Intel Delays Release of 4Ghz Chips

bizpile writes "The AP is reporting that Intel's faster version of the Pentium 4 will not be available by the end of the year as previously promised. They told PC makers this week that the 4-gigahertz chip will not ship until the first quarter of 2005. Intel spokeswoman Laura Anderson said, 'We felt by adjusting the schedule for the products, we could better meet our customers' volume requirements and their high expectations.'"

Comments

Clock speed doesn't matter, anyway

[Kujah]

Clock speed really doesn't matter, anyway. Well, it's not as important a benchmark as Intel would have you think.

If a processor running at 4ghz can only do half the operations per clock cycle that a 2ghz processor can do, than it's no better than the 2ghz processor, and probably worse due to larger instruction pipelines, etc.

The fact that Intel has relied on this "Mhz Myth" has really killed sales of their Centrino (Pentium M) line of processors. Consumers see the (comparatively low) ghz ratings on the Centrinos (typically about 1.5ghz) and compare them to laptops with less expensive P4's (typically running between 2.5 to 3.5ghz) and wonder why anyone would pick the Centrinos.

Funny Stuff

[Lord Kano]

Laura Anderson said, 'We felt by adjusting the schedule for the products, we could better meet our customers' volume requirements and their high expectations.

Suit to Geek Translation.

"We can maximize the profit we make off of our existing inventory by delaying the release of the new chips until we sell off the current stock."

LK

Remeber 1-Ghz?

[relyter]

Back in 2000 when Intel was first surpassed by AMD when they were beaten to 1 Ghz, they rushed an overclocked 1.13 Ghz chip to market that eventually ended up being recalled. I suspect that the reason that the 4 Ghz chip is not yet being released may, in fact, have something to do with reliability. Also it is important to remember that this chip is running on the Prescott core, which will probably use over a hundred watts of power alone. Perhaps they need more time to explore better cooling solutions (that can be delivered cheaply) before rushing a potentially unreliable product to market.
I am in favor of reliable chips (although personally being an AMD zealot myself); I think that the competition between AMD and Intel is important for innovation and fair prices.

Maybe More instead of Moore

[DumbSwede]

If this is the end of Moore's Law it actually comes at a good time for the chip industry in terms of the GHz range we are at. If things stalled out at 1GHz, everyone would be waiting for 2GHz chips and wondering what the delay was. At 3GHz + it takes only modest gains to get to 4GHz, the industry can then take another year to get to 5GHz, then another year to get to 6GHz. It seems like progress, but is far less than the zoom we had going from 1GHz to 2GHz. IT shops will carp, but to the average consumer at Best Buy it will look like progress.

If this went on long enough and if we truly are at the end of straight line scaling, the industry might become driven by the one-more-GHz per year rule (the new More Law), versus doubling every 18 months. This new law could then hold for decades as it slowly curves down towards a flat line. I don't actually predict this will be the model soon, as the old Moore's Law is more likely to adhered to, but in 24 and then 36 month time frames for as long as possible. Still, if scaling is dead (and some are saying it is) then we could see the new "More Law" adopted as IT shops and Manufactures try to plan for future purchases. Software providers wouldn't be able to count on Moore's Law bailing them out. Bad news for Longhorn if scaling is dead, it might always be perceived of as slow (if /. reports are to be believed).

We are already putting 200+ million transistors on CPUs, but most speed increases come from scaling (speed increases) and memory caching. Now is the time for the industry to go Multi-Core. How about 100 two-million-transistor cores on a chip instead, with 500 separate integer and floating cores that can be shared across cores as needed.

BTW, I do know the real Moore's Law is about the number of transistors on a chip and not speed, but the two have been synonymous in the public's mind since the 80s.