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Preview of Intel's Dual-Core Extreme Edition
ThinSkin writes "Intel let ExtremeTech.com sneak behind the curtain of its anticipated Dual-Core Pentium Extreme Edition processor for a full performance preview with benchmarks. Bundled with essentially two Prescott cores on one die, the Extreme Edition 840 processor clocks at 3.2GHz and contains a beefed-up power management system to keep the CPUs running cool during use. Expect Intel's dual-core line to hit the streets sometime this quarter. No word on pricing yet." Update: 04/04 17:26 GMT by T : Timmus points out FiringSquad's preview, too, writing "The benchmark results are mixed, with a few applications taking advantage of the new CPU, and some that don't." And Kez writes in reference to this article to say: "Our article on HEXUS.net, covering the P4 EE in detail, states the price as £650 (that's what we're looking at in the UK anyway, not sure about the U.S.)."
If I wanted to build a Windows system for gaming, would I have to buy Windows XP Pro for multiprocessor support...or is this dual core configuration invisible to the OS, meaning I could get away with XP Home for $100 less.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Which probably has a lot to do with the success of the Dilbert strip.
This morning, on the way in to work, the BBC World Service had another feature on managment (flavor-of-the-day) trends. I suppose marketting does the same thing, but nobody has actually put their finger on it, yet.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
No, you got it backwards. The AMD cpus [as I understand it] have DEDICATED pipes to the other cpus. They're 8/16 bits wide and run at [forget but think it goes upto 1.6Ghz].
So cpu 2 and cpu 3 could talk and not get in the way of cpu 1 and the memory bus. Yes, there is "northbridge" for memory but there still is a memory bus. The Intel cpus have no dedicated bus and ALL talk over the same bus.
Not having either combo of boxes I can't tell you which is faster but usually AMD is much faster than Intel just on the pure "not being a Ghz pusher".
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
You're right on the money there. If there's one very disturbing trend in the retail computer market it is the reliance on gaming for sales. I browse computer shops all the time and the other day my wife was with my just to kill some time before catching the subway.
We walked into a computer shot and a sales guy jumped on us in no time. We let him show us around and do his schtick for a bit and then I asked him why they didn't have any machines slower than 1Ghz for my wife who just browses the web but mainly user her PC to write reports. This guy straight faced says --oh because the games. You can't play games on those old machines.
Well my wife is a rather stern businesswoman and she wasn't even going to bother responding to this idiot. She just gave him one of those you are a worm looks and turned away. I said look man, in all confidence I can assure you my wife is not into video games. So, can you get me something like say right around 1Ghz or maybe half that, that costs a few hundred bucks less than these other models. I knew he couldn't and we weren't planning to buy anything anyway, but I just wanted to see what he would say. Sure enough, he goes right back to the game plan --well that stuff we just don't sell it because it . . . well you can't play games.
When we left the store my wife was genuinely impressed. She couldn't believe that the sales drone has been so single-mindedly obsessed with gaming. What had happened to the PC market that grew up around the IBM PC standard? You know, what happened to the B in International Business Machines. The IBM PC is dead. Now we seem to be dealing with IGM which apparently stands for International Gaming Machines, but who is this company? If we wanted games, we could get just a PS2 after all.
But even if PC gaming was an absolute must and folks like my wife were the tiny minority, this new Intel EE looks like a loser. As the parent post points out, lowering the clock speed is not going to be a selling point for gamers. And power management? This does not look well at all for Intel.
Of course what would I know. Once I got MAME going years ago on my 400MhzK62 I figured I had no reason to every upgrade again because I had basically reached nirvanah right here on Earth. Gaming, shit, I got more games than I should ever need long ago.
I don't get Intel. I never did though. I just wish Via Epia was a bit cheaper and easier to find.
The review is useless without comparing their test box to an Opteron dually. Since the details regarding how AMD is going to implement dual core is well known, they could take an existing AMD dually, and hobble it with a slower hypertransport setting which would give a pretty accurate simulation.
This lack of comparison indirectly tells me that AMD's dual core solution is going to wipe the floor with Intel's, even more so than the current AMD performance advantage over Intel on single core procs.
I wonder how big a gun Intel put to their head. I also wonder how much AMD is pissed off at being "scooped", when they've been working at this for a much longer time.
jh