Intel's New Quad-Cores Show Modest Gains
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In our lab tests, Intel's 45nm Penryn CPU didn't blow away the previous generation, but the tech behind it should keep Intel ahead.
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Peter Glaskowsky analyzes the potential benefits of AMD's new quad-core Opteron processors for data centers.
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With the market for quad-core chips still in its infancy, Advance Micro Devices has an alternative that might help bridge the gap: tri-core chips. As a bonus, this strategy can't easily be imitated by Intel, AMD executives say.
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Intel will ship quad-core processors in November for servers and gaming PCs, accelerating its effort to regain momentum in sales of power-efficient chips.
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The latest batch of 8300 series and 2300 series Quad-Core Opteron processors, formally announced by AMD today, will feature hardware-based library support for software to be able to run virtualized environments.
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(InfoWorld) - Intel Corp. will ship quad-core processors in November for servers and gaming PCs, accelerating its effort to regain momentum in sales of power-efficient chips. Thirteen vendors have already announced plans to sell quad-core based PCs for the high-end enthusiast market, including Dell Inc. and its Alienware division, Gateway, Velocity Micro and Voodoo, Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini said Tuesday at the company's Intel Developer Forum trade show. Adding extra cores to a chip allows the PC to split up heavy workloads. In a demonstration at the San Francisco show, Otellini showed "Alan Wake," a planned video game from Remedy that devotes an entire CPU (central processing unit) core to the physics simulation of action scenes like explosions and tornadoes. The new quad-core gaming chip will deliver a 70 percent performance boost compared to Intel's own current dual-core gaming processor, the company said. Intel will follow that "Core 2 Extreme" chip with the "Core 2 Quad," a four-core chip for mainstream desktops that will ship in the first quarter of 2007, he said. On the server side, Intel will call its new quad-core chip the Xeon 5300, and follow its November launch with a more efficient, 50-watt version in the first quarter of 2007. The launches would be a crucial boost for Intel, which has been losing market share to competitor Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) and missing recent earnings targets, prompting Otellini to sell several corporate divisions and lay off 10,000 people in recent weeks. In the past quarter, the company also accelerated its schedule for shipping a new generation of dual-core, 65-nanometer process chips, featuring the Core 2 Duo chip for notebooks and desktops and the Xeon 5100 for servers. Intel claims to have had great commercial success with the new family, shipping 5 million Core 2 Duo processors since the chips launched 60 days ago. Still, the adoption rate for AMD's dual-core Opteron server chip has continued to grow, since many experts consider it far more power efficient in data centers. Reaching customers first with quad-core chips could help Intel to change that reputation. "Perception doesn't change overnight, but what you're seeing is Intel rebuilding itself, rebuilding its product line and laying a foundation for the future," Otellini said. While adding more cores to a PC or server helps it computer faster, users also demand efficiency. So Intel will maintain current power levels in the new family of four-core chips, running the Core 2 Extreme at 130 watts, and the mainstream Core 2 Quad around 100 watts. The company will make three versions of its quad-core server chips, ranging from a high-efficiency 50-watt chip to a standard 80-watt and a high-performance chip above that. Intel is also pushing new technology to market by continuing to shrink the process technology it uses to build the chips. Intel will start producing 45-nm process chips by the second half of 2007 at a US$3 billion fab in Oregon, adding another plant in Arizona that year and a third in Israel by the first half of 2008, he said. That will allow Intel to move from its current 65-nm Core microarchitecture to the 45-nm "Nehalem" design by 2008 and the 32-nm "Gesher" family by 2010.
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Intel&#39;s revenue increase for the fourth quarter fell short of analysts&#39; estimates in part because of weak prices for memory chips.The company recorded revenue of $10.7 billion, up 10.5 percent year over year, missing the $10.8 billion estimated by analysts polled by Thomson Financial.Though revenue from computing-related products was as expected, NAND memory revenue was lower than expected, Intel said in a news release.The company reported net income of $2.27 billion, below analysts&#39; estimates of $2.38 billion. Earnings per share were $0.38.Intel in November rolled out its next-generation Penryn processors,&#160;which the company claims provide better power efficiency and graphics performance than its earlier chips. Manufactured using the 45-nanometer process, the company first launched Penryn chips for workstations and in early January rolled out 45-nm chips for servers, laptops, and desktops.Intel is expected to launch processors for its Montevina platform, an upgrade to its mobile Centrino platform, later this year. It will also roll out Menlow, a platform for ultramobile computers, later this year. Intel is also working on a new chip architecture code-named Nehalem, which will appear in late 2008.
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Advanced Micro Devices and Intel are vying to be the first to create a new generation of chips with four processing cores.
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At an early morning keynote address to open the semi-annual Intel Developers' Forum in San Francisco, CEO Paul Otellini confirmed that a Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor is coming this November for the enthusiast segment of the PC market. But can his performance gain estimates possibly be correct?
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With Christmas just 11 days away, you have to wonder what Hector Ruiz is going to find under his tree. It&#8217;s been a terrible year for Advanced Micro Devices, and the chipmaker&#8217;s analysts conference on Thursday did nothing to spread holiday cheer.Confirming what many in the chip world had suspected for some time, CEO Ruiz and other AMD execs fessed up that bugs in its new quad-core Barcelona server and Phenom desktop chips will&#160;delay these key next-generation technologies.The technical problems will delay general availability of the fastest version of the chips for three or four months. Customers willing to settle for slower clock speeds will be able to get the processors sooner; for example, AMD will ship a 2 gigahertz version of the Barcelona first, instead of the expected 2.5 gigahertz speed. In either case, the chips will be close to a year late; the original target date was the first quarter of 2007.AMD STUMBLES AS INTEL SPEEDS AHEADThe problem couldn&#8217;t come at a worse time. AMD has struggled all year to close the performance gap between its high-end chips and Intel&#8217;s. Barcelona, the company had promised, would restore its technical supremacy. Indeed some analysts said they had expected the quad-core server chip to do just that. &#8220;At 2.5 gigahertz it would have beaten any Intel products,&#8221; said analyst Nathan Brookwood of Insight64. &#8220;But at 2 gigahertz, it&#8217;s bringing up the rear,&#8221; he said.Intel, meanwhile, has corrected many of the problems that dogged it earlier in the decade. &#8220;AMD isn&#8217;t competing against the Intel of two years ago,&#8221; said Dean McCarron of Mercury Research. Intel has had quad-core chips in the market for about a year. To be fair, its chips are based on a somewhat simpler design; Intel gets to four cores by packaging two dual-core chips together. By contrast, AMD&#8217;s design integrates four cores on one chip, a more efficient solution, said McCarron. Except that AMD&#8217;s approach reduces yields and thus raises manufacturing costs, he added.There was earlier speculation that Barcelona&#8217;s problems were related to the ATI graphics chipset, but the problem turns out to be deeper, at the chip level. AMD has said it is related to the translation lookaside buffer (TLB) in the processor&#39;s L3 cache.DOUBTS ABOUT A QUICK FIXIn the Thursday conference, analysts had expected discussion of the company&#8217;s &#8220;asset light strategy,&#8221; which will apparently entail outsourcing more manufacturing to foundries such as Chartered Semiconductor or TSMC. But they didn&#8217;t get it, and the lack of details made CEO Ruiz&#8217;s promise to return to profitability in 2008 less credible to Wall Street. AMD&#8217;s financial performance has been terrible, losing money for four straight quarters. Part of the reason: Intel and AMD have engaged in a bloody price war, a struggle that has been very tough on the smaller company&#8217;s profit margins. But the Barcelona and Phenom delays are serious self-inflicted wounds.AMD&#8217;s stock lost another few points yesterday and has now shed about 40% in the last two months and a bone-jarring 56% since the beginning of the year. At $8.84 a share, Thursday&#8217;s closing price, the stock is at its lowest ebb since the summer of 2003. Ironically, AMD has so far&#160;rewarded Ruiz with pay raises.
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Advanced Micro Devices plans to demonstrate its version of a new approach to processor design, with a chip that is expected to offer faster computing and relatively less power consumption.
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Blog: Next week will see the arrival of new Intel chips for servers with four or more processors, as the chipmaker finally moves past the old Netburst architecture.
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Based on the initial word we're receiving from the Fall Intel Developers' Forum in San Francisco this afternoon, there are no major surprises other than the lack of surprises. There is no delay in the company's plans to roll out the first commercial 45 nm processors, code-named Penryn, this November as scheduled.
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New products include slightly faster mainstream models and new lower-power server chips.
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Intel is on track to introduce work-sharing dual-core processors across all its product lines by the end of next year. The technology is part of a strategy shift at Intel away from processor speed and toward performance.
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Advanced Micro Devices will demonstrate dual-core chips Tuesday, but Intel will likely do the same in a week.
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Intel exec offers few details about dual-core chips as he talks up new technologies.