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AnandTech Peeks At The Athlon 4
tupac writes: "AnandTech has posted a story about AMD's new Athlon 4 processor and also included some information about Silicon on Insulator transistors in their article. SOI technology has been used by IBM in recent history and AMD will begin using it in 2002." This is the chip which has been known for a while as Palomino. Reader Diabolus points to the same article, saying "the big news is a 20% reduction in power consumption, and that they'll be using the exact same chip for servers, workstations, desktops and even notebooks. The article details exactly what is new compared with the Tbird."
That was a good idea, actually.
I just hope AMD doesn't also adopt Intel's shady power consumption reporting as well.
The enemies of Democracy are
Increase in speed will use up more power unless you do changes to your chip (and other cicuits). This is important since there is a finite amount of heat that can be absorbed and dissipated from a chip. The reason for the power consumption is that there is a certain current needed to carge and discharge the capacitance of a CMOS. The heat comes from the fact that Power = Voltage(drop) * Current, so to increase the frequency you need to do one or more of the following.
Usually all of this is done to each new CPU. Lowering the voltage does have a negative impact on performance but it is still required to enable higher frequencies due to heat factors. Actually some of the lower voltage performance hit is offset by other improvements (i.e. less power loss in interconnects)
"What Intel definitely understands is that the public thinks Mhz == speed."
Intel understands it because Intel caused it. Intel's adverstising over the past 2+ years has focused on two things. First, they make MHz seem equivalent to horsepower. Second, they make vague claims that Intel processors make "the internet" faster. AMD played Intel's MHz game for a while and did a damn good job beating the big boys at their own game. Now they're not playing anymore. They seem to be focusing now on creating good processors at a reasonable price.
-B
I don't think it's true that people are buying Intel's MHz = performance ploy, or the whoel GHZ PC hype for that matter.
The evidence is:
a) P4 is hardly selling at all
b) The whole PC market is stagnent. Most people have 2/3/4/500MHz or whatever PCs that do all they need, and see no need buy a new GHz PC
Really, outside of DVD ripping, there are few reasons for a *typical* person to need this much speed - certainly not enough reason for them to want to shell out $1000 or more for a new PC.
Please. Intel at least add instructions between...
If you add instructions you should do this for one reason only: to use 'm. This is the biggest problem right now. Compiler builders have a hard time optimizing your code and keeping up to date with the latest instructions.
These days compilers are the word, not uP's. You can make the nicest microproc but without a good compiler you are nowhere... Everyone can think of a few more instructions that are 'handy'.
nosig today
Just because they use the same socket format doesn't necessarily mean all motherboards will work with it. There's chipset compatibility to deal with, as well as voltage and BIOS support. So we may need a new motherboard anyways, even if they use the same socket.
SYSOP ('sih-sop) n.: the guy laughing at your typing.
Quoted directly from the article:
"This process obviously increases FSB and memory bandwidth usage and it does tend to show more of a performance improvement on higher clocked/higher bandwidth FSB/memory platforms. This does translate into DDR SDRAM being much more useful for the Athlon 4 than it was on the Athlon (Thunderbird)."
Johan V.
Chip Maker Trustworthy announced today they'll be cutting to the chase and releasing a 5terrahertz chip which is the fastest on any market, touting a catchy slogan "Powered by God."
"We didn't want to get involved in the whole marketing game at all. We've had these chips for years but had to sell all other lower speed chips in order to make money. Well all that is in the past, from now on we will release things to the public immediately. No more lies." stated Swedish born CEO Karl Karlssson who is now a converted Born Again Christian Chipmaker.
The company however faces a lengthy delay after residents of South Beach Miami claimed to own the patents to create the sand used to make the silicon used to make the chips. "What about dew prossis" claimed a big breasted South Beach Miami blonde wearing an Intel t-shirt looking in the mirror.
"We decided to give the chips to the people, without any side stepping. As is, and we're confident the powers of the Pope will annoint this chip and smoat the "Blue Man Group" of Intel who resemble satanists." stated Karl.
Stay tuned for this lengthy battle.
Q & A with John Young of Cryptome.org
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Cache improvements, thermal diode on the CPU, 3 - 3.5 hours claimed battery life, significant performance gains over P III when both systems run on battery power, overall a performance gain over the current desktop Thunderbird.
In a nutshell.
No DDR, which if it were implemented would actually help laptops save more power.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
If it's not that hard, how come you follow up somebody who got it right, with something wrong?
The original TBird and the "Athlon C" are basically the same core, with a minor revision to eek out a few hundred more megahertz of speed.
1) K7: Original Slot A Athlon at 0.25 microns
2) K75: Slot A Athlon at 0.18 microns
3) Thunderbird. AKA "Athlon with Performance Enhancing Cache". Socket A, although some Slot A's were made. This may be a faster cache, but it is also smaller than the 512K external cache that the first two Athlons had. The original version of Thunderbird barely made it to 1.2GHz. The "C" revision looks like it'll go to about 1.5GHz.
4) Palomino, or "Athlon 4".
I hope they use a different name for the desktop version. It sounds good as a mobile version, because Intel doesn't have a Pentium 4 mobile, but I think AMD will want to make sure that people make fundamental comparisons on the desktop rather than superficial.
Bryan
Contrast this to Intel, who is so bent on shoving stuff down our throats that they willingly sell products that have a short or no real life span expectancy. (p462 anyone?)
Sorry to nitpick, but Socket 462 is the same as Socket A, for AMD Athlon/Duron.
The current P4 socket is Socket 423, whereas P4 Northwood will require Socket 478.
/Dervak
Ace's Hardware has a nice summary and set of links for the Athlon 4.
Unfortunately Sharkyextreme and HardOCP do not have reviews of the chip up for comparison yet.
Tom's does have a review up.
The Bi Athlon (in addition to being a familiar, if stupid, Olympic event, this name has sexual connotations and should slightly benefit from men who want a faster proc for pr0n)
The Athlone Ranger (OK, this one's a bit of a stretch)
Athlon as You're Happy, That's All that Matters (may appeal to moms)
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It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Sexium being after Pentium doesn't even make logical sense
I'm aware of that... but you're trying to tell me it makes significantly less sense than "Pentium?" And that anything that comes out of the Intel marketing department makes logical sense? AND that Sexium isn't just a significantly funnier/better name than Hexium?
:-)
sig fault
...was created so that Intel could have an enforcable trademark on their chip name (unlike 386 or 486).
:-) Time to roll out the Sexium.
So now, because marketing got so attached to the name "Pentium," AMD can again match version numbers in their product names.
That's hilarious. Heads are gonna roll.
sig fault
Looks good.
Well, to answer the gentleman who said "Athlon 4" was a "stupid marketing ploy", consider - The readership of Slashdot, and persons who assemble their own PC's, period.. Are a far, far smaller percentage of the computer-buying public than the cluebies who buy PC's at Best Buy as though they were $1,000 toaster ovens. Branding is important; It's how THOSE people will remember "Athlon." YOU remember specs, performance - Technical information. THOSE people need a counter to Blue Man Group's P4 commercials. Like.. Stomp hopping around on trash can lids, singing the praise of Athlon Instead.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
From the article:
That notebook you saw on QVC is real. It is the desktop model that will not ship until August.
And they added "3DNow! Professional" - 3D Now! plus Intel's SSE.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
Always a bonus... I've still got my PPro here, which is running essentially the same core as todays P3s. In fact, if I were a sick individual, I could get either an adaptor that would let my place this chip in a modern slot1 board, or an adaptor to put a s370 celeron in its place (P3s might work, but PPro boards only go up to 66MHz FSB).
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Todays T-birds are already really hot.. as is the P4. Its bad they generate this much heat, and use loads of electricity. It feels like its time to design better CPU's, not just raise voltage :)
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
IBM's pages have a lot of info on SOI. Here's a few links:
Press release,
Introduction - the pdf linked to from this page is a little more indepth,
Appears to be the start of an html version of the pdf.
All these pages of blah-blah and they could not cut to the chase and do a single review/benchmark of Q3A??
Gimme a break!
2)Socket A Thunderbird with larger/faster cache.
3)"Athlon C". Thunderbird core with 266 MHz bus.
4) Upcoming Palomino core discussed in the article.
It's not that hard, people
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
The other night flipping through channels I noticed a lady on QVC selling this laptop. Nothing unusal, but when she mentioned Athlon 4 and I saw the name on the screen, I got interested. I think they priced it at ~$2k, but since Athlon 4s are not going to be available until Q3 2001, I wonder what kind of ploy QVC invented this time... "Sure, we'll take your money, but you will get the laptop in September." or "Athlon 4, Pentium 4, come on, what's the difference? They all are fast, so who cares."
Granted Athlon has had two previous cores but whatever happened to the third one? Unless they go in powers of two (1,2, 4.. Athlon 8 = Sledgehammer? After all it would be K8..) .18 micron core(2), the T'bird(3), and now the Palomino(4).
The article states the following:
"Technically speaking, the Palomino core does mark the fourth AMD Athlon core since the release of the original K7 core in 1999. If we begin counting at the K7 core there was the 0.18-micron Athlon which was based on the K75 core, then the 0.18-micron Thunderbird with on-die L2 cache and the fourth Athlon core would be the 0.18-micron Palomino core."
So there's the origional core(1),
i wish i was but oh well
It supports both SDR and DDR chipsets. For some reason the Compaq laptop which is available right now uses SDR, however that is not because DDR chipsets are not available (Ali makes DDR laptop chipset). DDR should become very popular for portables because it uses a lot less power than SDR.
The most important part of this article was AMD's statement that the socket-A layout will continue throughout this series and the next two.
Contrast this to Intel, who is so bent on shoving stuff down our throats that they willingly sell products that have a short or no real life span expectancy. (p462 anyone?)
I think this statement from AMD may actually help them among the fence sitting OEMs who still seem glued to AMD. By keeping the same socket it allowd manufacturers to refine the product, instead of trying to figure out a new one.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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All of these changes sound good on paper, but it seems AMD has overlooked one detail. The pentium 4 core was built to allow for an amazing ramp-up of clock speeds. That's why it has a 20 stage pipeline. What Intel definitely understands is that the public thinks Mhz == speed. Yes, the enthusiast crowd knows this is false, but it sells anyway. I wonder how far they can push the improved Athlon core before they hit architectural limits on speed....
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.