Yeah, my Socket754 Athlon 64 is still chugging along, getting close to 4 years since I built the core of my system. Thank goodness I had the presence of mind to get a PCI-express motherboard. I've gotten by for these years just by upgrading the video card annually and getting a bigger hard drive a couple years ago. The last 4 or 5 years have hit the wall we all knew would come, when outside of a few niches (games, image processing, etc), the hardware has surpassed the software and probably would never look back. Until a new killer app comes along that Joe Six absolutely must have, and won't run on his 4-or-5 year old PC, he's not going to upgrade. Web browsing, playing MP3's, and watching divx porn don't require a very new machine.

snaek · Feb 11, 2009, 11:51 PM // 23:51

lol rahja r u jus hyped?
or is "double the performance" realistically to be expected?

u also mention windows 7 specifically
i've been very much lookin forward to windows 7 for a long time...
do u have specific details regarding this "hardware synergistic with software"?

dam...see wut u did? now u got me hyped .___.

Burst Cancel · Feb 12, 2009, 12:21 AM // 00:21

Show me benchmarks with real-world doubled performance and I might just start to care. A little bit. Maybe. Then again, I still might not give a shit because speeding up Firefox by 100% cuts page loading times by half a second since the limiting factor is my internet connection, and my games speed up from 50 fps to 55 fps because I don't play at retardedly low resolutions and am therefore not CPU-limited to begin with.

I'm pretty tired of all of the handwaving predictions, because it happens every ****ing product launch. You should have seen all of the bullshit hype being tossed around the interwebs prior to Nehalem's launch (and heck, even after it launched). Hard numbers or it didn't/won't happen.

snaek · Feb 12, 2009, 12:53 AM // 00:53

jus because sumptin like this doesnt cater to ur pc needs (gaming)
doesnt mean its not goin to be looked forward to by others who use their pc for other things

ur rite, if all u use is firefox and gw, theres no reason for u to upgrade ur cpu
but cant deny that this is pretty big from a cpu standpoint

Blackhearted · Feb 12, 2009, 01:05 AM // 01:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

In addition, these new CPUs have an integrated graphics processor on chip, meaning that they will eliminate overhead commonly found in low end PCs for standard users. BluRay acceleration (as the format has reduced in price substantially in the last 4 months) might actually work for once on an Intel IGP.

Oh boy, Just what we need. Intels trashy GPU's forced upon us. I'd rather have the die space spent on something that's not completely worthless and could actually make the chip better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

i think the point that rahja is making, is not just these new intel chips will be fast, but will also be very CHEAP, hence making the whole waiting deal economical also.

Doubtful. Intel and cheap has never been usable in the same sentence, and never will be. Even when intel was sucking it up and was behind with the pentium 4 they still charged a noticable premium. That "premium" hasn't changed yet, and i doubt it will change later.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

While your assumption of waiting cost versus upgrade cost is accurate if this were a minor or even semi major upgrade, it isn't. Core i5 will DOUBLE the performance of current Core2 product lines. My god... if that isn't worth waiting for, what is? 100% performance increases are unheard of in most modern day component releases. Core i5 represents hardware synergistic with software (ala Windows 7). Waiting would be the most sound economic and rational decision. Buying a Core2 system at this point considering the move up... well that would be just downright silly.

I agree with Burst Cancel. I'd like to see some proof of this claim as well. As i, too, find it hard to believe we're going to see a straight two fold increase in most of the apps we currently use today.

Lord Sojar · Feb 12, 2009, 03:30 AM // 03:30

Fine, ask and ye shall receive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anandtech

We were quite amazed, even slightly suspicious, when HP and Fujitsu-Siemens Published their SAP numbers. These numbers showed that the newest Xeon X5570 (Nehalem EP) series offer an enormous performance boost over the Xeon X5470 (Harpertown). After all, an almost 100% improvement at a slightly lower speed (2.93 GHz vs 3.3 GHz) is nothing short of amazing. Turns out that the real clockspeed is 3.2 GHz (2.93 GHz + 266 MHz turbo) but that does not alter the fact that these are truly incredible performance numbers.

I can now confirm that there are no tricks behind these numbers: they paint the right picture about the Xeon Nehalem EP. Talking to SAP benchmarking specialists, it became clear that few tuning tricks exist that are not know to the big OEM. The benchmark has been analyzed and tuned so well, that even the use of a different database (for example MS SQL instead of DB2) only makes a 2 to 3% difference most of the time. So you might even compare SAP numbers which are obtained on different databases. To resume, the SAP numbers can only be really boosted by better hardware (CPU-memory).

Core i5 uses the same architecture that the newest Nehalem EPs use, with a few tweaks (and these Nehalem EPs are not even on the 32nm scale!) You guys can downplay a release when it is a standard release, but this is the farthest thing from standard.

Intel does have very competitive pricing Blackhearted. I am not sure where you are getting this concept that Intel's prices are way over the top...

As proof of concept:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115037
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115041
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115207
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115202

and that is just to point out a few of them....

And Blackhearted... regarding the IGPU on chip in the Core i5. These chips are, again, aimed at midrange consumers looking for excellent performance/dollar. 95% of the world's PC users do not need anything more than an Intel IGP. The Core i5 will simply improve the basic functions these users utilize, without adding to the cost (if anything, it will reduce the cost)

And Burst Cancel, yes, Nehalem was hyped, but it was not over marketed. Nehalem lives up to its hype though, in every way, shape, and form. It has absolutely amazing performance (including gaming!), and for power users, it more than fits the bill (especially the 920 at such a lucrative price). If anything, the x58 chipset based boards are expensive, but not due to price gouging. Triple channel technology is expensive to manufacture.

You can hate the release all you want, but it is stupid to recommend a product that is going to be replaced at the same or lower cost in 7-8 months that will offer 50-110% more performance in every application. This logic cannot be denied. If your current PC is up to par with the performance you need, fine. Core i5 is aimed at those with 1st generation Core2s (I have a Conroe based Core2 Duo, but I am getting a Core i7), Pentium 4's, AMD Athlon64's or Original Phenom CPUs. If you have a newer 45nm Core2, sure, that will be fine until 2011 when you can get the new Sandy Bridge processor. But, this release will allow those with aging machines that are slowing down to upgrade without melting their credit card on a high end CPU and motherboard.

Quite frankly... it is insane for you to downplay this amazing technology release so much. Sure, it might be hyped, but that is because of the scale of the announcement. Intel has devoted 7 billion dollars to this project, and a stable 32nm fab in and of itself is extremely impressive.

Elder III · Feb 12, 2009, 04:23 AM // 04:23

I'll be the first to admit that I do not understand all of the technical stuff that I have read about this expected release, but I understand enough to say that it sounds fantastic, and if it's available at prices that are anything close to what we can buy today, then I for one would gladly wait a year to upgrade in almost every case or scenario.

I'm looking forward to it, at the very least when it comes out stuff on the market now will drop even more in price and the "low end" cost of building will still yield a nice system for most users.