Intel Readying Dual-Core Desktop Chip

sunisha.shah4eva writes "CoolTechZone is reporting that Intel is planning on introducing a dual-core Dothan chip for desktop computers. According to the article, Intel has plans to turn the performance table around with AMD. From the article: 'Finally, it looks like Intel has learned from its mistake and secretly prepping a surprise for the rest of the industry. According to the information we received, Intel is currently working on a desktop, dual-core Dothan microprocessor with SSE3 instruction set that Intel plans to launch sometime in the future. Whether the launch will take place this year or in 2006 is currently unknown.'"

Comments

I've said it once...

[LegendOfLink]

I'll say it again, I LOVE competition. Ever since AMD became a threat to Intel, we've seen outrageous processor wars and benchmarking tribunals. I can buy a P4 3 gig processor for about $150 now.

Most likely, Intel will take that performance throne with their "secret". They have a way of doing that (like HT); but, we'll see something better come from AMD. And so the cycle continues...and we all benefit!

Re:I've said it once...

[masklinn]

All AMD has to do is shrink to 65 nm and start ramping clock speeds, and they are ensured great performance numbers.

They barely can, they'd have to change the architecture to get significant improvements of their top frequency, the A64 architecture is at it's limit currently, and can barely be upgraded from time to time...

This is the very reason why they're pumping more cores/processor

Re:I've said it once...

[hawkbug]

I don't think you're correct - they don't have to push their cpus at all right now, they have the peformance crown - if they have to, they will increase clock speed. Intel can't move the P4 up to 4 GHZ like they wanted, while AMD can move up a bit. Why do a I say this you ask? Have you seen the power consumption and heat dissipation of the new A64s? I have one running right here - 2.0 GHZ, Athlon 64 3200+ and it's only running at 30 C. Under full load, it hits 40 C. That's with stock cooling. That's 90 nm, wait until 65 - AMD has PLENTY of head room right now. They just aren't being forced to use it because Intel can't ramp the P4 at all - the 90 nm P4 actually put out MORE heat than the 130.

Re:I've said it once...

[masklinn]

Uh oh, no, temperature is not necessarily the issue. You can have your CPU running at 3C and still be unstable (try extreme cooling mods)...
Fact is that every architecture has a maximum frequency limit, Netburst has a very high one (intel expected it to be much higher, but they got fucked up), A64 one has a much lower one. Proof is that OC world record is at 6.5GHz for Intel's and 4GHz for AMD's, and that's not with aircooling.

Every architecture has a maximum frequency, and AMD is already at it's limit for mass production. No core including Winchester was able to reliably break the 2.6GHz frequency on mass market (out of the box), and only Venice core and SOI now allow AMD to plan for a 2.8GHz clocked processor (once again out of the box, not talking about overclocking here but about stable, mass-market ready reliable frequencies).

Heat is not an issue for A64.
Nor is it for Dothan processors, actually.

If AMD could squeeze higher frequency out of their A64, they wouldn't even be considering Dual Core right now... AMD and Intel shifted to dual core because it's the only area of improvement save creating a completely new x86 architecture from scratch to replace the ones they currently have.

Cue speculation about Apple

[spyrral]

Before anyone beats me to it (surprise! I'm sure they already have) let's curb speculation about whether Apple will be able to leverage this technology in their upcoming products:

• Apple switched to Intel for the explicit purpose of benefitting from advances like this
• Apple will most likely be using a slightly different architechture than wintel(mobo, bios, firmware, etc), so not every hot new Intel chip will make it into an Apple system.
• Apple will still be offering a limited selection of systems, so they will have to pick and choose what makes it into thier product line

The first systems are more than a year away (not counting the dev system) so everybody take a deep breath.

Re:2006?

[Tokerat]

Because of intelligence-insulting comments fromthe PC peanut gallery, we've all become trained to want nothign to do with your crowd. Make sense now?

You'll be the first to bitch when you can't run OS X on any x86 machine you want, too.

Re:2006?

[ciroknight]

While I'm sure there are hundreds of technologies Intel could possibly use to get a lead, they don't need to. Intel is refactoring for the Pentium M to take over the general computing market, the Xeon line to inheirit the Pentium 4 and all of its mess (hey, it's not too bad if you're gonna run it in an environmentally controlled room eh?), and the Itanium line is still continuing for the extreme high end (how the fuck??) and is soon to see its third iteration.

Besides, I'm sure Intel has a great memory for trying rash proceedures. I'm sure the Pentium M was long on the table before they greenlighted the Pentium 4; it was the next logical progression of the P6 family tree. The Pentium 4 was probably someone's pet project used to drive the industry to a frenzy, feeding off of increased clock cycles. And it worked.

Now that IPC is important again, Intel's baby P6 has grown up to a working man.

Re:Funny that, I can already buy dual-core chips

[orderb13]

And if you actually looked at the performance for those chips you'd see that the pricing for the dual cores actually favors AMD on a performance basis. The difference is that Intel released their "dual core" chips for the low end, while AMD only released them for their high end chips.

Also you're not comparing the same type of chip. Opteron is AMD's SERVER chipset, which are always more expensive than desktop chipsets.