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#41
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Fastest CPU in April
On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 10:46:27 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote: On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 02:07:38 -0500, Tony Hill wrote: Now that I read aobut it, it actually makes perfectly good sense. The Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad can hold up the high-end with quad core and higher-end dual core systems, these "Pentium E2000" series chips can take up the middle ground of dual-core chips and Celeron will replace the "Core Solo" brand for single-core chips. Fairly neat market segmentation actually. But Core Solo/Duo is the new naming within the Centrino and Viiv & VPro platform strategies which Mr. Otellini enunciated back in early summer. Things look like they may have changed, on the desktop front at least. I'm no longer seeing any plans for any "Core Solo" desktop chips, though again Intel hasn't published a roadmap recently so I might just be missing them. I can't imagine that Intel is in anything other than phase-out mode with the old Netburst core. Certainly they weren't about to switch 100% of production immediately to the new Core architecture, bu surely they must be moving in that direction! Assuming they've got all the bugs worked out of the process it gives them a faster processor with lower power consumption and a smaller die to boot. And *yet*.... they just released a whole new Pentium D series with low power characteristics in August(?) or so. Someone just couldn't bear to trash the new masks after all the months of work?:-) Phase-out mode doesn't happen overnight. In August Intel was JUST releasing their Core 2 Duo chips and was primarily producing Netburst core chips. We're now 4 months on an I suspect that production has shifted, but still probably more Netburst core than Core-based chips. Changes in production don't happen overnight, especially at Intel. They've got a lot of fabs producing a whole lot of chips and they like to make sure that things are working *well* before they switch over. Traditionally it's taking them at least a year to transition all their lines over. This is why I'm expecting the Pentium E2000 series to come out first to displace the Pentium D line, but the Core-based Celerons probably won't be out until next summer. The 90nm Pentium D (the 800 series) were a single die, the 65nm Pentium D (the 900 series) were two dies. Hmph I missed that - they went backward... from a twin die to two separate dice glued together? Yup, and then back and forth again with the Core 2 Duo (1 die) and the Core 2 Quad (2 dies). I guess there's a certain flexibility in that, easier to adjust production to meet current demand. The market for single-core Pentiums seems to be basically non-existent these days, so rather than spending money to change production lines over to dual-core dies they can just glue a pair of the dies together. Alternatively if the market demands it they can sell the single-core dies on their own with some cache disabled and they have a Celeron chip. All I see indicate that the E2000 will still be a dual-core chip. That leaves lots of room for a single-core Celeron. The trick will be in pricing. The E2000 series will have a small price/performance niche to fill between the Core 2 Duo (which are already under $200 for the lowest cost E6300 model) and the Celeron. Keep in mind thought that the Celeron brand is mostly selling for $50-$75. The most expensive Celeron carried at Newegg is the Celeron 356 (3.33GHz, 533MT/s bus, 512KB cache) that they list at $65. There is definitely room for pricing between the $75 Celeron and the $150+ Core 2 Duo, but it's not huge. Well it goes against the new "announced" strategy, AIUI, but anything's possible I suppose. Intel seems to have been a bit quiet on what they're announcing ever since Core 2 Duo was released. Lots of rumors and little hard facts. This suggests to me that the plans aren't quite as firm as they have been in times past. -- Tony Hill hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca |
#43
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Fastest CPU in April
On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 18:39:26 -0500, Tony Hill
wrote: On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 10:46:27 -0500, George Macdonald wrote: On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 02:07:38 -0500, Tony Hill wrote: Now that I read aobut it, it actually makes perfectly good sense. The Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad can hold up the high-end with quad core and higher-end dual core systems, these "Pentium E2000" series chips can take up the middle ground of dual-core chips and Celeron will replace the "Core Solo" brand for single-core chips. Fairly neat market segmentation actually. But Core Solo/Duo is the new naming within the Centrino and Viiv & VPro platform strategies which Mr. Otellini enunciated back in early summer. Things look like they may have changed, on the desktop front at least. I'm no longer seeing any plans for any "Core Solo" desktop chips, though again Intel hasn't published a roadmap recently so I might just be missing them. I noted the lack of a desktop Core Solo one post earlier than quoted here... though I tend to doubt the viability of such a chip. Then again they'll want to do something with the err, "rejects". I can't imagine that Intel is in anything other than phase-out mode with the old Netburst core. Certainly they weren't about to switch 100% of production immediately to the new Core architecture, bu surely they must be moving in that direction! Assuming they've got all the bugs worked out of the process it gives them a faster processor with lower power consumption and a smaller die to boot. And *yet*.... they just released a whole new Pentium D series with low power characteristics in August(?) or so. Someone just couldn't bear to trash the new masks after all the months of work?:-) Phase-out mode doesn't happen overnight. In August Intel was JUST releasing their Core 2 Duo chips and was primarily producing Netburst core chips. We're now 4 months on an I suspect that production has shifted, but still probably more Netburst core than Core-based chips. Changes in production don't happen overnight, especially at Intel. ISTR the C2Ds were available in July. Then about a month later they announced the new 65nm low power Pentum Ds - this was a new iteration of the chip... more a phase-in than a phase-out, which was the puzzling point. They've got a lot of fabs producing a whole lot of chips and they like to make sure that things are working *well* before they switch over. Traditionally it's taking them at least a year to transition all their lines over. This is why I'm expecting the Pentium E2000 series to come out first to displace the Pentium D line, but the Core-based Celerons probably won't be out until next summer. From the info they made public, I figured they had 2.5 fabs (Ireland was in ramp-up) running 65nm when they announced the new Pentium Ds - it made no sense to me at all. The 90nm Pentium D (the 800 series) were a single die, the 65nm Pentium D (the 900 series) were two dies. Hmph I missed that - they went backward... from a twin die to two separate dice glued together? Yup, and then back and forth again with the Core 2 Duo (1 die) and the Core 2 Quad (2 dies). I guess there's a certain flexibility in that, easier to adjust production to meet current demand. The market for single-core Pentiums seems to be basically non-existent these days, so rather than spending money to change production lines over to dual-core dies they can just glue a pair of the dies together. Alternatively if the market demands it they can sell the single-core dies on their own with some cache disabled and they have a Celeron chip. All I see indicate that the E2000 will still be a dual-core chip. That leaves lots of room for a single-core Celeron. The trick will be in pricing. The E2000 series will have a small price/performance niche to fill between the Core 2 Duo (which are already under $200 for the lowest cost E6300 model) and the Celeron. Keep in mind thought that the Celeron brand is mostly selling for $50-$75. The most expensive Celeron carried at Newegg is the Celeron 356 (3.33GHz, 533MT/s bus, 512KB cache) that they list at $65. There is definitely room for pricing between the $75 Celeron and the $150+ Core 2 Duo, but it's not huge. Well it goes against the new "announced" strategy, AIUI, but anything's possible I suppose. Intel seems to have been a bit quiet on what they're announcing ever since Core 2 Duo was released. Lots of rumors and little hard facts. This suggests to me that the plans aren't quite as firm as they have been in times past. It could also mean lots of err, internal conflicts at the marketing *and* technical levels - asses are being kicked, jobs are being stripped... the night of the umm, "long knives".:-) -- Rgds, George Macdonald |
#44
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Fastest CPU in April
On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 09:06:19 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote: Things look like they may have changed, on the desktop front at least. I'm no longer seeing any plans for any "Core Solo" desktop chips, though again Intel hasn't published a roadmap recently so I might just be missing them. I noted the lack of a desktop Core Solo one post earlier than quoted here... though I tend to doubt the viability of such a chip. Then again they'll want to do something with the err, "rejects". Of course, the rejects will go where Intel's rejects have been going for the past 6 or 7 years, into the Celeron bin. Phase-out mode doesn't happen overnight. In August Intel was JUST releasing their Core 2 Duo chips and was primarily producing Netburst core chips. We're now 4 months on an I suspect that production has shifted, but still probably more Netburst core than Core-based chips. Changes in production don't happen overnight, especially at Intel. ISTR the C2Ds were available in July. They were released July 27th, pretty darn close to August Technically though the core first came out in June in the form of Xeon 5300 series processors. Then about a month later they announced the new 65nm low power Pentum Ds - this was a new iteration of the chip... more a phase-in than a phase-out, which was the puzzling point. I'm not actually sure just what "low power" Pentium Ds you are reaferring to, to tell you the truth. Intel doesn't have anything marketted as such. My only guess is that you're thinking of the initial B1 stepping of the Pentium D 900-series, which had a TDP of up to 130W and many power saving features disabled vs. the later C1 and D0 steppings which had a TDP of "only" 95W and the power saving features re-enabled. However the C1 stepping was released by in March or August of this year. August may well have been when they released the D0 stepping of these chips, and probably that stepping may have released power consumption slightly, but certainly there was no significant change vs. the C1 stepping. There are no press releases or anything of that sort either (not that there often are any for a new stepping). Well it goes against the new "announced" strategy, AIUI, but anything's possible I suppose. Intel seems to have been a bit quiet on what they're announcing ever since Core 2 Duo was released. Lots of rumors and little hard facts. This suggests to me that the plans aren't quite as firm as they have been in times past. It could also mean lots of err, internal conflicts at the marketing *and* technical levels - asses are being kicked, jobs are being stripped... the night of the umm, "long knives".:-) Could be. Intel is in the midst of some fairly major restructuring efforts, so that might explain some of the lack of communication. -- Tony Hill hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca |
#45
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Fastest CPU in April
On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 09:06:19 -0500 George Macdonald
wrote in Message id: : I noted the lack of a desktop Core Solo one post earlier than quoted here... though I tend to doubt the viability of such a chip. Then again they'll want to do something with the err, "rejects". Or maybe not: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...115223825.html |
#46
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Fastest CPU in April
On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 23:10:44 -0500, Tony Hill
wrote: On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 09:06:19 -0500, George Macdonald wrote: Things look like they may have changed, on the desktop front at least. I'm no longer seeing any plans for any "Core Solo" desktop chips, though again Intel hasn't published a roadmap recently so I might just be missing them. I noted the lack of a desktop Core Solo one post earlier than quoted here... though I tend to doubt the viability of such a chip. Then again they'll want to do something with the err, "rejects". Of course, the rejects will go where Intel's rejects have been going for the past 6 or 7 years, into the Celeron bin. IFF the Celeron moniker survives which is the point at discussion. Intel's stated "platformization" strategy certainly indicates/allows the possibility that Celeron would not survive.... one would assume based on the success or otherwise of Viiv, Vpro et.al. Phase-out mode doesn't happen overnight. In August Intel was JUST releasing their Core 2 Duo chips and was primarily producing Netburst core chips. We're now 4 months on an I suspect that production has shifted, but still probably more Netburst core than Core-based chips. Changes in production don't happen overnight, especially at Intel. ISTR the C2Ds were available in July. They were released July 27th, pretty darn close to August Technically though the core first came out in June in the form of Xeon 5300 series processors. Then about a month later they announced the new 65nm low power Pentum Ds - this was a new iteration of the chip... more a phase-in than a phase-out, which was the puzzling point. I'm not actually sure just what "low power" Pentium Ds you are reaferring to, to tell you the truth. Intel doesn't have anything marketted as such. My only guess is that you're thinking of the initial B1 stepping of the Pentium D 900-series, which had a TDP of up to 130W and many power saving features disabled vs. the later C1 and D0 steppings which had a TDP of "only" 95W and the power saving features re-enabled. However the C1 stepping was released by in March or August of this year. March or August??Ô_õ August may well have been when they released the D0 stepping of these chips, and probably that stepping may have released power consumption slightly, but certainly there was no significant change vs. the C1 stepping. There are no press releases or anything of that sort either (not that there often are any for a new stepping). Yes that's it and you're correct there was no end-user "marketing" - just a PCN, which The Inquirer cottoned on to: http://intel.pcnalert.com/content/eo...N106404-01.pdf and which was discussed here... in your absence.:-) What this PCN covered was the use of a "Mainstream FMB" for the revised processors vs. a "Performance FMB"... quite a drastic change in fact, enough to need a BIOS change. The *max* current was dropped from 125A to 100A so more than slightly changed... and this was for the C1 - D0 step change according to the docs. If the power saving was re-enabled for the C1, then this is more than a minor tweak for D0... apparently done "quietly". -- Rgds, George Macdonald |
#47
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Fastest CPU in April
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 17:06:49 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote: On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 23:10:44 -0500, Tony Hill wrote: Of course, the rejects will go where Intel's rejects have been going for the past 6 or 7 years, into the Celeron bin. IFF the Celeron moniker survives which is the point at discussion. Intel's stated "platformization" strategy certainly indicates/allows the possibility that Celeron would not survive.... one would assume based on the success or otherwise of Viiv, Vpro et.al. I don't think either VPro or Viiv are likely to have much impact on the Celeron brand, those are both targetted somewhat upstream of the Celeron's usual target market. Of course, given the relative lack of success of both programs, the whole point might be moot. I'm not actually sure just what "low power" Pentium Ds you are reaferring to, to tell you the truth. Intel doesn't have anything marketted as such. My only guess is that you're thinking of the initial B1 stepping of the Pentium D 900-series, which had a TDP of up to 130W and many power saving features disabled vs. the later C1 and D0 steppings which had a TDP of "only" 95W and the power saving features re-enabled. However the C1 stepping was released by in March or August of this year. March or August??Ô_õ Sorry that should have read "March or April of this year". Problem between brain and fingers on that one! August may well have been when they released the D0 stepping of these chips, and probably that stepping may have released power consumption slightly, but certainly there was no significant change vs. the C1 stepping. There are no press releases or anything of that sort either (not that there often are any for a new stepping). Yes that's it and you're correct there was no end-user "marketing" - just a PCN, which The Inquirer cottoned on to: http://intel.pcnalert.com/content/eo...N106404-01.pdf and which was discussed here... in your absence.:-) What this PCN covered was the use of a "Mainstream FMB" for the revised processors vs. a "Performance FMB"... quite a drastic change in fact, enough to need a BIOS change. The *max* current was dropped from 125A to 100A so more than slightly changed... and this was for the C1 - D0 step change according to the docs. If the power saving was re-enabled for the C1, then this is more than a minor tweak for D0... apparently done "quietly". The biggest change was probably in the specification rather than the chip itself. When the initial Pentium D 900 series was released they used the maintream rating of 95W TDP for only the low-end 920 (2.8GHz) and 930 (3.0GHz) chips, using the "performance" rating of 130W TDP for their higher end 940 (3.2GHz) and 950 (3.4GHz) chips. Then, with the release of the C1 stepping they moved all of those chips to the "mainstream" rating of 95W but introduced the new 960 (3.6GHz) chip with their 130W rating. The D0 stepping just bumped that 960 chip down to the 95W rating. Now obviously these chips aren't going to exactly match their rating, a 3.6GHz C1 stepping isn't going to use 35W more power than a 3.4GHz chip each and every time. There is always some variation to these things and as the process matures and is tweaked power consumption will tend to come down. The D0 stepping might have made a few more tweaks to the chip to improve power consumption further, but it's unlikely to be a major change. These new steppings are pretty normal even as a chip is past it's prime. As metnioned previously, I expect that the Pentium D will continue to be produced in reasonably large quantities for several months to come, even as it is being phased out. -- Tony Hill hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca |
#48
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Fastest CPU in April
In article , fammacd=!
says... On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 23:10:44 -0500, Tony Hill wrote: On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 09:06:19 -0500, George Macdonald wrote: Things look like they may have changed, on the desktop front at least. I'm no longer seeing any plans for any "Core Solo" desktop chips, though again Intel hasn't published a roadmap recently so I might just be missing them. I noted the lack of a desktop Core Solo one post earlier than quoted here... though I tend to doubt the viability of such a chip. Then again they'll want to do something with the err, "rejects". Of course, the rejects will go where Intel's rejects have been going for the past 6 or 7 years, into the Celeron bin. IFF the Celeron moniker survives which is the point at discussion. Intel's stated "platformization" strategy certainly indicates/allows the possibility that Celeron would not survive.... one would assume based on the success or otherwise of Viiv, Vpro et.al. Deja Vu all over again! Intel learned nothing from IBM's failure in the '90s? "Platforms" was the keyword then too. This is classic politics over customers. DEC died of it, IBM barely escaped that ugly death. INTC surely seems to be at least as poisoned from within. snip -- Keith |
#49
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Fastest CPU in April
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 18:36:45 -0500, Tony Hill
wrote: On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 17:06:49 -0500, George Macdonald wrote: On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 23:10:44 -0500, Tony Hill wrote: Of course, the rejects will go where Intel's rejects have been going for the past 6 or 7 years, into the Celeron bin. IFF the Celeron moniker survives which is the point at discussion. Intel's stated "platformization" strategy certainly indicates/allows the possibility that Celeron would not survive.... one would assume based on the success or otherwise of Viiv, Vpro et.al. I don't think either VPro or Viiv are likely to have much impact on the Celeron brand, those are both targetted somewhat upstream of the Celeron's usual target market. Of course, given the relative lack of success of both programs, the whole point might be moot. I'm not actually sure just what "low power" Pentium Ds you are reaferring to, to tell you the truth. Intel doesn't have anything marketted as such. My only guess is that you're thinking of the initial B1 stepping of the Pentium D 900-series, which had a TDP of up to 130W and many power saving features disabled vs. the later C1 and D0 steppings which had a TDP of "only" 95W and the power saving features re-enabled. However the C1 stepping was released by in March or August of this year. March or August??Ô_õ Sorry that should have read "March or April of this year". Problem between brain and fingers on that one! August may well have been when they released the D0 stepping of these chips, and probably that stepping may have released power consumption slightly, but certainly there was no significant change vs. the C1 stepping. There are no press releases or anything of that sort either (not that there often are any for a new stepping). Yes that's it and you're correct there was no end-user "marketing" - just a PCN, which The Inquirer cottoned on to: http://intel.pcnalert.com/content/eo...N106404-01.pdf and which was discussed here... in your absence.:-) What this PCN covered was the use of a "Mainstream FMB" for the revised processors vs. a "Performance FMB"... quite a drastic change in fact, enough to need a BIOS change. The *max* current was dropped from 125A to 100A so more than slightly changed... and this was for the C1 - D0 step change according to the docs. If the power saving was re-enabled for the C1, then this is more than a minor tweak for D0... apparently done "quietly". The biggest change was probably in the specification rather than the chip itself. When the initial Pentium D 900 series was released they used the maintream rating of 95W TDP for only the low-end 920 (2.8GHz) and 930 (3.0GHz) chips, using the "performance" rating of 130W TDP for their higher end 940 (3.2GHz) and 950 (3.4GHz) chips. Then, with the release of the C1 stepping they moved all of those chips to the "mainstream" rating of 95W but introduced the new 960 (3.6GHz) chip with their 130W rating. The D0 stepping just bumped that 960 chip down to the 95W rating. I dunno where you're getting your info but the doc above and the 900 series data sheet clearly show the *large* reduction in max power with the C1 to D0 transition for the 940 thru 960. Now obviously these chips aren't going to exactly match their rating, a 3.6GHz C1 stepping isn't going to use 35W more power than a 3.4GHz chip each and every time. There is always some variation to these things and as the process matures and is tweaked power consumption will tend to come down. The D0 stepping might have made a few more tweaks to the chip to improve power consumption further, but it's unlikely to be a major change. These new steppings are pretty normal even as a chip is past it's prime. I have to believe the data sheet - a 20% reduction in *max* power current draw is more than a tweak. -- Rgds, George Macdonald |
#50
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Fastest CPU in April
On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 08:05:43 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote: The biggest change was probably in the specification rather than the chip itself. When the initial Pentium D 900 series was released they used the maintream rating of 95W TDP for only the low-end 920 (2.8GHz) and 930 (3.0GHz) chips, using the "performance" rating of 130W TDP for their higher end 940 (3.2GHz) and 950 (3.4GHz) chips. Then, with the release of the C1 stepping they moved all of those chips to the "mainstream" rating of 95W but introduced the new 960 (3.6GHz) chip with their 130W rating. The D0 stepping just bumped that 960 chip down to the 95W rating. I dunno where you're getting your info but the doc above and the 900 series data sheet clearly show the *large* reduction in max power with the C1 to D0 transition for the 940 thru 960. I'm getting my info straight from the horses.. umm.. mouth: http://processorfinder.intel.com/list.aspx?ProcFam=2112 All C1 stepping Pentium D chips that Intel sold had a TDP of 95W except for the SL9AP, which was a Pentium D 960 C1 stepping rated for 130W. Now obviously these chips aren't going to exactly match their rating, a 3.6GHz C1 stepping isn't going to use 35W more power than a 3.4GHz chip each and every time. There is always some variation to these things and as the process matures and is tweaked power consumption will tend to come down. The D0 stepping might have made a few more tweaks to the chip to improve power consumption further, but it's unlikely to be a major change. These new steppings are pretty normal even as a chip is past it's prime. I have to believe the data sheet - a 20% reduction in *max* power current draw is more than a tweak. A 20% reduction in actual max power is is more than a tweak, a change in specification by 20% might not be much more though. Intel, much like AMD, is not longer providing an exact spec for the power of individual chips but rather a couple maxmum power consumption points. This is entirely targetted at OEMs so that they know what they need to design their systems for and know exactly what chips they can and cannot use. This is why you don't see any power rating between 95W and 130W because Intel simply hasn't defined such any in-between ratings for their Pentium D line. Basically this means that the Pentium D 960 C1 stepping might have consumed only 90W max (or less) most of the time. However there is going to be a range of power consumption (most likely some sort of bell curve), and if the top 1% of the chips consumed 96W then Intel would need to spec the entire sSpec at the next higher rating point, and that is 130W. In this example if Intel were to bring their worst-case power consumption down by just a watt or two they could fit it within their 95W spec. It's quite possible that average power wouldn't even change much, just a tightening of manufacturing could reduce the variation between average and worst-case. -- Tony Hill hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca |
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