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Intel Ships Dual-Core Chips

Torrey Clark writes "Intel seems to be the first to ship a batch of dual core x86 64-bit processors to OEMs. Intel's first dual-core chip is the Intel Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840. The new processor runs at 3.2 GHz, backs Intel's Hyper-Threading and is supported by the company's 955X Express chipsets, formerly code-named Glenwood. Dell also announced that it would be one of the first PC makers to ship Intel's new dual core Pentium Extreme." Reader wyckedone adds "AMD is set to ship their dual core Opteron processor, designed for servers, next week."

9 of 340 comments (clear)

  1. Rush to market? by jarich · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I thought that AMD is slated to ship their dual core chip first? Is this Intel rushing something to maket?

  2. Looks like intel rained on AMD's parade.. by mp3phish · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just last week we were all ment to assume that Dell (oops, I mean Intel) wasn't ready to ship dual core until Q1 of next year...

    Now all of a sudden -- out of nowhere -- they launch a surprise attack and shipped the cores early, even before AMD's announced launch date. Sounds like some VERY hefty competition for AMD. They had been claiming all along that they would be the first with dual cores an it was even used as an "excuse" for Dell to talk about starting to sell AMD chips specifically because of this feature.

    AMD had better look out! Their stock price will probably take a plunge due to this surprise announcement.

    --
    Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
    1. Re:Looks like intel rained on AMD's parade.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is still a win for AMD. Intel are shipping dual-core P4EEs, which are a premium-priced gamer-geek chip.

      Gamer-geek software isn't going to be seeing the full benefit of dual-core particularly soon.

      AMD are shipping their Opteron server chips next week, while dual-core Xeon is a way off yet. Dual-core is a real win in the server market right now, as a number of major software vendors which charge for licences on a per-CPU basis have agreed to charge single-CPU licence fees for each dual core CPU. This essentially means you can pay for 4-way performance from your software at 2-way prices.

      That's the competitive advantage of dual-core right now, and Intel aren't even close. Not to mention the fact that the P4EE chips are always HIDEOUSLY expensive.

      AMD also have better multi-CPU support than Intel anyway, with Opteron scaling better to larger configurations because of design considerations. So we now have:

      Desktop/Gamer market:
      AMD64 4000+ vs P4EE dual-core. P4EE will cost you more for limited performance gains (if any) on today's software base. Maybe useful for a minority of content-creation tasks handled on specialist desktops.

      Server market:
      Dual-core Opteron vs single-core Xeon. Opteron already scales better to larger configurations and is making a nice dent in the market, and with dual-core it makes your software licences from key vendors cheaper too.

      If I was an investor in AMD I wouldn't be selling just yet on the basis of this news alone.

  3. Re:We should be worried by gl4ss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...and? don't buy a dual core chip then - or buy the software from a competitor.

    dual core chips are just that - two cpu's in one packaging, if you somehow as a software manufacturer have come to the conclusion that it makes sense to sell your licenses based on number of cpu's used to run it then it makes also perfect sense that you would charge the same regardless of the cores being on different pieces of plastics or not. otherwise you could just glue the dual cpu's together with a strand of wire and call it dual core(and paint yourself yellow and run around pretending to be bananaman).

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    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  4. Re:We should be worried by pla · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We should be worried about manufacturers charging per-core licenses for their software.

    Why? Double nothing still equals nothing.

    Let Larry E and the like go ahead and try to gouge his loyal cusomers even more - All the more motivation to switch to FOSS alternatives.

  5. Re:Bleh... Mobile, please! by RayDude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What I want to see is quantities.

    Is this one of those announce and only ship a teeny tiny volume to top OEMs or are these parts really going to be shipping in volume to -- for example -- New Egg.

    I guess my question is: did Intel do this announcement just to trump AMD, as they so often do, and not actually have volume silicon?

    My prediction is: These will be hard to get, and the AMD parts will be all over the world on the day they announce.

    Raydude

  6. Re:So, how much are they really worth? by aonaran · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That AMD 800 series chip is for 4 way and 8 way servers.

    ie 4 or 8 dual core chips for 8 or 16 processors

    That is not a fair comparison to a single chip dual core design. The 800 series is deigned to compete in the high end server arena, not the workstation arena.

    Wait till the AMD dual cores that are designed for single processor motherboards hit then compare the prices.

  7. Re:Bleh... Mobile, please! by dirk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm no Intel Fanboy, but let's look at points one and two, shall we. The third point was bad originally and the response even worse.

    intel fanboy myth 1 AMD can't pump out the volume Dell needs Bzzt incorrect, AMD won't BEND Over, Kiss dell's shiny metal ass, and ship 95% of it's early production volume to dell so dell can 'trump' competitors. Intel has an entire devision dedicated to bending over backwards and kissing ass.

    So AMD can't ship the amounts Dell wants without hurting other places, and Intel can? Intel may have a division dedicated to "kissing ass" as you say, but that means they can supply dell the chips they need when they want them and still supply other places as well. AMD can't do this, or simply won't, which still means they can't do it, just they willfully can't do it.

    Intel fanboy myth 2 AMD processors are less stable Bzzt wrong again, AMD CPUs have had as clean or better a 'stability' track record as Intel. 'but my windows crashes more using amd' This isn't a CPU issue, it's a software vendor issue, usually related to 3rd party drivers for sound cards etc, although if you buy a cheap chipset, instead of a quality one, the chipset could bring stability issues into the system, but plenty of tiwanese intel chipsets can be had too, and can cause as much system instability.

    So using AMD processors can cause more crashes than using Intel processors. It may be the fault of third party drivers, but that still means systems with AMD processors are more unstable than system with Intel processors, which is a bad thing. You may be willing to blow this off but the average user isn't. Just like people blame Windows for crahses caused by programs, spyware, viruses, and third party drivers, they blame AMD when a system with their processors crashes because it has the processor in it. Sure, it's Joe Blow Companies fault for the bad drivers, but they don't crash in an Intel machine.

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    "Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
  8. Re:Bleh... Mobile, please! by cgenman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So using AMD processors can cause more crashes than using Intel processors. It may be the fault of third party drivers, but that still means systems with AMD processors are more unstable than system with Intel processors, which is a bad thing. You may be willing to blow this off but the average user isn't. Just like people blame Windows for crahses caused by programs, spyware, viruses, and third party drivers, they blame AMD when a system with their processors crashes because it has the processor in it. Sure, it's Joe Blow Companies fault for the bad drivers, but they don't crash in an Intel machine.

    I've been using AMD's for a few years now, and I've found them to be pretty darned stable. I haven't had any driver conflicts, or other major issues crop up. I don't overclock, but I do undervolt my fans, and the stability per volume of the AMDs are better than Intel's current crop (though the P3 line was great). I also change hardware configurations frequently, have multiple HDD's, etc.

    I do have a pretty good MOBO, though. Cheap motherboards are criminally unstable, and many people who go to AMD do so to shave money off their system, leading them to buy substandard motherboards. The same is true of cheap Intel motherboards, however, with the same results. It's amazing how much better a 90 dollar motherboard is than a 50 dollar one. That's not true about many or even most things in computing, but it's very true in Motherboards.

    Overall, I'd pay the same for an AMD processor as an Intel one. The AMD's are just as strong but run quieter. That they're a little cheaper is just icing on the cake.

    And the best response to Myth 3: Your job is never safe. Get over it. You can do the right thing and get replaced by the Boss's nephew, or you can kiss up and get replaced by the Boss's nephew. Either way you might as well do the job as best you can so at least you can sleep with yourself at night.