Slashdot Mirror
Intel Yonah Performance Preview
illusoryphoenix writes "Anandtech has an interesting preview of the successor to Dothan (Pentium M's second generation), Yonah, with tests run on an engineering sample. It seems like latest Pentium M is still lagging in the floating point area, but has gained some ground overall. It's also interesting to note their comparisons to the Pentium D/Netburst based dual core."
The new Macs are going to kick ass. No more stone-age G4 PowerBooks.
I really have to wonder when Intel will start using this technology in desktops. It really does seem like a good idea. From TFA "At 2.0GHz, Yonah is basically equal to, if not slightly slower than an Athlon 64 X2 running at the same clock speed in virtually all of the tests we ran. " That right there should show that Intell is should switch its R&D and support the Pentium M as a desktop chip.
Yay, I have a sig.
From TFA:
The problem is that Intel seems to have changed sockets once more, meaning that Yonah is not backwards compatible with the original Pentium M socket.
Cool... no.
--
Superb hosting 2400MB Storage, 120GB bandwidth, ssh, $7.95
I want my SMP Pentium M's in my new Apple Mini or nanoBook!
FP, Baby!
Synopsis: Intel's mobile chip hangs with (and in some cases beats) AMD's top of the line desktop chip, while using less power and running cooler.
I just bought a brand-new Pentium M (Dothan) laptop a few weeks ago, and then this new uber processor comes out. Well, that's the computer industry for you...
"it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
Wait. This thing consumes 92W at rest and 108W at ful usage and it's a laptop chip? Geez, what's the expected battery life for users of this chip?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Woah, slow down cowboy. Comparing a [i]laptop[/i] processor to high range desktop processors? Show me a comparison to the current AMD mobile offerings, and maybe then I'll be impressed. As it is, that's some damned fine performance; keeping level with dual core, incredibly hot, desktop processors? And there's only a quarter or two before this is superseded by the new core range.
Wow, a 65nm chip consumes slightly less power and performs slightly worse compared to AMD's bottom-of-the-line 90nm X2. Who's amazed? Aren't we just applauding because we see Intel as the big retarded kid who's just managed to tie his own shoes? What I'm trying to say is that this is no big accomplishment. If AMD's 65nm chips were turning out these sorts of performance numbers, we'd all scream about how this is a huge letdown, a step backwards, is this finally the end of AMD, etc.. So let's keep some perspective.
Er, the 2.0GHz Yonah in these tests is slower in nearly all cases than the Athlon 64 X2 3800+, which is the slowest CPU in AMD's lineup. The _top_ of AMD's line would be the Opteron Model 880. The best CPU they market for the desktop is the Athlon 64 X2 4800+, which has double the cache and runs at a 20% higher clock speed than the 3800+. So, Intel's upcoming chip /barely/ hangs with AMD's bottom of the line. Compared to AMD's current best, Yonah would be left standing in the dust. And Yonah hasn't even been released yet.
About the only good thing I can say about Yonah is it will run MacOS X.
With a name like Yonah (aka Jonah), what are they saying about their motherboards?!
This is a _mobile_ chip being compared to _desktop_ chips. You _should_ be impressed. And when the next generation comes out in 2H2006, Merom, any remaining performance gap will probably be gone, plus it'll then be 64-bit, too, though of course, AMD will hopefully keep making strides in the meantime, with their upcoming socket M2-based offerings.
That this is likely the Intel chip to be used in upcoming Macs is a very good sign for future Mac owners like myself.
One thing that's always put me off of the Pentium M's has been the 533MHz Front Side Bus speed when the P4 FSB's are at 800MHz and some extreme editions at 1066MHz. Does anyone know what the FSB speed is off this chip? -- its not mentioned anywhere in TFA.
From the article:
While the Yonah and Athlon 64 X2 systems consumed relatively similar power at idle, Yonah hardly eats up any more power under full load. In fact, a 2.0GHz Yonah under 100% load consumes less power than an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ at idle. Obviously Intel has the advantage of being on a much lower power 65nm process, but it won't be until the second half of next year before we see any Athlon 64 X2s at 65nm, so it is an advantage that Intel will have for quite some time.
Although we didn't consider it as such here today , Yonah will be quite impressive on notebooks. The thought of having such a cool running dual core processor in a notebook is honestly amazing, and the performance difference (especially for multitaskers) over what we have today will be significant. The other thing to keep in mind is that when you go from a single core to a dual core Pentium M notebook, you won't be giving up anything at all. On the desktop side, you normally give up clock speed for dual core support, but Yonah will be running at very similar frequencies to what Dothan is running at today. In other words, you won't be giving up single threaded performance in favor of multi-threaded performance - you'll get the whole package.
As a desktop contender, Yonah is a bit of a mixed bag. While its performance in content creation applications has definitely improved over the single core Dothan, it still falls behind the Athlon 64 X2 in a handful of areas. Intel still needs to improve their video encoding and gaming performance, but it looks like we may have to wait for Conroe and Merom for that.
If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
Yonah sounds Jewish to me.
It works for AMD. Why didn't intel put one on? Granted its performance does come close to that of AMD's offering.
Performance is dead.
/. propeller-beanie crowd) cares about the 10 pages of performance data. Compared to 1 page of power data (and PLATFORM power at that), it shows the general ignorance of the pundits when talking about the future. That's why Steve Jobs was all over power a few months ago.
Power is king.
Long live power.
Seriously, it will now be a race to the bottom: who can get the lowest power.
Only 0.0001% of the market (ie. the spokesniffer
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
It consumes less than a 3800 X2? Isn't the fact that a laptop chip is even being *compared* to a dual core desktop chip in terms of power consumption quite worrying? And for that same "little big less power" they're getting a "little bit less speed"? I thought this was all about performance per Watt?
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
Did you read the article? The test motherboard was in a big ass tower case. Why? This chip is supposed to be the precursor of Intel's future desktop line (as well as its laptops). And while I would much rather run this than a dual-core Xeon (ouch!) in my desktop system, I have to wait till 2006, by which point the 3800+ that this thing couldn't beat may well be retired. You haven't yet seen AMD's entry into the dual-core laptop market and 65nm. You won't have to wait much longer. When it comes, it will rock. AMD's SOI fabbing system is inherently better at reducing current leakage. Those numbers will put this Yonah mediocrity into perspective.
I am eagerly waiting for a dual core laptop. I don't really care if it is intel or AMD, but I think the Yonah is the best bet. Does anyone know of any dual core laptops from Dell or IBM?
Anyone heard when we'll actually be able to BUY a brand-name dual core laptop?
I think AMD need s to create a chip the can be in a tightly confined space and not need a fan before that happens.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
And congratulation,s you just branded yourself as a garden variety fanboy. "Intel's is out in a couple of months, but AMD will do it too! And it will be ways better, because Intel is the suck, even though I've heard nothing about AMD's designs in the area!"
Uhuh, you go with that. Me? I'm hedging my bets until there's two reeased processors, that can be compared side by side fairly, and then deciding the cheaper one would be the better choice. And then buying an iBook, because I still want OSX =)
AMD makes much better processors than Intel these days; in general, that I'll not only admit, but profuse, and the system I'm considering building isn't going anywhere near Intel processors.
the x2 is amd's TOP OF THE LINE processor. Their bottom of the line would be their sempron, the opteron is their SERVER LINE. So yes, it does compete with their TOP OF THE LINE.
it costs Intel just as much to make a dual core Yonah, as it did for them to make a single core Dothan.
Considering it is the same price for much improved technology, this proves Moore's law is correct?
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Yeah, it's lame when User Friendly does it, too.
Many Dothans died to bring us this information.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
3800+ is the bottom of AMD's dual core line idiot, what'd be the point of comparing the dual core Yonah to a completely unrelated processor THAT DOES NOT AIM FOR THE SAME MARKET AT ALL?
Yeah, they could do it, they could also compare the Yonah to AMD's Duron 700 or something, it's just that it would be completely uninterresting and stupid you know.
Face it, 3800+ is AMD's bottom of their Dual Core line.
In other news, Yonah at least manage to make a comparable Pentium-D eat the dust 9 times out of 10.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
For starters, Sempron is AMD's "bottom of the line", not the Athlon 64 X2. Also, the X2 is a desktop processor, only suitable for "desktop replacement" luggables.
Yonah is a mobile processor, set to be the next in the "Pentium M" line. I find it amazing that a mobile processor like this can compete successfully with a similarly clocked desktop processor. The idea of a thin and light laptop that matches a similarly clocked desktop, and exceeds it in "business" benchmarks is amazing.
Basically, if you are a business user, there will be no need for you to buy a desktop once Yonah is released. You will have a laptop that is faster than your desktop, thin, light, and with a long battery life. I can't wait for Yonah Powerbooks to be released, I will be getting one straight away.
Slow down cowboy, it's not Pentium-Ds or dual core Xeons we're talking about here, it's Athlon X2. 3800+ tops at 140W... Yeah Yonah "only" reaches 105W or something, but god I wouldn't want THAT one sitting on my lap, sorry mate but while a 30W CPU is ok with me I'm not fond of cooking my balls with a 100+W one (to give you a basis of comparison, that heat production is higher than AMD's Venice single core desktop CPUs).
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
So will a athlon X2. At least it has all the technical requirements. Runs fine on a hacked OSX86.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Just my 2 cents, but sooner or later the PC world needs to break away from this fixation on legacy desktop PCs with their Heath Robinson contraptions of wires, grouchy PSUs and naked circuit boards, not to mention size and noise. The line that caught my eye in this review: "A 2.0GHz Yonah under 100% load consumes less power than an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ at idle."
Unless it is for gaming or for special and demanding applications, who needs all this muscle? A few more steps in the Yonah development line and we may be able to see PCs that are far smaller, quieter and more frugal with the juice while still packing a punch.
None of this means that the Ahtlon 64 isn't darn good, only that it is not appropriate for many computing situations. Right now, Yonah looks more like a stab at tomorrow whereas the Athlon 64 represents the apogee of yesterday.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
Give me a break. AMD is using 17 more Watts at idle, 36 Watts at full bore. And that's after power supply efficiency losses.
But, how much power are these chips using? The Intel is rated at something like 25W? Less?
That means the Intel is using perhaps 15W at idle and the AMD is using 32W?, or double?
At full bore, perhaps the Intel is using 25 Watts, and the AMD 61 Watts. More than double.
And yet the Intel keeps up with and beats the AMD much of the time.
And you crow about these numbers?
Go ahead and rejigger the figures a bit. Maybe you can figure a way how AMD's chip is using "only" 50% more power.
Either way, AMD is getting skunked. For the moment at least. I'm sure they'll make 65nm soon.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Also all of Intel's mobile line is developed in Israel.
Again, maybe my memory is hazy, but I just wanted to bring up this point in light of the "Israeli technology is crap" posts raised in previous stories.
... The Yonah uses less power at full load than the Athlon64 X2 does at idle.
Let's put it in another way :
- A chip, which is only available for testing, lacking motherboard support, which will be sold as a laptop CPU, and which is considered to be an indicator of what Intel will be producing next year, is a little bit *slower* than a rival technology from AMD that has been already available for some time and can be found in machines running today.
In another way :
- Tomorrow's Intel hope are as good as today's reality from AMD.
So yes, it's good that Intel is realising that they must change something, and that they've starting to work into the right direction.
But no, in itself, it's not a promising technology : I mean we have already better on the market right now.
I think will still have to wait a couple of CPU generation before Intel is back in the place with something that's worth.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Yonah was the one that didn't follow the programmed instructions and was eventually consumed by Wales.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"Synopsis: Intel's mobile chip hangs with (and in some cases beats) AMD's top of the line desktop chip, while using less power and running cooler."
a) It is worthwhile to note that it crushes their own desktop chips into a fine paste.
b) The 3800+ is not the top of the line Athlon64.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
The review fails to mention that, unlike AMD's current mobile Turion CPUs, the upcoming Yonahs will not run 64-bit code. What is Intel thinking? With 64-bit OS and software support increasingly available, who will want to invest a lot in such a laptop? Yet dual-core laptops are supposed to be high-end, and, being a more expensive investment, ought to last longer.
Which Anandtech correctly points out that the performance of the two is quite close (at the same clockspeed), they then say its impressive that Yonah can do this without an onboard memory controller...but don't mention that Yonah has a fair bit more cache than the X2. It'll be interesting to see what AMDs reaction is, because by the looks all they need to do is add cache (aka the next model up).
It'll also be interesting to see how well it scales- the A64/X2 scales way above 2Ghz already (on 90nm) but the P-M is stuck at 2.13...Yonah needs to have improved that or they'll be left behind.
[1]In those days Da-than begat Yo-nah, which was the fruit of his circuitboard, strong by nature and a good processor. [2]Now Da-than looked on Yo-nah and said, "Yea shall I call you the Slayer of the Amd-ites, for thou shalt go out into their pastures and you shall slay their benchmarks utterly; [3]for thou art pleasing and art born of good silicon." [4]But Yo-nah saw, when he went out into the land of Cun-sumer, how despised he was among the buyers of chips; and he did gnash his teeth and beat his transistors saying: [5]"Oh wherefore was I not left dead on the test-bench and why was my die not broken the day I was born? [6]for I am inferior to my brethren the Amd-ites who run much better than I and cost way the hell less." [7]And he went out into the dust and wandered for a year, until the new product cycle taketh him away.
Call me when they release the D version of this processor...
Yodah....
Let's get off the GHz band wagon for once! We've all been arguing for years that there's more to it than just the hertz but here you are saying that since the *older* 2.2GHz chip is 10% faster then it should have 10% better performance. You're obviously one of those people which has been feed on a steady diet of all that Intel bullshit for years and now can't seem to get yourself off it.
Many Dothans died to bring us this story.
It's already here ... apart from the thin and light part ... $5000 for a Dell Precision M70. (oh, not cheap either)
But it does kick ass.
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
I bet a Turion can do that at 800MHz...
Alas, for I have not the mod points of yore....but this made my evening ;-)
The power consumption in the article is "Total System Power Consumption," not the TDP of the chip itself. This is also a mobile chip installed in a _desktop motherboard_.
Okay, I'm not a Mac guy and haven't followed this closely, but isn't OS X a 64 bit OS? Yonah won't be 64 bits (unlike the A64)... So, what's the deal? Did Apple just "downgrade" OS X to 32 bits for the x86 architecture?
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
I am still waiting for Intel/AMD to announce a power saving feature of shutting down all but one of the multiple cores... if this is going to be a mobile chip, obviously you only want one core running while you are using battery power. It should be like that displacement-on-demand thing that newer cars and trucks have.
95% of my apps under Rosetta emulation? Let's see...
1) iPhoto - universal binary
2) Aperture - universal binary
3) iTunes - universal binary
4) Safari - universal binary
5) XCode - universal binary
6) Java - universal binary
7) Firefox - universal binary
8) Final Cut Pro - universal binary
9) Quicktime Pro - universal binary
10) Garage Band - universal binary
11) Photoshop - Rosetta until later in 2006
This is not looking much like 95% Rosetta to me. Besides, Rosetta handles all GUI elements natively, only having to emulate the core program logic of the application being run; therefore, going from any G4 Powerbook to a Yonah Powerbook is going to be a performance increase regardless - a slight improvement under Rosetta and a massive improvement running as a universal binary.
There are a lot of other factors to "system performance", like memory, video, and disk subsystem speed. How much of a gain will a dual core CPU buy if the system is waiting for a (relatively) slow disk? If you want to put in a 7200 rpm 2 1/2", or a pair of 'em (or here), well ok. But then power consumption and it's cousin heat go up. Bigger batteries, Ok. Now you've got weight. I guess it's all about trade-offs, and what do you really want.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
...kinda predicted the reaction the chip would get...Yawn-er...
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
3800+ is the bottom of AMD's dual core line idiot
Except that the grandparent made the statement that the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is the slowest CPU in AMD's line up, which is false. Looks like you can read about as well as you can type.
what'd be the point of comparing the dual core Yonah to a completely unrelated processor THAT DOES NOT AIM FOR THE SAME MARKET AT ALL?
Then you must not of thought much of the article, since they compared Yonah to the Pentium M (a single core processor), and 3 desktop processors. Oh wait, it's the only dual core laptop chip they had. They had to compare it to something you know.
In other news, Yonah at least manage to make a comparable Pentium-D eat the dust 9 times out of 10.
Comparable Pentium-D? I thought you weren't interested in comparing chips that weren't for the same market.
In conclusion, use the preview button first, dumbass.
The article points out that the chip they are using has been sitting on their testing desk for about 4 months... So hopefully Intel will hit with some better silicon.
The Opteron 270 HE dualcore CPU would be a better choice to compare against Yonah. Dual 2GHz cores, each with 1MB L2 cache, 55W TDP. Same speed but twice the cache of the Athlon 64 X2 3800+. Mind you that's a 90nm chip, not 65nm like Yonah. Consider that to be the baseline for what a dualcore Turion will do. I suspect they'll cut the clockspeed back a bit in order to bring the wattage down even further.
I'm looking forward to the dualcore Turions. Dualcore 32-bit CPUs seem... silly.
Definitely Michael Palin reading the holy handgrenade how-to from the Book of Armaments
wmv file
Fair enough, on second read my post did sound a bit fanboyish, and biased also because I'm not in the market for a laptop. I've got my eye on the desktop chip market of late '06, which is about when my present desktop will retire. Honestly, this Yonah at 2.4GHz would be good enough for me to consider buying, a lot depends on the price point and the available motherboards. But I had really thought that this "M" family, which is destined to be the core for all Intel consumer chips, would blow the socks off something. In being slower than AMD's slowest (and very overclockable) dual-core chip, I'm a little underwhelmed. I expected more just from the fact it's 65nm, which, btw., is something that Intel has done pretty impressively.
Mobile processor also outperforms desktop processor in most tests while using 2/3rds the power. Film at 11.
Also note that AMD doesn't have a separate laptop line (well, they do, but it's no different except in name) so this means Intel is also skunking AMDs mobile processors on performance/power ratio.
Again, this could change when AMD hits 65nm. And also as a mitigating factor, Intel hasn't released their own 65nm chip yet (this is a prerelease), so it's theoretically possible AMD could even beat Intel to the 65nm punch. I don't expect it though.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The Memory bus is a DDR bus, and the Athlon64/Opteron speaks to the rest of the computer via HyperTransport (I looked at AMD's website, and their information does not describe the memory subsytem as using hypertransport. Do your DIMMs speak HT?)
Considering the low power usage of the tested chip, Intel can probably afford to raise the clock speed for the desktop versions. They may also achieve some performance optimization between now and the release of the desktop version.
On the other hand, AMD will have the 65nm version of its Athlon X2 by that time. My guess is that AMD will stay ahead for now, but Intel is back on a reasonable course (no more Prescotts).
C - the footgun of programming languages
But what about power consumption? I'd be happy with only a minor bump in speed for my Powerbook if it meant that the battery would last 2 hours longer.
Errr... I'm running an AMD 64 x2 4400+ (2x 2.2GHz Toledo cores and 2x 1MB L2 cache)that idles at 30 celcius and I can't get the thing over 40 celcius w/ the stock heatsink and fan and Artic Silver 5 under massive loads (both cores more or less constantly pegged for hours on end). That is pretty damn far from "incredibly hot" in my book, especially when compared to my P4 3 GHz Prescott which idles at 50 celcius and regularly hits 62 celcius under considerably less load w/ a Thermalright XP120 heatsink and a 112cfm 12cm vacuum cleaner fan installed . I don't have any hard thermal data on the Turion chips but I can't imagine that they run any hotter than the x2's do.
And as we all know if the almighty Jobs thinks it, it must be true....
It's all about the power and the mock turtlenecks, yo...
I'm experiencing a little cognitive dissonance here. I think I was thrashed recently in a BSD forum for making such assertions.
I've been running Java 5 on a Mac Mini at work and on a Sempron Pro 2600 FC3 box at home, and frankly I don't see the Mac Mini as that much slower, other than what I would expect for a desktop HD vs. a laptop HD.
I think I'm seeing a lot of rationalization from iNTEL fanboys in this thread.