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Quad Core Battle, Intel Yorkfield vs AMD Altair

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the four-is-way-more-than-three dept.

Joe writes "Yorkfield Extreme Edition based on the 45nm Penry core architecture will meet heads-on with AMD Altair based on the 65nm K8L core in Q3 2007 as reported by VR-Zone. Due to its advanced 45nm process technology, Yorkfield XE is able to pack a total of 12MB L2 cache (2 x 6MB L2) and still achieving a much smaller die size and higher clock speed of 3.43-3.73Ghz. Yorkfield will feature Penryn New Instructions (PNI) or more officially known as SSE4 with 50 more new instructions. Yorkfield XE will pair up nicely with the Bearlake-X chipset supporting DDR3 1333, PCI Express 2.0 and ICH9x coming in the Q3 '07 timeframe as well."

19 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. I for one... by Demanche · · Score: 5, Funny

    I for one... Will... wait for those 80 core CPU's intel said they will have in a 'few' years. I'll refuse to upgrade till I get one! :D

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    1. Re:I for one... by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, I recently (In June?) just bought a new computer after having my previous one for 7 years. If my current one lasts as long as my last one, I could very well be upgrading to the 80 core CPUs that Intel said would be ready in 5 years. If you buy something good with lots of room for expansion, and take good care of your computer, you shouldn't have to replace it every 2 years.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    2. Re:I for one... by jimstapleton · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't think I've ever replaced my computer.

      Rolling upgrades for 10 years or so. Never more than half the computer has been replaced at any one time.

      --
      34486853790
      Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
    3. Re:I for one... by michrech · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Antec + Tyan = bad

      In my higher than average experience, Antec = bad. I couldn't believe how many of their P/S's (all above 400w) I've had to send back compared to the cheap-oh CoolerMaster 350w supplies we were using. Got to a point where Antec tech support number was being answered by a voicemail (we couldn't get a live person any longer).

      When it got to a point where it was taking them *weeks* to get back to me (if they ever did at all), I got fed up and sent an email to the complaint email link they have on their support page (Yes! A complaint link! Only company I've ever seen that *needed* one due to such poor tech support!). In the email I stated my position, that I had a handfull of supplies I was going to dumpster because I could not get anyone to respond to me, and that I'd be reccomending *against* anyone using anything Antec again.

      Long story short, someone actually replied fairly quickly, dragged me along for a couple weeks telling me how he'd get me help (he had me fill out an RMA form several times because he claimed there were errors, then refused to take the supplies back because I didn't have a recepit available (it got filed away and sent to storage) even though they were *well* within the manufacturer 3 year from the date of manufactuer instead of date of sale!)..

      I've since switched to Enermax or Thermaltake and never looked back. Never had anywhere NEAR the quantity of P/S's to send back and of the FEW I have, it was taken care of right away.

      In short, Antec can kiss my ass.

      --
      bork bork bork!
    4. Re:I for one... by mrmag00 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I agree 100%. People praise Antec, but from my experience they consistantly fall short of their performance and have a comparable lifespan to, say, a $20 no-name PSU.

  2. Altair? by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ooooh. Blinkenlights on a processor!

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    This guy's the limit!
  3. Competition rocks by mattnuzum · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've said it before, I'll say it again: This is exactly why competition rocks. Soon, we'll say Moore was no prophet, he was a pessimist!

  4. One sided by Daemonstar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ok, so we have all this neat info about the Intel chip; what about the AMD processor (it gets a whole sentence and a half)? If this is supposed to be a "battle", it seems that most of the comparison has already been done in favor of Intel before the event even takes place, if this article is any reference. :P

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    1. Re:One sided by LarsWestergren · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ok, so we have all this neat info about the Intel chip; what about the AMD processor (it gets a whole sentence and a half)? If this is supposed to be a "battle", it seems that most of the comparison has already been done in favor of Intel before the event even takes place, if this article is any reference. :P

      Ooh, but dont' count out AMD yet! According to the nifty diagram from TFA, the Windsor has a "HT1.0", and the Altair a "HT3.0", and I can't see anything like that for the Intel processors. I don't know what a HT1.0 is, but I'm TERRIBLY excited about it, let me tell you.

      More bullet points or higher numbers in a press release indicates a superior system much more clearly than any real life performance tests.

      --

      Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die

    2. Re:One sided by Wdomburg · · Score: 4, Informative

      The specifications list bandwidth for the 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 specs as 6.4, 11.2, and now 20.8GB/s respectively. AMD is jumping from 1.0 to 3.0. They're actually pushing a bit more than the original spec on the current processors though, since the spec originally only included bus speeds of up to 800MHz and they've got it running at 1000MHz which bumps throughput to 8.0GB/s. So, assuming they max bus speed, it'll be about two and a half times faster.

      This is where I think AMD gets themselves a big win. Intel's FSB, even clocked at 1333MHz (actually it's 333MHz QDR, but we'll not quibble) pushes only 10.6GB/s. And that's not accounting for the off-die memory controller. Even with dual buses (like the 5000 series chipsets tout) they only just barely have enough aggregate throughput to handle memory transfers.

  5. Ah Numbers... by glowingsnowball · · Score: 2, Funny

    Processer speed as well as cores are just numbers to me. The only thing high processer speed means to me is that I am able to write unefficient code and get away with it. For(int i = 0; i9000;i++){For(int j = 0; j9000;j++){For(int l = 0; l9000;l++){System.out.println("More Cores")}}}

    --
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    1. Re:Ah Numbers... by bobtheinsanecow · · Score: 2, Funny

      // May as well use all the cores...
      int i,j,l;
      fork();
      fork();
      for(i = 0; i<9000;i++)
        for(j = 0; j<9000;j++)
          for(l = 0; l<9000;l++)
            printf("More Cores");

      --
      mmm... chicken...
  6. Interesting. by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Intel is going to need that HUGE cache because of it's limited FSB. It will be interesting to see how they do side by side.
    The AMD with it's Hyper-transport could have an advantage over the Intel chip but right now it is all pie in the sky.
    I wish that AMD had access to the Intel Fab tech. Just how fast and low power would their chips be if they where 65nm right now like Intel's?

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  7. what new instructions? by backwardMechanic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've often wondered, what are these new instruction Intel keep thinking up? Are they some sort of fancy array processing, new addressing modes? I'm curious. Whatever happened to RISC?

    1. Re:what new instructions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here are details about the new instructions.

      RISC is dead. I miss it too.

  8. Re: No more instructions!! by dp_wiz · · Score: 2, Funny

    That 80-cored chips definitely would require a desperate bureaucracy to operate.

  9. Re:Isn't that going a bit far? by Wdomburg · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's because Intel is cheating. They don't have a quad-core die, they have two dual core dies shoved onto a multi-chip package. Each die has a shared 6MB cache.

  10. Re:Isn't that going a bit far? by DrDitto · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I mean, frankly... isn't 12MB L2 overkill? We're barely putting today's 2-4MB to good use.

    Are you kidding me? With a 4-way superscalar processor running at 3GHz, any cache miss can result in the processor being completely idle for 50-100ns. At an aggressive 50ns memory latency, this is up to 600 wasted opportunities to retire instructions.

  11. Re:Cheating? Yep... by Svartalf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's not so stupid a remark.

    L2 is what helps a CPU compensate the disparity of the FSB to the main system memory's speed.

    The larger it is, the faster the CPU will run- so long as the data and executables remain there.

    If you halve the L2 on the Core CPUs (Matching the AMD's Cache size...), you will see a 20% or
    more drop in overall performance.

    If you drop about 15-20% of the performance, you see that the Core Duo is actually SLOWER than
    the comparable AMD and that the only real edge is the overal TDP which goes to Intel on this
    round. The architechture itself isn't as good as AMD's and "wins" speed-wise only because
    Intel can jam double or triple the L2 on die because of process shrink. If you run an app that
    forces L2 thrash (which is a hell of a lot of them, actually...) you'll see the Cores running
    roughly neck and neck with the AMD chips in the same class- and only there because of the larger
    L2.

    You pop off terms, but do you HONESTLY know what they all mean? From your comment, I'd say not-
    I could be wrong, but it strongly looks like you don't get it. I do- it's sort of what I studied
    in my Master's studies when I was working on my MSCS years ago.

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