News Intel to add to CPU lineup in 4Q07

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/06/15/intel_adds_to_processor_lineup/1

Intel has dropped another two processors into the line-up for 4th Quarter 2007 this week, including a new "Yorkfield" core.

 

Is this CPU going to be a single unit quad core or just a nother two dual core's Also what will the speeds be like

 

Kentsfield is native quad core is it not? I imagine speeds will be roughly the same as they are, only a bit higher.

Also, i think Bit-tech should start using this image for Intel stuff:

 

Intel, Gay as hell...

 

Not a Quantum Leap fan eh?
Blasphemy.

 

Couldent they think of a more hardcore name that Yorkfield.

 

Kentsfield isn't exactly native quad-core as its 2 Conroe dies in one CPU package, as opposed to 4-cores on one die like Barcelona is going to be. Yorkfield will just be a shrink on Kentsfield so it will have the same 2 die approach.

 

no native quad core no buy a quad core..... i think i will wait and buy a dual core or change to AMD.

 

so it isnt a native quad core

I'm surprised though, Intel have had quad cores around for quite a while, i would have thought they could get it onto 1 die by now

also, zomg 12mb L2 cache how long before you don't need ram anymore

 

i have to agree - intel should have a native quad core by now, or at least they should be well on their way to one. id rather have a native 65nm quad core than a 45nm kentsfield...

and yes, that cache is massive... but its still not 2gb ram

 

but its growing so quickly now, a year or 2 ago and 1mb was huge, now were up to 12mb

 

going native quad wouldn't boost performance and would result in far higher defect rates.

cores 0 and 1, and 2 and 3 can communicate through their caches so its only when two cores from seperate dies have to communicate a unified design would have performed better. Such occurances are few and far between.

So you can either have a native quad core that will be expensive to produce, made in limited quantities (thus even more expensive), and with less binning options (if it works at all it will get used as a quad) - or a MCM that give far higher yields, performs the same in 99.9% of all situations to a native quad solution, is priced cheaper and can be made from cherry picked cores (if all dies are dual cores then far higher quantities make it into individual bins be it for high frequency, low power consumption or a combination of the two. Bins can then be chosen for use in either quad or dual core packaging options, for a more flexible product range).

Until there is a need for greater inter core communication the MCM solution is far better - and a mcm with direct communication (not via northbridge) would be the preferred intermediate step with all the advantages of a mcm, with a performance benefit over the current implementation. We will have this once CSI replaces the fsb, so we will have native quad cores and octo core mcms.

For AMD, hypertransport could have provided this now, so a mcm would have suited them even more than intel - pushing for a 'native' quad core was a huge screw up on their part. Had they not criticised intel so much for releasing a non native quad core (over a year before amd look to get their solution out), you could bet AMD would have MCM's out now, its only to save face that their persuing native designs first. I would expect a mcm (2x2core) product to be released within a year targetting home users (with the native quad aimed at server usage where the unified die would yield some benefits, and the increased costs could be recouped).

 

your right in a way, but it does come with extra power and heat savings

also native quad core does make a big difference in the server market (well SMP market) where people are actually using all 4 cores with heavy multi threading, but for the home user, your right, a lot of the time all 4 cores don't need to communicate (well except if your using windowz XP where processes are given equal times on each core, moving the program between each of the available cores, which you have to fix using affinity masks)

 

As a programmer, native quad core allows multi-threaded aps to run one heck of a lot faster. You wouldn't notice much of a difference but CPU->cache->cache->CPU is a lot longer then CPU->cache->CPU

 

Anyone know if this has been improved in vista?

 

even if your using native quad, doesn't it have to move between caches

however, the link between those caches is another cache, running at the processor's speed, rather then going through the slow FSB

 

I have to disagree with some of the information given in the original newspost. I still have to wait for my account to be "moderated", so i have some time to write, this will be a long one :-D

Afaik Intel has NOT dropped TXT. TXT is supposed to be an addition to Vpro and is thus aimed for the buisness sector, represented by the Wolfdale Dual-Core CPUs. Yorkfield, being the Quad-Core CPU, is supposed to be the CPU for hardware-enthusiasts, not for the buisness sector. One could argue that a highend CPU with the steepiest price should come with all the available features, on the other hand, if I understood Intel's whitepapers correctly, TXT needs a virtualized enviroment to function properly or at least a serious amount of code changes among OS kernel parameters. All recent improvements on virtualization aside, the whole virtualization thing is still in it's infant stages. Intel apparently, and in my opinion correctly, asumes that no "enthusiast", aka gamer, will get his hands on virtualization any time soon. The usual hardcore gamer installs a regular XP or Vista and doesnt use virtualization due to performance limitations, so Intel thinks.

Also afaik, all new "Exx50", "yet to be announced" Wolfdale CPUs, that currently is the E6550, the E6750 and the E6850 (there doesnt seem to be an E6650 atm, probably due to the higher FSB), WILL come with fully activated TXT. I, of course, can't say with an aboslute certainty, but let's say, I'm 99% sure ;-)

Concerning the "native / non-native" discussion: First of all, and forgive me for saying so, I am a bit of a lingustic freak here , I don't think "native" or "non-native" is the right choice of words. Wouldn't native mean, that someone or something is something "per sé"? That wouldn't apply for either AMDs Barcelona, because it can and also will come with also 2 cores and not necessarily with 4 cores, nor Intels Yorkfield, for obvious reasons. I think "monolithic" and "semi-monolithic" is the term to use here. In the end it really is just a matter of lingustic subtleties, i guess

The reason for Yorkfield "still" being a semi-monolithic CPU is quite simple: Money. Intel could produce Yorkfield as a monolithic CPU, but that would increase the overall production-cost in a not too small percentage. Intel, of course, has to test every core after the lithography, if one core or more doesnt work correctly, either one core has to be deactiveted or the hole unit has to be dismissed. If Intel would produce Yorkfield as an monotlithic CPU, the percentage of those units, that have to be dismissed due to one or more defective cores is apparently higher than that of a semi-monolithic CPU build out of two Dual Core dies. Why excatly is that deficiency quota higher this way and lower that way? I have no idea. Ask manufacturers like Intel or TSMC, but they probably won't tell you ;-)
My guess is, that the cache does the trick. When I look at the design of a modern CPU, I can't help myself but to think that the cache is the least error-tolerant part of the whole thing. In a monolithic CPU, all cores would share the same cache, with Yorkfield, that would mean one single cache with the enormous size of 12 MB. I don't find it hard to imagine that the size of the cache is not directly proportional to the difficulty of manufaturing it, maybe it's a quadratic propotion, say, if the size is doubled, that chance of actually getting the whole cache to work is one fourth, maybe it's some other exponential proportion, like I said, I don't know, I'm just guessing.

Until late 2006, it was still rumoured that Intel's 45nm production process had solved enough problems for a monolithic design to be the more cost-efficient one, but in early 2007 Intel confirmed other rumours, that Yorkfield would still be a semi-monolithic CPU.

I totally agree that a semi-monolithic quadcore is a "no buy", each two cores would have to communicate with the other two via an CPU-external bus, which would be the FSB in Intel's case. And that pretty much sucks, cause the FSB has already reached the end of most of it's capacity. Seems like we will have to wait for Nahelam...