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Intel Stepping Up to Combat AMD's 4x4

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the chip-fight dept.

Grooves writes "Intel has said that the company is stepping up the pace of its Core 2 architecture rollout to compete with AMD's 4x4. Two "quad-core" parts originally slated for release in the first half of 2007, Kentsfield for the desktop and Clovertown for servers, will make their debut as early as the end of this year. The Ars article warns that per-core bandwidth problems could end up giving a performance advantage to AMD's 4x4 approach."

9 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Whichever... Competition is a good thing! by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So I'm pricing a new mobo+CPU combo for a friend. I bought an AMD64 about 14 months ago for $350. Now I see I can't even get that model anymore unless I buy the parts separately as "replacements" A few steps up from what I run is now $150. It's a good thing.

    Maybe in a couple years I'll consider a Conroe or AMD 4x4 type system if I need any heavy rendering done, but for now It's astounding the bang for buck we get.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. I'm seeing a greater demand for smp... by rivaldufus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    in consulting. One of our clients wants to have at least 4-way SMP on each new box. With virtualization becoming so popular, those additional cores are going to help.

    I wonder if AMD is going to focus on 4+ cores to maximize its hypertransport bus - and focus less on 2 core and less systems.

  3. Re:Oooh.... core wars by DeathKoil · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm not entirely sure that throwing more cores at the problem is neccessarily a great solution for combatting Intel's Core 2 Duo chips. Wouldn't this make AMD systems cost more money (2 FX chips on one motherboard) than an Intel gaming box would?

    Don't get me wrong, I am a huge AMD fan but I'm not conviced that, "let's just put more cores into the box" is a great response to Intel's Core 2 Duo. The announcement of a new core from AMD would have been more exciting. I guess I'll have to wait for that.

  4. Latencies and more by cnettel · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The fact that the two dies (with two cores on each) will communicate over the FSB is of course limiting, but we also have to remember that each of those dies will have 4 MB of L2, 8 MB in total. We've already seen what the Core 2 prefetching can do in hiding the memory controller latency, so if things are good it will work equally well in prefetching data from the L2 on the other die. Then, the memory bandwidth is irrelevant, while the FSB bandwidth is still relevant. I seem to remember reading that either Kentsfield or Clovertown would carry some kind of dual-bus solution (with support in chipset), but maybe that was further ahead.

    Let's also not forget that the NUMA properties of the AMD solution, with less advanced prefetching, can actually be a more significant latency problem in latency-sensitive applications. The bandwidth, on the other hand, will absolutely be there.

  5. Is itanium officially dead? by acomj · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Now that intel is finally throwing research and marketing on 64 bit x86 to compete with AMD, is its intel's other 64 bit chip itanium officially dead?

  6. Re:Who is paying? by Massacrifice · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You know, not only gamers use high end computers. Some of us use them as tools to actually work and earn money. in which case, we (or our employer) accumulates enough money to buy such things as quad-cores CPU, and eventually make them profitable, that is, use them to earn more money than they cost!

    What's even better is that these machines, once work is over, can still be used to play games!

    Fantastic isn't it? Work - maybe you should try it sometime.

    --
    -- Home is where you eat your heart out.
  7. Re:Who is paying? by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    People who use computers for work and who want four cores already bought Opteron workstations. That's why 4x4 and Kentsfield are targeted at the enthusiast (aka more money than sense) market.

  8. Re:And so it begins by Mr.+Flibble · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Do most chip sales happen at the release date, or do most people wait for the competitors product to come out spurring price drops to compete? I know I seldom buy anything at the alpha-expensive stage, usually preferring to wait a few months for the inevitable price drop.

    It is not a question of inital chipsales, it is more a question of marketing. Back when both companies were trying to hit the 1 Ghz mark, AMD got there first. That was a big win for them, as consumers could now say 1000 Mhz! WOW! Even though intel quickly came out with faster chips thereafter. It was a win for AMD because the name AMD got into the minds of customers. The same thing with the 64 bit. Now, most people here on slashdot know what a 64 bit chip is, and does, and does not do. But the public does not. And since AMD had the 64 bit chip out first, consumers wanted it, even if it had no real benifit for them initally.

    The same goes with this technology. Whomever gets it out of the gate first wins the "mindshare war" as we call it now. IIRC, the book "Predatory Marketing" covers how this works in detail - but they don't use the "mindshare" term in it.

    --
    Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
  9. Re:And so it begins by jejones · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Core 2 Duos aren't "alpha expensive" -- they're significantly cheaper than AMD's prices as of right now.

    Agreed, but... July 24th, the date when AMD is going to cut some CPU prices almost in half, is barely over a weekend away, and there is the question of supply and demand. Will demand be sufficient to drive the price up?