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Intel Begins Shipping 64-bit Prescotts
Rucas writes "With a minimum of fanfare, Intel has begun shipping a version of the Pentium 4 with 64-bit instruction set extensions. The news came to light not via an Intel press release, but rather through the spec sheet for a new server from IBM. In the midst of the new IBM eServer xSeries servers based on the recently released 64-bit Xeon is a blade server powered by the 64-bit Prescott. This marks the first product appearance of the new CPU."
Now it's Intel running behind AMD :)
Scientia est Potentia
Intel has been, in reality, behind AMD for at least two years. Now it just gets confirmed.
Bang for the buck means AMD wins hands down.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
more like arstechnica.com writes....
A link to the original on Ars might've been nice:
t ml
http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/20040804-4070.h
"Intel president Paul Otellini said that Intel was building the capability for its 64-bit extensions into Prescott. At the time, he said that Intel wouldn't enable the feature until Microsoft released a 64-bit version of Windows; that operating system is expected later this year. "
Does this mean that we will have disabled and enabled versions? Like the old 486SX and DX (SX I understood was a disabled/failed math co-processor). I suppose like all their other chip lines, each will be labled distinctly with some marketing nomenclature.
Have you Meta Moderated t
The low profile introduction can be explained by the official designation for the new instruction set features: they will be known as the IA32-NIH extensions.
It's pretty astounding that major jump from 32-bit to 64-bit processing isn't even mentioned by Intel.
Think about how big a jump it was from the i286 to i386 (16-bit to 32-bit.) That release was a major deal for Intel.
Chew: You Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.
Roy: Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
Though Xeon-Nocona has been available for more than a month it seems there there are no substantial reports on 64-bit performance of Nocona. Is there anyone here who can report anything about the 64-bit performance of Nocona?
Ok, so Win XP 64-bit is in beta. Great! But where's everything else?
At what point are people actually going to start making 64 bit applications? I'm not talking 64 bit linux or anything like that, I'm talking consumer level apps and games.
I see a lot of people upgrading to 64 bit chips, but what good does it do if there's nothing to utilize them? Is it just for bragging rights or what?
I'm a programmer and I have yet to see a need to get a 64 bit chip.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
You know, I'm starting to feel sorry for Intel; they've had a terribly rough year with no performance gains (while AMD has run past them) and failures with the Prescott (overheating, big time). As we've seen on slashdot, they've recently released their roadmap for the next year and we don't even see speed improvements coming then. Well anyway, about the 64-Prescott. This seems like a very desperate move from Intel in the midst of all their problems -- they've had no official release for this new technology move (this seems sketchy ... this would normally be a humungous deal!) and, moreso, because they're basing this huge move on the Prescott, a chip which has been pushed beyond it's limits. There's reports everywhere about people's fans on heatsinks melting. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Intel can manage to push out in the coming quarters -- it doesn't seem like them (as has been said by Intel's CEO in an intra-company memo) and, with their past, it only makes sense that they'll emerge from this alive, and may be in the lead again in the near years to come.
Where could I have seen it before.
--- There isn't any problem that can't be solved by a small, low yield nuclear device, is there??
I need to know what proper cflags I should use.
Anyway
I'm still unconvinced about 64-bit computing for the present. I think most businesses will wait a long while before making upgrades based on this. One obvious reason is that software is compiled for 32-bit processors, but how much faster is say Gentoo compiled for a 64-bit AMD processor?
A lot of people's arguments defending 64-bit computing is that no software is designed for it. I'm sure I'm completely ignorant on this, but how well does gcc take advantage of it if I were to compile programs to make use of it?
Because the Opteron has an on-die memory controller. That can boost things up to 20% in some cases. It also makes designing motherboards easier because you don't need both a north and southbridge. It makes it harder to upgrade to a new memory technology, but it can be disabled allowing you to do that (I think). If they switched to that buffered "FB-RAM" or whatever (there was an article on the idea a while back on a big hardware site) that would fix that.
But anyway, Intel is stuck in a hard place. Because of the memory controller, their chips perform slower because of the extra latency, so they must ratchet up clockspeeds. The solution? An on-die memory controller. So why don't they do it? They CAN'T.
Intel has been pushing BTX for a variety of reasons (although most people blame Prescott's heat for it). But the way BTX is designed Opteron boards can't be made into a BTX form-factor because the memory is too far away from the CPU (there is too much electrical noise, IIRC). This means that Intel can't switch to an on-die controller without either changing BTX (what I think will happen because of AMD), or finding a way around the noise problem (little faraday cages?).
If you add in things like that the Intel chip only supports 36-bit address (I believe) while the Opteron handles 64-bit addresses (the actual bus is smaller right now, but that could easily be changed) and other performance factors (the top P4EE is outperformed in Doom 3 by a chip that costs more than $800 less, see the Inquirer) and Intel is in hot water.
All of this should be interesting to see what happens. Intel seems to be in trouble (performance wise, at least in the short term).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Go Intel! only 7.5 months behind Apple and IBM who collaborated to put out a nice 64 bit solution in August of '03.
"AMD welcomes Intel to the world of AMD64, said Ben Williams, director of server and workstation marketing at AMD.
It's kind of funny to watch. Intel is choosing their words very carefully. They're saying things like, the new chip "will run programs currently being developed for AMD's 64-bit processors with very little modification." They absolutely refuse to call the new chip "AMD compatible" even though that's exactly what it is. Intel is having a lot of trouble facing the facts: they poured zillions of dollars and years of R&D into an architecture that nobody wants (Itanium), meanwhile AMD got it right (Opteron) and now they're playing catch-up.
You'd think that Intel, moreso than anyone else, would know that you just can't kill x86.
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At the time, he said that Intel wouldn't enable the feature until Microsoft released a 64-bit version of Windows; that operating system is expected later this year.
But according to Computer World,
Microsoft Corp. has further delayed versions of Windows for PCs and servers equipped with x86 processors with 64-bit extensions. Analysts said the extra delay will slow the advent of 64-bit desktop computing and provide a head start for rival operating systems on servers.
Windows Server 2003 for 64-bit Extended Systems and Windows XP 64-bit Edition for 64-bit Extended Systems won't be available until the first half of 2005, a Microsoft spokeswoman said yesterday. The 64-bit Windows XP client was originally due early this year but had already been delayed. The server software was scheduled for late 2004. Who's correct?
Begin sarcasm I want my 64-bit Prescott chip desktop with the most awesome world's number 1 OS a.k.a. Microsoft's Windows XP (64-bit) and I can't take these delays any longer. Waaaa. end sarcasm
Seriously, though... why not release 64-bit prescott for retail and let people install whatever they want... e.g. Linux (64-bit)...
486SX - a 486DX with its FPU disabled.
486DX - 486SX with a working FPU.
487 - 486DX with a slightly different pinout for use in 486SX systems and sold as a "math-coprocessor;" actually, it would disable the 486SX and be used exclusively!
Source.
It has been revealed that these 64 bit intel chips are not able to address as much memory as AMD 64 bit chips. Specificaly, whereas the Opteron/Althon64 has a 40 bit physical and 48bit virtual address space (not the same as virtual mem, remember that AMD chips each have a memory controler, thus upto 256 Banks of memory, via 256 processors), these intel chips are limited to 36 bits.
Thats right, the same 36 bits that intel has supported via PXE for years...
Thus, total system memory size for these processors is limited to 64GB, meanwhile the per-processor limit for AMD chips is 1TB, 256TB total in a system (max 256 CPUs, if anyone ever makes a board and Hypertransport bridges capable of supporting such a large number of chips).
Anyway, it is a big difference, and it hints that the actual implementation may be the same old slow PXE implementation intel has had for years (since the pentium pro, if I remember correctly).
------------ This post was made while on percocet and no spell checking has been done. deal.
man is machine
1) "Not invented here". Actually, Intel does have a 64-bit platform, it's called the Itanium. They don't want to detract from their own product line by hyping this. They're marketing it like a way to extend your RAM and a way to get compatibility with those newfangled versions of NT that were once the province of AMD beta testers.
2) The 64-bit instructions are reportedly emulated and are not as fast as the AMD equivalent. Therefore they will make x86_64-specific optimizations seem slow. They'd rather you use it for the 40-bit pointers, but to keep the word sizes 32-bit and not to use those extended registers.
It's a half-hearted effort to get the compatilibity where it matters (OS, database) while exploiting the fact that most of the code is still x86_32 with a sprinkle of performance-critical SSE* and that runs fine on Nocona.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
My guess is that it would work, but they've been fine-tuning it the whole time and so if you could enable an old one, a new chip (pre-enabled) would be faster than an old one, as they were using the extra time MS gave them (intentionally or not) to make things better.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
They should have gone for 65bit chips.
Who wouldn't want a chip that's one better than the competition?
Uh...he did say "within 1GHz of the speed." You're talking about a chip that's well over twice as high in frequency....or, another way, nearly 2GHz faster. Or, a third way, several times as expensive. So, uh....can it.
And while you're at it...what's this about USB being broken and never fixed? I haven't noticed it on any of my AMD machines.
For the record, I have many, many Intel boxes, and many (though not quite *as* many) AMD ones as well. If cost is no object, and insano speed and/or 64bit isn't necessary, I'll choose Intel. If I'm paying for it, it will be an Athlon. If I want the fastest thing I can lay hands on, I'll get an opteron.
There is no point in bickering over vi vs. emacs. Or NVidia vs. 3dfx.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Go look at AMD's athlon MP chipset. Notice MP NOT XP
The USB 2 didn't work and they had to bundle a sepearte card and turn off all the onboard USB.
That sucked
Ok, I'm feeding the trolls, apparently, but it's a legitimate question. And the answer, of course, is:
As long as Microsoft leads the desktop operating system market, and as long as people need backwards compatibility to apps compiled for x86."
Remove those two requirements, and you'll see a different architecture become dominant. But, really, is it likely to happen any time soon?
Also, Anandtech just posted a new roadmap with some info on upcoming 64-bit Pentium 4 CPU/chipsets for the desktop. The Intel 925XE chipset (with 1066MHz FSB) will ship in October along with 64-bit Pentium 4 "F" processors. "F" supposedly means it's a 64-bit Prescott.
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Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
Nobody's complaining that Ars was first with it. The complaint is that this /. article is a cut-and-paste of the first paragraph of the Ars article, with the links changed so they don't go to Ars.
I don't think anyone would be complaining if the submitter had written their own summary of the eetimes article. What's lame is not only taking the entire submitted paragraph from another site without credit, but also removing the link *in* that paragraph to a previous Ars article.
Cheers
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If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
I've said it before in this article, but I'll say it again:
/. just had an article on the A64 3000+, referring to it as a budget CPU. My wholesale prices also support this, (somewhere around $145 for an A64 2800+, maybe $170 for a 3000+.)
It's not the 64-bitness of the Athlon 64. It's the changes in architecture (more general purpose registers, on-die memory controller, hyperthreading, SSE2, etc.) The Athlon 64 out-performs any other x86 desktop CPU on the market today, including the P4EE.
Couple this with a much lower price than the P4EE. Hell,
All of this adds up to a very impressive package for my customers. And I'm getting nothing but rave reviews on the machines I'm building with Athlon 64s. To hell with whether or not they're doing what they're designed to do! They're fast, and inexpensive. Talk about a gamer's dream. And let's face it, the 64-bitness will be useful in the future, but is only an afterthought for the consumer, right now.
But rumor has it that Intel's 64-bit performance is no faster than its 32-bit performance, and slower than AMD's 64-bit performance.
Is it another 80x860?
I am bringing this up because Intel refused for a long time to bring in a 64-bit x86 due to invement with HP for Itanium. It seems so odd that we have a chip based on 1970's technology.
Itanium was supposed to be surpacing x86 by now like NT replaced win95 derivitives. Intel has a notion of sunkin costs while HP would rather beat a dead horse than admit it failed after billions of billions of dollars of development. I guess its the culture of zero accountability and perfection with no room for mistakes that Fiona implemented.
x86 just wont die.
I would prefer to see the Alpha as an eventual replacement for the aging x86 and its a shame it was bought up just to boast the Itanium.
Well long live the Pentium 64-bit and forever x86.
http://saveie6.com/
As EE Times Reports:
Prescott is also Intel's first processor to support a security technology code-named Le Grande. While Intel has not yet detailed the technology, it is believed to provide a protected space in main memory for a secure execution mode required as part of Palladium, a new PC security scheme being developed by Microsoft Corp.
Le Grande is Intel's codename for Trusted Computing. HP's codename is ProtectTools, Cisco's codename appears to be either NetworkAdmissionControl or SelfDefendingNetwork, Phoenix BIOS code name is CoreManagedEnvironment, and of course we all know Microsoft's codename was Palladium and now is NaGSCaB and is slated to appear in Longhorn.
If you scroll down near the bottom of this page you can catch a look at a micrograph of the Prescott from about a year ago. Note that the Trusted Computing core is it's own an entire CPU and memory and support structures, and eats up about 20% of the chip. In other words Trusted Computing core ties up around 25 million transistors of real-estate, or about half of a Pentium 4.
It will support encrypted code (to secure it against you, the owner), it will encrypt RAM access (again, secure against you) and take over a portion of your cache. It will carry a unique key to identify you and your machine, but far more powerful than the old CPU serial numbers. It will forbid you to know your own encryption keys and prohibit you from decrypting your own data. I know it's designed to work with a "secure clock" (wouldn't want you the owner to be able to "tamper" with the time, now would they?), but I'm not sure if the secure clock is inside the CPU or planned to be external.
AMD has their own Trusted Computing project, but I have been having trouble digging out any hard info. It *may* be incorporated into the Opteron processor.
Transmeta has a trusted Computing project too, the TSX system - Transmeta Security eXtensions. I beleive initially appearing in the Caruso5800.
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486SX wasn't failed, they actually cut the traces to the FPU. Other than that the chip layout was identical.
Later SXs may have omitted the FPU completely but given that the SX was what amounted to a "loss leader" for Intel, intended to hold back AMD & Cyrix from the gates, they never spent a whole lot of time engineering the thing.
The real fun was when Intel sold a "FPU upgrade" for some 486SX systems. The "FPU Upgrade" was nothing more than a rebadged 486DX chip that mounted in a socket close to the original 486SX and, when installed, disabled the original 486SX chip.
That was the start of my hatred for Intel. I didn't buy one, I didn't get burned by one, I simply was a geek who knew what a lame duck looked like when he saw one. Crud, even back then I was doing tech support & MIS work.
Please do not post links to thefreedictionary.com - they are a dodgy site which repackages Wikipedia content, with ads, for profit, whilst stretching the GFDL as far as they possibly can.
Look at that link you posted - you'll see a credit to Wikipedia at the bottom. Now disable javascript in your browser and refresh - ooh, the credit is gone! They insert it in with javascript rather than putting it in the body of the page to ensure that Google doesn't pick it up. Why? Because a link to Wikipedia's article would help lift Wikipedia's pagerank above that of thefreedictionary.com.
Just say no, and if you want to read about PAE, read the original Wikipedia article.
None whatsoever. They expression of it, however, is protected by US copyright law, which the US Constitution gives Congress the power to create. So they don't own the information (you could write a paragraph in your own words with the same information) but you can't just copy'n'paste theirs (except when that falls under fair use, which this probably does, so it's a moot point). Whether this is state of affairs is desirable is another matter entirely, though I'm cool with it.
I ran into a similar issue dealing with some local banking institutions years ago. EVERY bank in this area was hooked on Token Ring. Now this was understandable from the perspective that Token Ring was arguably better than most older forms of networking, but this was 1997. New installations were still getting 16 Mbit Token installed. In some case we saw twisted pair installations, but they were still running 16 Mbit Token! What the hell? Ethernet over twisted pair was so much cheaper, faster, AND established.
Then I started noticing that EVERYTHING was IBM. The servers, the workstations, even the CABLING. I saw this at every bank we did work for (at least 8 different organizations).
So if it wasn't for the quality, expense, and/or speed, what was it? I later learned that this was a common theme in many larger organizations and it had a lot to do with how much IT stock was owned by the execs.
A friend of mine - a CIO - relayed to me that when a large organization buys a ton of equipment from IBM, the resulting sales figures usually give a bounce to the stock. Better still, if you coordinate your efforts with other execs in other companies, you can often make yourself a tidy profit.
During my time consulting for these banks, management did not want to hear about any other solution that wasn't IBM. I suspect that most Fortune 500 companies play a similar game with Dell product - and that would certainly help explain Intel's entrenchment.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
For us in .uk a "Prescott" is a byword for a bumbling buffoon.
.uk you should not that Prescott is our Deputy Prime Minister.
Characterised by:
1). Rambling incoherent communications.
2). A violent temper which could blow at any time.
3). A tendancy to do a rapid about about-face whenever challenged by the realities of hard work.
Do we really need a chip like this?
Note: For those not in
They're not hyping it since their pal Microsoft has delayed 64-bit Windows. Intel probably doesn't want to put pressure on Microsoft since Microsoft might favour AMD more.
Intel have already lost out on providing XBox2 with a CPU.
You're joking right? That is barely true. I suspect for integer performance, the Opteron is the strongest out of all of them. Look at the SpecINT scores, it is dominated by x86 at the top end (Xeons & Opterons) and they are way above everything else at all.
For FP, you're half right. The Itanium2 & POWER4/5 are more than a match for the Opteron and will beat it (especially the POWER5). SPARC & MIPS are waaaay slower. No-one uses them for raw MHz performance, more for a large number of CPU systems.
My REAL WORLD tests show the Opteron is 33% quicker MHz for MHz over Sun's UltraSPARC3/3i/3+ processors. That is a problem for them when the Opteron clocks so much faster too!