AMD and Intel Update CPU Roadmaps

vincecate writes "Recently AMD updated their processor roadmap. It shows their move to 90 nm and has a range of new processors over the next 1.5 years, including dual-core chips. An unofficial AMD roadmap shows speeds and performance increasing. Intel also recently updated their roadmap. Intel does not show anything faster than the current 3.6 Ghz in the next 11 months, including the recently delayed 4 Ghz chip, except to say '3.6 Ghz or greater.' Strangely, some of the recent SPEC benchmark results show the 3.6 Ghz chip to be slower than the 3.4 Ghz chip. One possible explanation for this is that the 3.6 Ghz chips will slow down due to 'thermal throttling' if you are not very careful to keep them cool. So it seems like heat may be the reason Intel's roadmap does now show much improvement."

Comments

Water cooling?

[Cyberax]

Well, why not just make water cooling mandatory for new CPUs, just like Apple did?

Re:Water cooling?

[Wytter]

Actually, during a review session with the 3.6GHz LGA775, we experienced so high heat production that we had to use water cooling to ensure that the thermal throttling was not enabled. When using regular air cooling the processor would reach temperatures > 70 degrees during load, and from the results at this load we saw that at some times the processor had to use thermal throttling.

Another disadvantage with this high heat production is that other core components in the computer (such as the mainboard) will be exposed to more heat as well, hence the durability of these components will be lower.

If Intel and AMD continues to approach Itaniums heat production, water-cooling or similiar technologies will become mandatory for high end processors.

Is it just me or are people stupid these days?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason the 3.6GHz processor runs slower than the 3.4GHz processor is because they're different processors, not the same processor running at different clockspeeds. Just look at the die photos (www.chiparchitect.com) and you'll see what I mean. The idea is that the new processor will scale to higher clockspeeds which it, uh, already has. (Just look at the "OC records": nobody got an old Pentium 4 beyond 4GHz with standard HSF cooling - nobody. On the other hand, this is more or less straightforward with the new Pentium 4s.

What I don't understand is why more people aren't building Pentium M desktops.

Clock speeds seem to have stalled.

[arcade]

More people than me seem to have noticed that clock speeds seems to have stalled. I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing - as computers has grown fast enough for me lately. I'm still content with my 1.3Ghz Duron.

What I personally really, really want to see is cooler CPU's. CPU's that doesn't require a huge fucking fan. CPU's that are content with a heatsink would be nice.

Furthermore, I would love it if Dual configuration became more widespread (and thus cheaper). Personally I would love a multi-CPU machine far more than single-CPU ones.

My personal wishlist:
- 64bit CPUs to become the norm (seems to be happening).
- Cooler CPUs, not requiring fans (seems to be happening, look at the VIA EDEN CPU's)
- Dual/Quad/Multi -CPU configurations becoming the norm in home computers.

I don't care much whether single CPU's grow much faster at the moment, as there doesn't seem to be applications requiering it for regular use. There are of course specialist tasks that require more horsepower, but those are .. specialist tasks.