Intel's "Core" Architecture; Successor to the P4 Announced

Well, Its come time that Intel has released the first information about the successor to the Netburst Architecture, which offers several tantalizing features

4 issue processing
128 bit SSE registers permitting single cycle SSE execution
Micro-Ops Fusion
Macro Ops Fusion (combining X86 instructions into single execution stages)
2 MB L2 cache per core (dual core)

Also included, a block diagram and a Merom Die shot




More information to come throughout the day; Bit-tech will be able to keep better tabs on the information than I, but check out what there is to be seen; this architecture is looking interesting

 

Very cool stuff, although the diagram isn't giving a huge amount of information . The shared L2 cache design is certainly a step forward to alleviate some load on the shared front side bus, though, and it's also interesting to note that they've cut both one ALU (they retaining any NetBurst design features for these?) and the execution trace cache.

The latter is strange - perhaps it was removed because the extra transistors didn't justify the performance gain; it's easier to keep the pipes performing optimally than it was before, especially with the increased execution width and, therefore, the increase in buffer depth (meaning more transistors).

I'm also especially curious about the ins and outs of the uop fusion system... I'll be keeping up-to-date with this one

 

Two Juicy Core shots, ala anandtech




more at www.anandtech.com

 

yeah cool stuff, im actually pretty interested in this conroe platform. the only doubts i have about these multi-cored systems is wouldnt the fsb be streched or even not fast enough to throw the data at such speeds where the cpu's have nothing to do.

 

Hitman, you're normally right about these things, but I thought the new "Core" processors were an evolution of the Pentium-M, so never had anything to do with NetBurst, right?

What I don't get is what Merom adds over Core. 64-bitness? Virtualisation?

ch424

ch424

 

You're quite correct in the respect that it's mainly Pentium M-based - I was wondering, however, if they had used the same system of ALU processing as NetBurst (fast simple instruction units, slow complex instruction unit), as IIRC they are taking a few features from the old architecture. In retrospect, it seems unlikely that they'll double-pump the units, but more information is yet to be released.

The specifics haven't been announced for Merom, but it's likely that it will feature much lower power consumption than the desktop parts and better silicon for low-voltage running. All Intel chips since Prescott E have implemented EM64T instructions, which is basically an Intelified AMD64 set. Intel's virtualisation technology, code-named Silvervale, is also set to be included in all newer chips.

 

I believe the new Core processor is a merging of Pentium-M technology and Netburst.

 

Not quite - The Core architecture follows the same aspects of performance per watt (realizing that no one liked the ovens that are Pentium 4s), and worked on making a high power, high efficiency architecture. This thing has a lot of things that current Centrino processors lack.

 

But what though?

ch424

 

This looks damn fine. Looking forward to this tbh.

 

You and me both. Intel was looking a little bit, shall we say, pathetic during the inception of the Prescott cores, but now that they've gotten under new management and acquired a new outlook on the processor industry, they can finally move forward and make great processors again. This is quite a step forward from where they were 18 months ago.

 

Great processors indeed: Anandtech ran benchmarks (preloaded onto two machines, one with an FX-60 at 2.8 GHz).

Anandtech didnt see anything fishy, but the results, summed up, are that Intel is kicking ass with a vengeance. The 2.66 GHz Conroe that they had running was running 50% faster in most benchmarks than the Athlon 64 FX (which was 200 MHz overclocked). Both machines were running in Crossfire, and appeared to be using identical configurations and drivers.

While we cant be certain about core clocks or memory clocks on the GPUs, if things werent messed with, AMD is going to have some serious catch up to do over their current Athlon 64 offerings to maintain the gaming crown in current generation architectures - otherwise, Intel will once again be the top choice for gaming enthusiasts.

 

Roto's talking about this. Just insane to be honest. This is going to be awesome.

ch424

 

Mother of God, those things are fast. I can't even imagine what they'll do if you ramped up the FSB.

 

Going by the motherboard though (DFI RD480) theres an awful lot of room for BIOS manipulation (and as of late, it hasnt seemed to be past Intel to "tweak" results...)

So the question becomes, are games truly that CPU limited?

 

Hmmm.... interesting


btw... SMP.... i have an idea what it is via googling, but is it something you can turn on and off easily? I'm pretty certain Windows XP Pro supports it, but how do I know it's using it?

What of those who use Win XP Home and buy a dual core CPU?

 

It's just a fancy name for a multiprocessor environment in which the CPUs share resources, e.g. RAM. You can turn it off if you want by reverting to the uniprocessor ACPI configuration, but you'll lose half of your FX-60

AFAIK Home is licensed to a single physical processing unit, not a logical one. HyperThreading works fine on Home, so dual-core processors should as well.

 

lets see what amd have instore with am2 im sure they will have something up there sleeves none the less its going to be a good cpu war 2006

 

Can't wait, come on Intel!
And Dual processors works on Home, can't see Dual Core being a problem.

 

Aww man, and I just went over to the AMD side of the house after being on Intel's side for all these years (broke down and bought an Opty 165).