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Intel Takes Quad Core To the Desktop
Rob writes to mention a Computer Business Review Online article about Intel's official launch of the Kentsfield chipset. Their Quad Core offering, Intel is claiming, is up to 80% faster than the dual-core Conroe released this past July. From the article: "Kentsfield, a 2.66GHz chip with a 1066MHz front-side bus, is more for computational-heavy usage, including digital content creation, engineering analysis, such as CAD, and actuarial and other financial applications. Steve Smith, director of operations for Intel digital enterprise group, claimed rendering is 58% faster for users building digital content creation systems, for video, photo editing or digital audio. In other words, Kentsfield is for high-end desktops or workstations only. For the average office worker who uses their PC for general productivity apps, such as communications and garden-variety computing, Smith recommended the Core 2 Duo from 'a price point and performance perspective.'"
"Core 2 Extreme quad-core QX6700" - There's a mouthful. It's funny that Intel is continually trying to downplay the importance of this chip for the average user. They say it's best for "more for computational-heavy usage, including digital content creation, engineering analysis, such as CAD" ... sounds like gamers would flock to this. Maybe they realize it's a rushed product (to beat AMD to the punch), and it will be in short supply?
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After Effects Rendering. Final Cut Pro HD Rendering. Maya Rendering. Video Compression [Rendering}. If you've ever done what they target this processor for, you'll COMPLETELY appreciate any time NOT spent watching the growbar work. Bring it on, I've been waiting to replace several G5s doing this all day, every day.
Most of the stuff on
You want to know what consumers want?? cheaper.
They are happy with their new Dell 1.8ghz pentium M laptops and that horribly oudated and incredibly slow P4-1.8ghz processor they bought 3 years ago.
Consumers are happy now. computers have stagnated hard for the past 3-4 years and the performance gains offered by this new stuff is only marginal for them.
On video editing, I can see the advances IF your app can take advantage of it, problem is current apps cant take full advantage of that processor until a new build or version is made to take advantages of it.
The consumer yawns and happily uses their old 3 year old PC or that cheapie from dell that cost them $299 with flat panel and is as slow. They dont care about 64 bit, dual or quad core.
at least until they buy a new OS and discover that the added bloat requires more processing power to display menus and movethe mouse cursor.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They don't care how much power the chip consumes or how much heat it dissipates,
Oh really? Now I can't say as far as Intel, but AMD has been very focused on power consumption for a very long time now. All of their literature is filled with benchmarks of power-per-watt and total power savings in the data center, etc. If AMD doesn't care about power consumption, then why would they specifically go to pains to offer CPU versions that are even MORE aggressive in their power saving if you pay a bit more for them? And with all of their power saving innovation and dedication what do they get? Intel now outperforms them and everyone jumps the ship and goes over to the Intel side (despite the fact that the lower power versions of AMD's CPU still use less power when the final weight with the chipset is done).
You know why they care about what performance the average consumer sees? Because that's all consumers care about. If it were otherwise you wouldn't be seeing your lights dim when your graphics card goes into high gear. Where are the "power conscious" versions of these graphics cores?
I've got a lot of Athons, and Athlon XP's running where I work. Some burn out but that's often because of their environment and due to the fact that the fan that comes with the heatsink for the OEM version is garbage almost guaranteed to burn out after a year in high dust environments. The Pentium 4 is history, even Intel admits it was on the wrong track. If you want more longevity, then get a robust heatsink fan (undervolted) and underclock your CPU. You DO underclock your CPU right?