Intel Prescott Released

Increased cache latency. by eddy · 2004-02-02 01:00 · Score: 5, Interesting

The most interesting characteristic of these new P4's is IMHO:"

"On the other hand, Prescott is looking at some massive increases in latency, the access latency for the Level 1 cache has quadrupled, and the Level 2 cache accesses are approximately 50% slower." -- Lost Circuits

Intel better ramp up that clock and/or have everyone optimizing for SSE3 if they want to dominate the benchmarks.

Suggested mod-limit: 3, Interesting

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Re:Increased cache latency. by Anarke_Incarnate · 2004-02-02 02:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

yes, but ask yourself this, when you decrease the surface area that you wish to remove heat from, and increase the total heat output, the heat density is much much higher. Heat causes resistance, which in turn will cause more problems with integrity. It is going to be tricky just to keep that sucker stable at 4GHz unless they make some big changes.
Re:Increased cache latency. by Junks+Jerzey · 2004-02-02 03:10 · Score: 2, Interesting

Intel better ramp up that clock and/or have everyone optimizing for SSE3 if they want to dominate the benchmarks.

In reality, x86 benchmarks have become all but meaningless. They're all within a short distance of each other, and each chip is faster for some things, slower than others. There hasn't been a real breakway technology CPU in a long time.

Readable review by Ed+Avis · 2004-02-02 01:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

Could someone suggest a review site that doesn't split every article across 20 web pages?

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-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com

Re:Readable review by Emil+Brink · 2004-02-02 01:36 · Score: 4, Informative

You can click once more at Anand's to get a Printer-version, which is really nice. It's how I usually read their content. Can't direct-link you (I think), since it's a JavaScript thing. Scroll down, and click on "Print this Article".

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Re:Readable review by Rufus211 · 2004-02-02 02:54 · Score: 2, Informative

both xbit's and anand's have nice Printable versions that are all on one page.

Thoughts. by DarkHelmet · 2004-02-02 01:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

In case you don't want to read the article, here you go from Anand:

If you're looking for nothing more than a purchasing decision let's put it simply: if you're not an overclocker, do not buy any Prescott where there is an equivalently clocked Northwood available. This means that the 2.80E, 3.00E, 3.20E are all off-limits, you will end up with a CPU that is no faster than a Northwood and in most cases slower.

I figured as much before the NDA was lifted. After all, with a 31 stage pipeline, the Prescott was bound to be clock for clock slower than it's previous incarnations.

This only makes me wonder. If a 4ghz Prescott is going to be much like a 3ghz Northwood, is AMD going to adjust its PR Rating to the new cores that Intel has? This will only end up confusing things, as a newly rated A64-3400 will be faster than a "Higher numbered" intel version.

Great... Just what we need. More PR confusion.

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Re:Thoughts. by The+One+KEA · 2004-02-02 01:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

My biggest beef with Prescott is that Intel rather foolishly lengthened the pipleine and monkeyed with the core design without making the subsequent changes needed to increase clock speed. AMD had it right all along - efficient IPC and low clock speed.

This situation is shaping up, in my eyes, to be a repeat of the release of the Willamette P4 - an inefficient IPC coupled with a low clock speed nearly killed the P4 before Intel could increase the clock speed. The same thing is happening here - another inefficient IPC design with a clock speed equal to the current Northwoods, with subsequent losses in performance. And like another poster here said, the A64 3400+ still beats the Prescott in a number of benchmarks, or ties evenly with it. Despite Anand's statements about how higher clockspeeds increase the efficiency of the Prescott core, I still think that this processor is an expensive upgrade that doesn't do very much.

If Intel can't get the clock speed up on Prescott, I have a feeling that it's going to tank until the LGA775 packaging is finally brought out, which is going to mean more business for AMD and a lot of eggs on Intel's face.

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Re:Thoughts. by Epistax · 2004-02-02 01:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

The problem is the number of pipeline stages grows as the product is implemented. By the time it's obvious thtat the problem can't be avoided, it's too late to fix it at the low level it needs to be.

I'd really like to address this question fully but I'm currently working on an Intel processor. It hurts me not to type what I want but I know better. ;-)
Re:Thoughts. by JollyFinn · 2004-02-02 01:59 · Score: 2, Informative

Prescott was faster at some benchamarks, and prescott is cheaper to manufacture, presscot is currently PACKAGING limited in clock speed. [Those damn little pins cannot handle enough current to feed the beast, especially with REDUCED voltage.] The performance, as overall the 3.4Ghz prescott should be slightly better buy than 3.4Ghz northwood as it scales a LOT better in clock speed. Basicly if cannot move enough power to the die you cannot clock it high, so thats the new packaging that will unleash the power of prescott... Also its versio 1.0 ... The L1 cache numbers just look TERRIBLE, worser latency than 64Kb cache would of been, they probably fix that and performance jumps up again, or they really designed it with extreme clock speed, and perhaps a SMALL part just failed to get the high clock speed. The long pipeline isn't that bad because they improved branch predictor. Something tells me they made it run VERY high clock speeds and scale performance well with clock speed. BUT there was a little problem, and they couldn't get the high clock speed from day 1.
PS. I'll personally think getting A64 is better than these just price/performance point of view, intel is market leader and prices its products higher than equally performing underdogs products.

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Re:Thoughts. by ameoba · 2004-02-02 02:05 · Score: 4, Informative

You make it sound like Intel is stupid & trying to screw over the consumer with this product. I'm by no means an Intel fanboy, but you're kinda off base.

If you look at the benches, the Prescott cores generally aren't too much slower than Northwoods and the areas where they lag the most are the ones that SSE3 looks like it should alleviate.

The Prescott delivers respectable performance and will end up costing less at the same clock speeds than Northwood. We're not looking at an event like the original P4 launch where the new chip was not only slower but also more expensive & required hardware upgrades to use.

The Prescott is not being marketed as an upgrade to Northwood systems; while I'm sure Intel would love you to replace your 3.2C with a 3.2E, they're not suggesting it be done. They're just introducing it now so they can ramp up production before the Northwood gets phased out.

As far as the 775 socket goes, Athlon64 is also kinda waiting for a new packaging to reach its full capabilities; the A64 & A64FX lines are going to be moving to a unified socket that'll give the A64 access to dual-channel memory.

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my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Re:Thoughts. by philthedrill · 2004-02-02 02:27 · Score: 2, Informative

Anand mentioned this, but the decision to add pipeline stages, whether it be 1 or 11, wasn't done on a whim. In fact, just to go through with the design, verification, and implementation processes would take over a year (probably closer to two).

Even when you add one pipe stage, you have to worry about creating new hazards/bugs and making sure that the chip is functionally correct. In fact, I'm surprised that Prescott is even considered a P4 core. To me it seems like a radical design change.

My guess is that Intel's goal was greater absolute performance. In the end, they'll get better performance w/ Prescott than Northwood because they'll be able to hit higher frequencies. The performance that Northwood is achieving right now would probably be much more difficult to hit on a Pentium 3 core. And if the extra frequency will help sell the product and impress the naive consumer, then it's extra marketing firepower for them.

The problem with increasing the number of pipe stages is that it becomes more difficult to maintain your IPC... every branch misprediction, cache miss, TLB miss, etc. hurts more, and no amount of out of order execution can keep the pipe filled. We're seeing a trend towards SMT (like the Power5) and chip multiprocessing (Power5 also) just to make better use of our transistor budget.

What I think is really hurting the initial performance is the increased cache latency, at least for the short term. The side effects are probably mitigated by the trace cache. But they waited until 90 nm to release Prescott, and that's probably because of the extra power consumption and area of the extra pipeline registers, but there's also an increase in leakage, so it's a tradeoff. They shouldn't have any problem ramping up their clock frequency. Maybe this wasn't the right way to go, but one thing is for sure - they didn't take the easy route.
Re:Thoughts. by Junks+Jerzey · 2004-02-02 03:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

AMD had it right all along - efficient IPC and low clock speed.

Of course you don't see any AMD chips that are *clearly* head and shoulders above Intel in benchmarks, though. Maybe a few percent faster here, a few percent slower there. It's all just noise.
Re:Thoughts. by Witsu · 2004-02-02 05:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

That may be the official case, but I think AMD is planning on consumers comparing the PR rating to an equivalent P4. Notice the geek oriented 64FX has a model number that looks nothing like Mhz, but all the cheaper A64s do. PR ratings are obviously designed to trick the average consumer, to whom clock speed is everything into thinking they are getting a faster chip. Prescott will just mean AMD's model number system will continue to work longer, unlike with the AthlonXP, which often performed alot lower than it's PR number suggested
Re:Thoughts. by Hoser+McMoose · 2004-02-02 11:58 · Score: 2, Informative

... the areas where they lag the most are the ones that SSE3 looks like it should alleviate.

I don't anticipate that SSE3 will have much of an effect on performance, certainly not like SSE2 does. It's really just filling in a few holes, instructions that probably should have been included in SSE2 but weren't for whatever reason. Some odd special-case scenarios might see a big boost, but for the most part I would throw out a guess of 0-5% max for most programs, with the majority falling closer to the 0% side of things.

The Prescott delivers respectable performance and will end up costing less at the same clock speeds than Northwood.

This, of course, is the kicker. If/when the Prescott is cheaper than the Northwood, then it starts to make sense.

We're not looking at an event like the original P4 launch where the new chip was not only slower but also more expensive & required hardware upgrades to use

I would say that nearly everyone who would want a Prescott IS looking at hardware upgrades. Only the latest and greatest P4 motherboards will support the chip, and if you've already got a 2.8C GHz P4 or faster, why would you want to upgrade now? Even most boards made 6-8 months ago are unlikely to support Prescott chips, particularly those > 3.0GHz which require new voltage regulators.

Will this work? by after · 2004-02-02 01:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

Can I overclock it to 5 HGz ?

Slower!!! by PhrozenF · 2004-02-02 01:03 · Score: 5, Informative

Why don't you go check benchmarks before you say faster....Most sites say it is slower than the earlier Pentium 4 because of the increased number of stages in the pipeline. And obviously, it's beaten blue by the AMD A64 3400+ in more than half of the real-world benchmarks.

Sure, the increase in cache helps, but the increase in pipeline stages really kills intensive non-repetitive computing tasks...

and oh...i think I got first post!

Re:Slower!!! by sbennett · 2004-02-02 01:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's marginally slower now, but the margin is less than when the original P4 came out, and for much the same reasons. But then again, the original P4s were designed to run above 2GHz, so they were slow at 1.4GHz. I'd suggest that Prescott is probably designed to be running in excess of 4GHz, so it is slower now than the Northwoods. That'll change once they start ramping up the clock speeds, and the effects of a longer pipeline become less significant.
Re:Slower!!! by maraist · 2004-02-02 03:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

That'll change once they start ramping up the clock speeds, and the effects of a longer pipeline become less significant.

I disagree.. I think that the performance enhancements were due to factors other than the lenghtened pipe and fast clock.. The clock merely compensates (currently badly) for the added [wasteful] buffers, longer latency, and deminishing marginal return on a single enhanced variable (clock-speed).

Intel needs to create a market for it's higher priced CPUs.. So by having a nominal performance chip, they can increase the other variables (cache performance being a big one), and thus charge an enormous premium.

I believe that they could go a long way to enhance the performance of their existing P4 archtecture, but they need more marketing power.. They don't want to waste time/money advertising Pentium 5. Additionaly, the "extreme-edition" moniker on a similarly clocked CPU is going to be a hard-sell. Thus they will make the most money on clock-enhancements.

AMD has the potential to capitalize on this by getting a higher benchmark rating, virtually for free, so I don't really see this as a big win.

The only issue is that it's cheaper to design a CPU with more stages than to optimize a lower-stage-count to get more Instr/sec. So AMD might not be in a position to get a truely faster cpu out any time soon, and relabeling their existing CPU's won't go over very well.

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-Michael

from the amd information minister... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-02 01:03 · Score: 5, Funny

Our INTEL says Opteron is faster =)

Aww man by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2004-02-02 01:14 · Score: 2, Funny

Basically, looks like it's faster, but still not the fastest in all areas

Hemos, damn you, I was about to read the articles and you spoiled the end ...

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"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash

2 Jags Prescott by reality-bytes · 2004-02-02 01:18 · Score: 4, Funny

Its only people from the UK who will know what I'm talking about but every time I hear 'prescott', an overweight, drink-laden scruffy politician with a McDonalds voucher in his pocket springs to mind.

This also conjours up an impression of the Intel Prescotts being in ineffecient, environmentally-unfriendly and handling code in an annoying accent.

Why oh why couldn't Intel have called them something else, like Intel Bloody Powerful chips?

--
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.

Re:2 Jags Prescott by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2004-02-02 01:22 · Score: 5, Funny

Its only people from the UK who will know what I'm talking about but every time I hear 'prescott', an overweight, drink-laden scruffy politician with a McDonalds voucher in his pocket springs to mind.

Intel markets it as the TedKennedy core in the US.

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"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash

Prescott will be like the P4 by gumbysworld · 2004-02-02 01:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

Prescott will be like the P4. It will be slow in the begining as they milk every mhz stepping they can but will slow start to shine when they pump up the MHZ.

Its a shame but that is how it goes and went with the P4 it need more speed to be able to show it true worth.

It would be nice if they said screw it and just released it a 4.0

Re:Prescott will be like the P4 by ameoba · 2004-02-02 02:20 · Score: 3, Informative

First off, Prescott -is- a P4.

Now, I'll assume you're talking about the initial P4 launch (Willamette). This is nowhere near as embarrasing as that was. The Prescott is only a few percent slower than the Northwood at the same speeds and works in (most) existing motherboards. The Willamette, OTOH, when it was launched, required new motherboards & RAM and was getting beaten horribly at benchmarks by chips with a significantly lower clock speeds.

While upgrading from a Northwood rig to a Prescott rig would be silly unless you're making a significant clock speed jump too, the Northwood looks respectable. If you consider that projected prices on them are somewhat lower than Northwood, it all balances out.

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my sig's at the bottom of the page.

More Reviews by RedSynapse · 2004-02-02 01:24 · Score: 5, Informative

Tech-Report Prescott Review
accelenation Prescott Review
Ace's Hardware Prescott Review
Gamers Depot Prescott Review
HardTecs4U
Hexus
K-Hardware Prescott Review,
Legit Reviews Prescott Review
LostCircuits
MBReview Prescott Review
VR-Zone
X-bit labs Prescott Review
XtremeSystems Prescott Review
Extreme-tech Prescott Review

Ironically by shayera · 2004-02-02 01:25 · Score: 2, Funny

When viewing the article at Anandtech, I'm pestered with ads for the AMD64 Opteron..

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Will software catch up? by erick99 · 2004-02-02 01:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

Intel marches steadily on with new chips and planned obsolescence for the old chips. I tend to feel that software is lagging in terms of taking advantage of more powerful and faster processors. I suppose some programs such as PhotoShop can take advantage of faster chips when rendering large and complex files. Still, I think the processors are, by and large, way ahead of software.

Happy Trails,

Erick

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Re:Will software catch up? by Reivec · 2004-02-02 01:57 · Score: 2, Interesting

I don't like the mentality that just because CPUs are faster that means software should bloat itself up more and more so that you HAVE to have the fastest chips just to run your OS. What crack are you smoking man? The fact that software isn't keeping up is a GOOD thing IMHO. I mean think about it, it means that we can do everything we need to do and have plenty of room to spare. This leads to greater multitasking as you can do many many things at once and not get bogged down. It means you games will run smoother, even if you have programs running in the background.

I personally do NOT want to see software makers TRYING to push CPU limits just for the sake of pushing them. We will just end up with a bunch of useless "features" that no one wants or uses and it will be just like all the cell phones out there :-P.

Normal people will continue to buy middle of the line stuff and will continue to say "gee, this is much faster than my old machine" which is how it should be. If they got new software with that new machine that used up all the cycles then it wouldn't feel much faster and there wouldn't be much point in buying it now would there? And there are plenty of people that will always have the "It can't be too fast" mentality. ie. gamers, multimedia people (images and movies), scientific computing, rendering farms, and I am sure lots more. I personally think things are on track.
Re:Will software catch up? by crzybkr4 · 2004-02-02 03:08 · Score: 2, Interesting

Actually, I think software should take advantage of this. Perfect example -- my Transmeta-based laptop hardly ever runs at more than 300 Mhz as reported by Longrun. Occasionally it spikes up at full speed at 933 Mhz. Even playing a DVD or an MP3 requires no more than 300-500 Mhz. Heck, even with other programs running in the background!

My point is that unless the software takes advantage of the extra speed, the extra speed is meaningless in most situations. Most applicaitons won't feel any different between a 500 Mhz machine and a 2 Ghz machine... Users don't write their instant messages any faster.

Games should and do take advantage of faster processors.

Handwriting recognition, voice recognition, gesture recognition, biometrics, etc. should all take advantage of the faster procesors. Otherwise, software is in fact lagging...

Re:Athlon Performance Ratings by naztafari · 2004-02-02 01:36 · Score: 5, Informative

"is AMD going to adjust its PR Rating to the new cores that Intel has?"

I don't think so. AMD Athlon PRs are not measured against Intel Chips.

AFAIK, the AMD Athlon PR numbers are the newer CPUs' (Athlon XPs, 64s) ratings against the older Athlon Thunderbirds which were the last ones that were labeled and sold in MHz/GHz.

So roughly, an Athlon XP2600+ would be akin to an Athlon Thunderbird that was theoretically made to run at 2.6GHz

Remember, a 1.33GHz Athlon Thunderbird stacked up pretty well against a 1.7GHz P4 back then, and only lost out on SSE optimizations.

What market is it for? by MountainMan101 · 2004-02-02 01:41 · Score: 5, Interesting

You have to ask the question!

With the Athlon 64, IA64 and G5 vying for the 64bit market, and Athlon offering native supports of 32-bit binaries. Why would anyone want a new series of Pentium 4E?

Is Intel feeling that Athlon may be about to make leaps and bounds in the small business/desktop market?

Re:What market is it for? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-02 03:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

Because there's *no* reason to buy a 64-bit chip unless you're running a server or development. Windows currently is not 64-bit and that being the market dominance why would you release a chip that 95 percent of the home users can't use till possibly 2006?

It's like trying to sell the orcs of mordor solar powered cars. They won't work till the return of the king. :)

Page info by after · 2004-02-02 01:43 · Score: 2, Informative

Actually, you can link it. Its still a large ammount of information to take in though. Good midnight read, I guess :|

British Politician by anaplasmosis · 2004-02-02 01:47 · Score: 4, Informative

Intel did realise that "Prescott" is a much lampooned British politician, didn't they? Official bio here; http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1376.asp Highly entertaining game here; http://www.urban75.com/Punch/prescott.html

Just suck it up Intel, GIve us what we want!! by OlivierB · 2004-02-02 01:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

Is it just me or does anybody have the felling Intel is completly lead by Marketing GHZ frills? Looks to me like they didn't make the most efficient chip, they just designed a straight shooter for 4/5 GHZ. We all know their current P4 Extreme are real Power hogs and not all that efficient. Thus my question, why can't they focus on delivering a 9nm version of the Pentium M? With it's low consumption and heat they could have surely clocked this big boy in the 3.2GHz area and taken care of AMD. All these benchmarks won't make a difference as Mom & Pop will go to COMPUSA and be this computer is Faster-than-3Ghx-because-it's-a4-Ghz. Time to get some AMD stock

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Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity

Re:Just suck it up Intel, GIve us what we want!! by Mr.+Piddle · 2004-02-02 05:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

We all know their current P4 Extreme are real Power hogs and not all that efficient.

Reflecting on the recent SUV craze in the USA, this really isn't hard to understand. However, markets do change--just look at the newer generations of station wagons labeled "crossover" SUVs. People are realizing that they never really wanted a 10,000lb SUV all along, and we're moving back to the early 80's super-practical family mover.

One thing that hasn't penetrated in the computer markets is that 100W CPUs really can cost tens of dollars per year in extra power consumption relative to more efficient CPUs. Now that computers are getting well under $1000, those tens of dollars might not seem so trivial any longer. I predict we'll see the current no-holds-barred CPUs move aside for more reasonable ones by the end of the decade as the computer markets mature.

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Linux by millahtime · 2004-02-02 01:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

Has anyone done a test of the AMD64 running a 64 bit OS vs P4 running a 32 bit OS? Say Linux. To see the difference when they full power of the chip is taken advantage of. Especially with rendering. It may be a little like comparing Apples and Oranges but comparing these 2 chips can be that way. And to throw in a 32 bit OS on the AMD64 chip isn't really fair to it's power. It's not really using the full potential of the chip.

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Evolution or ID?

Origin of the name Prescott by andy666 · 2004-02-02 02:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

Prescott is the assistant to the navigator in Moby Dick, and he is known for being excellent at making rapid computations.

Re:Origin of the name Prescott by stevel · 2004-02-02 04:45 · Score: 4, Informative

Intel uses "geographic" names (towns, mountains, etc.) for all its code names, since they can't be copyrighted. Prescott is a town in Oregon (a state from which Intel draws many of its code names), so I think that the connection to Moby Dick is just a coincidence.

Their marketing prolicies are really sucks..... by deconvolution · 2004-02-02 02:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

It seems that both AMD/Intel are trying to double everything in a single CPU, such as L1, L2, even DDR to DDRII :). I just wonder why they have lack product lines of dual-CPU systems for main consumers? Their SMP solutions are either very high-end not going to face main consumers, or fading to the market because of slow enough (both of them always have unresonable prices).
For most people, the most areas Pentium4/Althon XP take advantages are 3D applications, data servers, and some scitisfic applications. However, a SMP system with two main stream processors also can achieve the simpilar(just slower a little bit) scores. Those applications always can be implemented through parallel approaches. (I believe it already have done this during the designing time....).
For example, for SMP solutions, I have to choose between Operton and Althon MP, but in actually I want a dual-althonXP with the double prices. I think that such system is what many other people really want to buy insteading of investing massive money on new processor/cooling system for better performance.... I believe there is not a big technical matter for this just trying to force us follow their single processor upgrading ways....
"Why spend billions, when you can spend millions?"

Re:Athlon Performance Ratings by Dan+Ost · 2004-02-02 02:42 · Score: 4, Interesting

The way it works is that an XP2600+ is 2.6 times faster than a 1GHz Duron,
a 3000+ is 3 times faster than a 1GHz Duron, etc.

This is according to "PC Hardware in a Nutshell" 3rd edition (O'Reilly).

Can anyone back this up with a reference from AMD?

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*sigh* back to work...

Still 32 Bit... by axis-techno-geek · 2004-02-02 02:56 · Score: 2, Funny

That is just so 90's ;)

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It's the early Pentium 4 all over again. by MtViewGuy · 2004-02-02 03:00 · Score: 3, Interesting

Does anyone here remember the early Pentium 4 1.4 and 1.7 GHz chips built on the Socket 423 form factor? With only 256 KB of on-die L2 cache and few programs (at that time) that could take full advantage of the Pentium 4's SSE2 multimedia extensions, small wonder why the CPU was much-disliked originally. It wasn't until Intel came out with the newer Pentium 4's with the 512 KB L2 cache and software that fully took advantage of SSE2 extensions that the CPU finally took off in popularity.

I don't see the Prescott-core CPU's become popular until software catches up with supporting all the functions of the CPU; we may see that with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and later builds of the Linux 2.6.x kernel.

speed vs design by john_uy · 2004-02-02 03:45 · Score: 2, Interesting

it is quite interesting that the new prescott core has a lower latency for the caches and higher stage pipeline.

but given the fact that a big percentage of decrease in latency from existing northwood cores and big increase in pipeline does not reduce the speed *significantly.* it can still compete with the current northwood with a small drop in performance on a clock per clock basis.

given these things, i think the cpu may be designed quite well given its current performance with numerous internal slow downs. i'm sure in their next core, they will be able to reduce the latency by significant amounts and increase the branch prediction system thereby causing their future cpus to perform better than current iteration.

i believe the current purpose of prescott is to do a couple of things. first, refine their 90nm processing of the cpu. they will be able to iron out manufacturing bugs (like yields.) they will also be able to improve in the design of the cpu (to put minor revisions to improve the manufacturing or even performance.) they will be able to earn more (since 90nm should product more yields for them.)

probably, i believe that in around 1 year's time, just like their transition from williamete to northwood, their cpu will be much faster. they should be able to solve the latency of their cache. they may already adopt a very good branch prediction unit that will reduce the effects of a very long pipeline.

also, this year will be a transition year of technologies. so pretty much everything you buy not will almost be worthless by next year. the cpu packaging will be changed to lga. slots in the computer will feature pci express. i/o will be standardized with usb. storage devices will be sata. intel will be prepping up for speed wars next year. (i think this usually happends every other year where there is a speed war and there is a slow increase in speeds by both sides.)

--
Live your life each day as if it was your last.

Re:speed vs design by Loki_1929 · 2004-02-02 07:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

Who's feeding you this stuff?

"given these things, i think the cpu may be designed quite well given its current performance with numerous internal slow downs."

So.... new CPUs are supposed to run slower than those they are replacing? I see...

"i'm sure in their next core,"

Which won't be just a core; it'll be a whole new CPU running the Tejas core, and will probably be marketed as a Pentium 5 or thereabouts. It's due out some time early next year.

" they will be able to reduce the latency by significant amounts"

What latency? Where? How much of a latency redction are you expecting to see that you refer to it as "significant"? Do you have information sources with which to back this up, or is this something you gathered from an in-depth conversation with Ms Cleo at $4.99/min?

"increase the branch prediction system"

What does that mean?! I assume you mean that they're going to improve branch prediction. Well now, this helps to a certain extent with predictable branchs such as those seen in simple loops. Currently, branch prediction units are rating somewhere around 90 - 95%, depending on which Intel/AMD tech docs you're reading. How much of an improvement do you hope to accomplish above and beyond this?

"thereby causing their future cpus to perform better than current iteration."

So Prescott performs slower than Northwood, and this is Good(tm), and the next "core" is going to perform faster than Prescott, and this is also Good(tm). Seems like Intel just can't lose - make a chip that's slow; good - make a chip that's fast; good. Amazing.

" first, refine their 90nm processing of the cpu. they will be able to iron out manufacturing bugs"

You're kind of supposed to do that before you start shipping the CPUs.

"probably, i believe that in around 1 year's time, just like their transition from williamete to northwood, their cpu will be much faster."

Again, your conversations with Ms Cleo are really just a waste of your money, as she's feeding you bad information - possibly from evil spirits. In a year from now, We'll have Tejas-core CPUs, probably called Pentium 5s, shipping to the masses. They'll probably have 64-bit instructions at the ready, if not enabled, and they'll probably also be dual-core capable. In a year from now, if they're still trying to hammer out problems with Prescott, they may as well start reselling Opteron CPUs.

" they may already adopt a very good branch prediction unit that will reduce the effects of a very long pipeline."

They already have an excellent branch prediction unit. Unfortunately for your comment, it has little to do with the long pipeline. The effect of the longer pipeline is to allow for scaling to higher clock frequencies. By lowering the IPC and extending the pipeline, they can ramp up in frequency, whereas Northwood was approaching a frequency ceiling. Higher clock frequencies offset longer pipelines, just as better branch prediction somewhat offsets high latency from cache misses in certain situations.

"so pretty much everything you buy not will almost be worthless by next year."

Completely incorrect. What you buy now will always be outdated in a year's time - this is true of any given time in the tech industry. However, computers being bought now will continue to function in an increasingly limited fashion for the foreseable future. I still see PCs in use from the early 1990s. They don't run the latest and greatest software, but they often do all that which is required of them by their respective users.

" the cpu packaging will be changed to lga."

For Intel CPUs. Sockets for AMD CPUs will remain the same (with the exception of an addition of 939-pin) for the forseable future. Even socket A will live into 2005, according to AMD's brass.

"slots in the computer will feature pci express."

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-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

SSE2 vs. SSE3 by Kjella · 2004-02-02 03:55 · Score: 2, Interesting

SSE2 *had* to be used in many apps to get decent performance, since the FP performance sucked. SSE3 on the other hand are very few instructions - and if you look at the DivX 5.1.1 benchmarks that supposedly is using the new LDDQU instruction, it can't even beat the equivalent Northwood.

The rest also sounded like "special interest" functions, much like many of AMDs 64 bit extensions. Great for specific uses like scientific calculations and cryptography, not that much for general computing. Cache is already quite high at 1mb, if you look at die size any higher would seriously add to Intel's costs.

The only real promise there was the ability to ramp up speed, though that's not a bad one. But then again, there's no doubt AMD has things to match. One being the switch to x86-64 with more registrys, two being the move to 90nm process, third getting dual channel DDR support on their AMD 64s (the FX I consider a special interest processor for the time being) and so on.

Bottom line? Looks like the CPU market will remain highly competitive for quite some time to come, for the good of all us consumers. But I didn't see any figures on Prescotts power consumption, anyone see it? I imagine a 5GHz Prescott would start to drain a *lot* of power (= cost, noise, heat)...

Kjella

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Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings

Re:SSE2 vs. SSE3 by EMN13 · 2004-02-02 05:10 · Score: 2, Interesting

There were some figures on power consumption that suggested Prescott runs quite a bit warmer than Northwood and the same clockspeed.

That's not really surprising either: A feature-size shrink (such as the move now from 130nm to 90nm) lowers the power per transistor, however, it increases the power per unit area (IIRC proportionally to the sqrt of the shrink).

Of course - a different processor layout could completely counteract these effects, and a change to 31 stages instead of 21 stages would qualify as such I suppose :-).

http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000317
does list some power data, and rates a 3.2 GHz prescott as having a 103W _typical_ power consumption...

Conclusion the prescott has a power consumption problem; hopefully later revisions will fix this...

Re:Athlon Performance Ratings by naztafari · 2004-02-02 04:08 · Score: 2, Interesting

They got it the other way around, but that's more or less correct.

A 1GHz Duron is roughly the same speed as a 1GHz Athlon Thunderbird since the 1GHz Duron was the then newer "Morgan" cores (which came out with the Athlon XPs). Benchmarks then showed that 1GHz Morgan Durons ran more or less at the same speed as the older 1GHz Thunderbird Athlons.

The increase in performance mostly came from the additional SSE instructions present in the 1GHz Morgan core Durons. Yep, especially since Quake III makes heavy use of SSE Instruction sets and used to be Intel-centric

I don't want to bother slogging through AMD Tech specs, but the PR numbering system I rattled of was from a rough memory of reading AMD tech specs over naming conventions with their Performance Ratings.

Informative? by Wesley+Felter · 2004-02-02 05:00 · Score: 3, Informative

What do trusted computing features and operating systems have to do with the pipeline length? I can't tell whether these posters are clueless or trolling.

Prescott by HogynCymraeg · 2004-02-02 05:06 · Score: 2, Funny

So can it beat its predecessor, the Northwood?

With a swift left jab, a Prescott can beat anything. Even egg throwers from Wales.

Power dissipation: 89-103 Watts by wirelessbuzzers · 2004-02-02 05:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

89-103 Watts max power dissipation

Ick. That's gonna hurt.

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I hereby place the above post in the public domain.

Re:The funny thing is... by angle_slam · 2004-02-02 10:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

Intel already knows that processor speeds don't necessarily mean performance. See, e.g., Centrino.

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