Intel Reveals Next-Gen CPUs

EconolineCrush writes "Intel has revealed its next generation CPU architecture at the Intel Developer Forum. The new architecture will be shared by 'Conroe' desktop, 'Merom' mobile, and 'Woodcrest' server processors, all of which were demoed by Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Rather than chasing clock speeds, Intel is focusing on lowering power consumption with its new architecture. Otellini claimed that Conroe will offer five times the performance per watt of the company's current desktop chips. He also ran the entire keynote presentation on a Merom laptop, and demoed Conroe on a system running Linux."

Comments

Power concerns

[bigwavejas]

With Laptop sales "Surging" and technology growing exponentially, isn't it time to look at the batteries? You hear a lot about faster video cards/ CPUs and memory, but almost nothing about Next-Gen batteries. Battery technology hasn't really evolved at the same rate as other computer components, has it? I personally feel the bottleneck resides in the batteries and for the industry to progress (on a whole), they're going to have to take a look at all aspects.

Re:Power concerns

[Epistax]

I agree however I believe at least 50% of our battery life extension will come from developing ways to use less stored energy instead of storing more.

Re:Power concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the lower power usage of these chips they're talking about goes some way to deal with the battery bottleneck. Remember that battery technology is always improving - it didn't just stop, it's actually nearing the threshold of what it can physically do. Hence Intel's stance on power-saving; if they want to make laptops go faster, then they're going to have to figure out a better way of using the power they've got.

Batteries are also a fairly basic way of making power. Technologies like fuel cells may go some way to solving the problem and nuclear batteries would be wonderful, but will never be sold to the public.

For now though, Intel have to do more with what they've got, so instead of throwing more power in for an inefficient CPU and using brute force, they have to rethink, which is good all round; less energy = less waste = less cost = better use of resources.

Re:Power concerns

[realmolo]

It's hard to improve batteries. You might as well ask "how come we don't have gasoline that gives us 100 mile per gallon in an average vehicle"?

Because there are physical limits to how much energy you can store in given materials. You can't "design around" these limits. All you can do is try and come up with better materials/better combinations of materials. And we've already tried every combination that is practical.

Which is why fuel-cell powered notebooks are interesting. But who knows if those will ever actually get produced.

Re:Power concerns

[FLAGGR]

I wasn't saying that battery life isn't important, it's just that people don't shell out as much money for it because they are more concerned with power in most cases, since most people don't go very long without having access to an electrical outlet.

Re:Power concerns

[Epistax]

Take #3 and divide it by #4, multiply it by 100 if it's rechargable. That's your new #3.

Re:Power concerns

[stienman]

2. Relatively none explosive,

As any battery manufacturer will tell you, batteries do not explode. They may, however, "vent with flame."

-Adam

Re:Power concerns

[Timothy Brownawell]

Yes it does. It doesn't change the polygons/second, but it give you more seconds, so more total polygons.

Tim

Re:Power concerns

[slittle]

E=mc^2

Everything is energy. The thing is, you need to be able to get the energy out of it quickly and easily. As far as releases of energy go, you don't get much faster and easier than a bomb.

Now we know...

[wvitXpert]

So this is what Steve was talking about.

Re:Now we know...

[Harbinjer]

Hmmm.... did you notice in the slides it was all integer performance/watt? They never told us actual absolute performance, and never floating-point performance. My inner geek tells me there is much hype and little solid evidence of anything.

Enough touch and go, I see

[milktoastman]

They've taken a little cooler and stopped chasing their speed dragon to make a more solid, well-organized, and efficient architecture. Once they've established this 'way point' of stability, then they can get back on the zip zoom bus. I'd like to stand in on the silicon vista, if I were tiny, and see how much less litter they've got hooked up down there. Copper plate thatches, cat scratches, now Intel has the cool down rock and roll.

YES...

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as someone who has only purchased Opteron systems for the last 2 years, I welcome this. When these chips start shipping, I will re-evaluate our policy at that time and if Intel delivers what they're claiming, I suspect we'll be back to Intel chips, depending on how AMD responds to this.

But this is VERY GOOD. It sounds like a return back to real competition.

Re:Good

[GamblerZG]

Is Intel Good(tm) now?
No, they just reached the limits of silicon technology. Increasing performance any further would require eather designing "smarter" (rather than faster) processor or using multiple cores.

Anyway, the trend is good indeed. Finally, people will start thinking about performance on the level of software.

0.5W

[blamanj]

The reduction in power will enable a new class of devices to be created at the 0.5W marker - the Handtop.

Also known as the video iPod, perhaps?

Transmeta was there first

[Vengeance]

It's been YEARS since Transmeta began preaching performance/watt, and it looks like right now, when Transmeta has some big contracts (with Sony, Microsoft, Fujitsu, etc) beginning to pay off, Intel finally figures it out.

Of course, Transmeta's already GOT the technology to cut leakage by tremendous amounts... Given that they are no longer a direct competitor of Intel's, it would make some sense if Intel simply licensed Transmeta's LongRun2 tech. But what do I know? I'm always foolishly choosing the better technology instead of the better marketing.

Re:Transmeta was there first

[megalomang]

Of course, Transmeta's already GOT the technology to cut leakage by tremendous amounts... Given that they are no longer a direct competitor of Intel's

Yeah, they have it. Their approach is a bit like this:

0) Preach, preach, preach about performance/watt
1) IPO
2) Deliver low power
3) Performance sucks a big donkey (i.e. fail to deliver)
4) Fail to hit your market and go out of business (i.e. no longer a direct competitor of Intel)

...it would make some sense if Intel simply licensed Transmeta's LongRun2 tech.

LongRun2???? You mean pay money for something that does not exist and is not proven and is already a generation behind the competition. That would be suicide.

But what do I know?

Precisely. Have a seat please. The adults are talking.

So much for Moore's Law

[SiliconEntity]

So much for Moore's Law. So much for the supposedly inexorable march of technology. So much for that nonsense about increasing CPU performance, you all didn't really want 4 GHz anyway, did you?

People have been predicting the demise of Moore's Law for years. It's funny that it's happened and nobody seems to notice.

Re:So much for Moore's Law

[Aadain2001]

Intel engineers came out years ago and stated that they will be hitting the physical wall by 2010, if not sooner. And this isn't the 'we don't know how to get light any smaller' wall, it's the 'the gate is an atom thick' wall. Once you get that small, that's it, you can't get smaller using atoms. You'd have to goto subatomic particles to get smaller, which is a completely different ballgame.

And if anything, the battle between AMD and Intel should have taught everyone here on Slashdot that faster speed does not mean faster performance. There are MANY factors in architecture design that will improve or decrease overall performance. Sure, you can have a 4GHz CPU, but if it's cycles per instruction (CPI) is 100 while a 2GHz CPU has a CPI of 20, the 2GHz CPU will actually be FASTER than the 4GHz chip! Intel knows this, AMD knows this, and everyone who does serious computer design work knows this. Intel chose the wrong path with Netburst and they have known it for years. But you can't turn around one day, snap your fingers, and switch to another architecture company wide. It takes time, hard work, and a lot of people, which is why we are only seeing this change now and not back in 2002 like they would have wanted.

I'm happy with this change and I think playing with the architecture to get better CPI and instructions per cycle (IPC) is a better way to go than just cranking up the clock speed.

power saving servers

[ndansmith]

I am glad to see that Intel is addressing power consumption with the server chip Woodcrest. After all, desktops and laptops are small potatoes compared to servers when it comes to power usage. For corporations with large server implementations, I could see this saving a lot of power (=$). Good move for Intel; lower power bills are good leverage for new technology purchases -- many of us used that same argument to upgrade from CRTs to LCDs. It is nice to finally have something to be excited about from Intel again.

Re:Good

[Dorsai42]

You left out the most important rule:

You cannot rely on anything you read here.

Power Consumption

[Botia]

This is something Intel needs to do to stay in the CPU market. Their NetBurst architecture has allowed AMD to capture the hearts of the enthusiests as it is a better processor. (Note: the mass market has many other factors besides which processor is best in determining sales.)

While I currently favor AMD's processors, The Pentium M is a magnificant piece of hardware. With Intel basing their future processors on the Pentium M they are going to give AMD a run for their money. This will force AMD to drop their prices to a more reasonable level.

The one thing Intel is doing that IMHO is wrong is changing the definition of performance from clock speed to performance/watt. This tells us nothing of the performance of the processor or the power required to run it. Instead we should have two basic measurements for all processors: performace and power consumption. Most people are able to do simple calculations such as division on their own or with a calculator. The is no need to hide the actual performance from the end users.

Re:Good

[needacoolnickname]

You forgot Google. Can't forget Google.

Lower power = more cores...

[MosesJones]

With everyone chasing multi-core rather than clock-rate this isn't really a suprise. If you want to run 4 cores on one die you clearly need to reduce the power consumption of each of those cores over what is done today.

It clearly helps with laptops, which of course will be multi-core themselves in a year or so.

What an odd day it will be when I start ordering either a "2-way" or "4-way" laptop.

Re:Good

[DAldredge]

You left off
Linux is always good, no matter what.
Solaris always sucks, no matter what.
Sun is always evil, no matter what.

Subliminal messages

[Narcoleptic Electron]

I don't think that the choice of desktop background for this aluminum-looking notebook is coincidental.

May this be a hint of a "5 W Sub-Laptop" in Apple's future?

Re:Yes, that's nice, but...

[Izago909]

Apple switched to Intel to cut costs, heat and power issues, make laptops based on high end processors, and ensure there are no supply problems. Anyone building the worlds fastest clusters, in need of high powered scientific workstations, or basically anything that requires brute force with numbers will still be using IBMs Power line of processsors. If you need a dump truck, a couple of Toyota trucks and a shovel wouldn't be the best option just because it's cheaper or more popular. You still need the right tool for the right jobs.

Something other than x86

[illumina us]

Silly me... when I read new architecture I said to myself: "Finally! We move on from x86. We have advanced beyond 20 year old technology."

Sadly, I was mistaken.

Re:Something other than x86

[stienman]

Finally! We move on from x86. We have advanced beyond 20 year old technology.

That's a bit like saying, "Finally! We move on from English. We have advanced beyond centruries old technology."

The X86 is just a language. No recent processor actually uses it raw. There may be some inefficiencies in the language itself, but the most significant have been reduced by extensions and smart compilers which avoid those constructs. The remaining inefficiencies are worth the backwards compatability, but they are minimal anyway.

A lot of people keep complaining about this "ancient" instruction set, but the reality is that it doesn't matter at this point. Even low-level drivers are being written in C due to fast processors and infinite storage space.

Yeah, sure, it would be nice to move to another instruction set, but previous efforts have failed. Intel's 64 bit chip requires a monstrously complex compiler, but it's wicked fast/efficient. But the P4 has surpassed it with it's "inefficient, outdated, and clunky" instruction set.

There's so much momentum on the X86 caravan that to develop something else and surpass the caravan is a hurculean task. Currently it is more effective to improve the architecture that runs X86 than it is to make a new instruction set and try to improve the architecture at the same time. (which is required since just changing the instruction set won't advance the performance enough to compete with the X86 that comes out when you're ready to release)

-Adam

Re:Not to sound too much like an AMD fanboy, but..

[Lonewolf666]

Unless the Pentium-M line has, for whatever reason, reached a hard wall for performance, Intel would have done better to expand it to multi core
I suspect that is exactly what they are doing, with a new label slapped on to suggest something really new and exciting.
Considering the per-watt performance of the current Pentium M versus the AMD64 (both at 90nm), the Pentium M seems slightly superior. So Intel may actually take the lead there.
In absolute performance, however, the AMDs are currently superior. Unless this changes, AMD CPUs will remain the choice for maximum performance, while a "sensible" office desktop may be best equipped with the new Intels.

Granny Smith

[NekoXP]

Cue 1000 comments entitled "The real reason Apple switched!!!!"

*sigh* :)

Neko

Re:Now that Apple has joined the Intel bandwagon .

[TheRaven64]

Yeah! Go AMD! Surely the, as a member of the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA) won't implement hardware DRM. It's just Intel who, as a member of the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance implemented the TCPA specification. And Apple clearly moved to Intel just to get access to this, because we know that IBM, as a member of the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, would never have implemented it in their chips.

different problem solving approach

[mnemonic_]

Given finite R&D resources, improving performance of the power consumer (rather than the power producer) seems to be a more direct way of paving the way for longer-lasting portables. That nips the problem in the bud. It's like the three R's: reduce, reuse, recycle. Before trying to increase (power) supply, one should try to reduce (power) demand.

Re:You forgot to mention

[raz0]

And anyone that states the obvious gets +5 Insightful. ;)

Where's the marchitecture?

[fbg111]

The company has decided against assigning a codename to this new, common processor microarchitecture, curiously enough.

Wow, could it be that the engineers are back in charge at Intel? Palace coup? You know if the marketing people were still in charge, they'd have blue freaks miming the new codename all over the place. Dare I hope that it might become cool again for geeks to like Intel...

Re:So What's Next After Multi-Cores and Low Power?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, quit whatever you are doing, right now, and go get a job working at a chip company for a year or two. Watch actual hardware designers do their job. Designing digital logic is *much* harder than writing software, I've done both. And you can make mistakes in both. If you think VHDL/Verilog rolls off the fingers of hardware designers bug free, you need to put the pipe down and get yourself into rehab. You see the chips that make it to consumers, and naively think, "wow, chips must be easy to design, because they work so well!" I worked at a startup where we did five generations of a chip, costing millions each time, and never got it right.

The reason chips have so few errors is because chip problems are *incredibly* expensive to fix (have to rip them off the circuit boards and solder on new ones), so chip companies take a *lot* of care to eliminate errors before shipping, or they go out of business. Software companies know they can let users find errors and send out a patch later for next to nothing, so they don't spend as much on QA. Plus software consumers have low expectations for quality, and high expectations for release schedules - they want the program now, even if it's not quite done.

Software for high-reliability systems like flight controls gets much more QA effort, so relatively few people die from software bugs, despite the fact that airplanes, nuclear power plants, missiles and other life-critical systems have been running on software for decades. Fatal errors occur in every design discipline, from software to civil engineering. Ever seen the video of that bridge that collapsed because it started resonating in a light breeze? Remember the car whose gas tank would rupture and incinerate the passengers in a rear end collision? Tally up the deaths from faulty software, compare it to other engineering disciplines (counting only design errors, not physical defects). I bet the software number is comparable to all the others, or lower.

Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but after checking out your website, it looks like you've wasted a lot of your life on a crackpot theory. Sucks to be you!