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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."
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.
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
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.
that's total system power, not just the proc. That's going to include the chipset, disk, peripherals, USB devices, and the GPU.
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.
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?
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The dothan caps at 27 wats, the yonah goes from approx 25-49 under max load(depending on model, there is an Extreme gamer chip version so that might explain the rather high second number), but it will most definetly not use 45 when not plugged in and probably go closer to the the min.
Many Dothans died to bring us this information.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
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
[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.
OS X is a 32-bit OS. It can run 64-bit applications, but there appears to be only one such app on the market: Mathematica.
Also, current PowerBooks, iBooks, and minis use the 32-bit PowerPC G4, so a 32-bit Yonah is no worse.
It's for several reasons:
1. There is no real support for Windows x64, there's no virus protection and very few device drivers. Why go out of your way to support 1% of your users who would actually run a native 64-bit OS?
2. Intel's 64-bit extensions actually slow their chips down. That's right, they added 64-bit instructions to their microcode, but they still get broken down to the same old instructions on the i686 core that the old ones did, and the 64-bit ones take longer to digest. It was a move for buzzword compliance only.
Want to prove it? Get a pentium D830 machine, compile Gentoo on it, first a 32-bit install, then the AMD64 install. Compile both with the same options, but one with 32-bit instructions, and one with 64. The Intel 64-bit Linux will be slower than the 32-bit. The opposite is true with an AMD K8 chip, because the core was designed from step one to be 64-bit.
3. Intel doesn't forsee you needing (or being able to fit) over 4GB of RAM in a portable or business desktop for several years, after the lifetime of this chip revision. If you insist on a 64-bit Intel chip, you must be running a server, workstation, or other high-end rig, so fess-up and buy an appropriately-classed chip (the D830, EE, or Xeon).
4. They need to deliver this chip to market NOW, Intel's stronglest lead right now is with mobile platforms. These chips are in demand as-is; Apple and other vendors want them NOW, not in a few months with 64-bit extensions.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
More specifically,
OS X is mostly 32bit. 64bit libraries are available. You can run native 64bit integer math with the accelerate framework so you can do your fast, high-precision work on a G5.
The big problem is, the GUI parts of the OS (most notably) are still 32bit. GUI apps must be 32 bit. Apps like Mathematica run kind of like X-Window.. they have a GUI and a mathematical engine running in the background. It's kind of client/server. Wolfram has a 64bit engine, but not a 64bit GUI but you don't need the GUI to be 64bit native.
The problem is, other apps aren't logically de-coupled like this so it's difficult write these 32bit/64bit applications. The big issue, as I understand it, is that there needs to be a distinct separation of 32bit native and 64bit native code.. not just in spawned threads but in actual binaries that are compiled. In Mathematica, the front end is a separately compiled binary from the computation engine.
ffakr.
I'm not feeling witty so bite me