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Intel 45nm Processors Waiting to Clobber AMD's Barcelona?
DKC writes "Tech ARP's anonymous source claims that Intel is merely waiting for AMD to release their Barcelona processors before they clobber them with their 45nm die-shrinked processors. In fact, Intel is already producing these 45nm processors at one of their fabs in Arizona. AMD and Intel are in for a long and tough battle ahead. Should be an interesting one though."
I wish other markets were like this. They compete: I win
Intel cannot switch their production completely to those parts in a few month. they have huge amounts of 65nm cpus in production, plus they dont have to fab capacity to replace that production at 45nm.
Also, seeing that they already are > 3/4 of the (x86) cpu market, and AMD will only ramp up slowly, Intel would most of all hurt the sales of their own established product lines.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
> Some might think making money is evil, but i dont. I like making money.
Whether making money is evil depends on how you make it. In particular, anticompetitive behavior is not a legal or moral way to make money.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
If this article is true, it proves my theory that Intel sits on technology, milking every last dollar from the consumer before releasing something better. This is why I don't buy Intel.
Yes, I know, it's good business and makes the stockholders happy. But as a geek, I'm not into the business side of it. I am into the technology and performance aspect. What if AMD never releases Barcelona? Does Intel never release these new 45nm monsters (or only release them in the quantities already produced, at extremely inflated prices)?
It reminds me of the days of the AMD K6. Intel was "stuck" at 266 Mhz. Reaching beyond that was "impossible". Then, suddenly AMD released a K6 at 300Mhz. Within a week, Intel released the 300 and 333Mhz Pentiums (P-IIs I think). That kind of pissed me off. How much sooner could Intel have released the 300? How much further could they have gone? How many people were forced to pay top dollar while Intel sat back and quietly raked in the cash, knowing that they were selling an inferior product marketed as "the best we can do", when, quite frankly, it wasn't.
This is the action of a monopoly, plain and simple.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I really hope AMD survives because then we are effectively down to a single commodity processor company. But AMD is struggling to survive. I don't care what the fanboys say, just look at their financial numbers. Third quarter in a row with massive losses. Intel opened the door a bit when they faltered with their Pentium4/Itanium strategy. But the door is swinging back shut. Nobody can keep pace with Intel on process technology...they will be ahead of the curve for the forseeable future. AMD is on such a tight-rope that they cannot afford a single mistake or major delay. Since acquiring ATI, nVidia has nearly all of the laptop chipset sales. You wonder if AMD overpaid for ATI. The "wow" factor that came with Opteron is not there with Barcelona. I'm skeptical...
of the most impressive technological feats our society accomplishes on a regular basis. The45nm process has nothing to do with innovation. It's just the same technology, the same process, on a different scale.
What you declare is simply not true.
45nm is the result of a huge amount of innovation, just as 65nm was compared to 90nm. There are a lot of technological hurdles to overcome as the length of transistors are scaled. For example, improved high-k dielectrics are required to increase the channel capacitance and reduce leakage. Improved isolation between devices is required. Tighter tolerances for lithography are needed. Better control of ion implant doses are required. More stable silicides are needed to reduce interconnect resistance. Better drain structures are needed to deal with the increased electric field density in the transistor channels. Improved thermally conductive materials need to be developed because the heat density is increasing. I could go on and on and on. Scaling transistors is onere is a huge financial incentive to do so, and tens of thousands of engineers worldwide are attacking the problems from many angles.
What most people don't understand about device scaling is that it isn't a single problem to be solved. It is a huge number of equally challenging problems spanning multiple engineering disciplines.
Is getting away from the almost 30 year old x86 architecture.
Don't get me wrong, I love x86, it has been great, and has adapted amazingly into the most powerful computing the world has ever seen.
But, since most software is tied to x86, we are holding ourselves back from hardware advancements. x86 is loaded with archaic instruction sets for compatibility with Windows code that is based on 16bit DOS code.
I'm not laying out flame bait, this is what I read in an article about the future of processors, and moving to specialized co processors.
It was a cool article, I wish I remember what it was.
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So, is it better to release something while you're getting low yields and have it show up almost nowhere (the case for the first few months of the core 2 release) or to wait until you can actually have a good number on the shelves, and keep pumping them out?
Intel is only starting to pump out 45nm parts (ramping up production lines). They cannot fulfill the needs of their first tear customers yet, so they won't officially release them until they can. I however wouldn't be to surprised if Apple, who has lower unit volumes, picks up the 45nm parts ahead of the big guys as part of an off the price list deal (like Apple currently has with the 3.0 GHz quad core Xeons). Intel so far appears to be ahead of what they originally predicted timeframe wise for Penryn / 45nm.
Also given that Intel is investing heavily in 45nm fabs and they need to recoup those costs by using those fabs. Using a smaller process means they can product more units per die which drives per unit costs down (ignoring capital investment in the plant retrofit). So they aren't just sitting back on profits... when better profits are ahead of them when they start to leverage their investment in 45nm process / fabs.
AMD wasn't even remotely competitive until 99 when the Athlon came out
AMD released the K6 in April of 1997. After that, they released the K6-2 and even the K6-3 right before the Athlon came out. The K6 competed very well against the PII. The K6-2 and K6-3 competed will against the P-III until the Athlon was released. Well, you know the story from there.
I try to buy AMD exclusively and this article is a fine example why. I won't buy from a company who is holding back their best from me in order to milk every last hard earned dime they can from me. I'm sure AMD would do the same if they could, but they are not, so I buy from them.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
While these two Goliaths are locking horns and fighting over soon-to-be-obsolete technology, a third player will sneak behind them and steal the pot of gold. Let's face it. CPU architecture is due for a radical change. The computer world is going parallel and the old algorithm/thread paradigm is showing its age. There's a sweet scent of revolution in the air. Who will be the leader of the next revolution? Sun, IBM, Tilera? We'll see.
To make a 40cm ball instead of a 30cm ball, you need a bigger cast. You'll probably need more laborers, too. You'll need more materials to make the ball because it's significantly larger, and you'll probably need stronger tools to bring in the material. In fact, you may need to start using a new material altogether, because the old material might not be capable of holding a spherical shape when the diameter is increased 33%.
I just made the same argument for different sized metal bearings as you made for different nanometer threading. It wasn't even hard to do, either, because all I had to do was think about the scale. The GP said it best: "It's just the same technology, the same process, on a different scale." Sure, making 45nm chips is complicated, but complicated does not equal innovative.
Innovation would require taking a route that is completely unlike anything we're seeing today. I can't give an example, because if I could, I'd have a million dollar idea and I sure as hell wouldn't be posting it on Slashdot. The point is, though, that just because moving to 45nm is hard, it doesn't make it innovative.
AMD would do exactly the same thing if the situation were reversed. In fact, they did just that back in the Pentium 4 days. This underscores why competition is such a good thing.
ATI still have not released their drivers as open, and the closed ones are complete ass.
The open ones are severely limited, no surprise given the lack of help from ATI.
Intel, on the other hand, has excellent open source graphics drivers.
How is Intel being anticompetitive?
I highly doubt they would sit on a process till AMD is out with a new product. The road to marketshare is not to wait for your competitor, it is to get your product out as far ahead as possible. Given the options I believe Intel is likely still working out some non-trivial (i.e. no microcode workaround) issues in the 45nM process before releasing.
Which sounds more plausible?
* Intel sits on a new process, risking sanctions, not making money (actually losing money given the cost of running a fab), just to beat AMD at their launch.
* Intel has some bugs to work out, and does not want to relive a PPro style recall for _any_ reason as that would be disaster.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
When I looked at upgrading my system, I had a choice. The Core 2 Duos that weren't crippled and had a proper amount of L2 cache started at $240. The AMD X2 systems with built-in memory controller and decent amounts of L2 cache started at $75.
Right now on any web site, you can order a X2 CPU with full dedicated L2 cache per core for around $70. The cheapest Core 2 Duo is the E4300 at $150. That has a bottlenecked 800Mhz FSB, not a fancy 2.0Ghz hypertransport bus like the X2. To get a 1066Mhz FSB C2D requires you go up to $190 or so.
Intel motherboards seem to require a premium as well. nVidia can make AM2 chipsets with firewire, dual ethernet, onboard 7.1 audio, multiple SATA and eSATA connectors, etc, for roughly $100 less than then equivalent Intel chipset board. Is that because Intel wants more $$ for its chipset licences?
So... when you do get this same base performance, it comes at a price. Honestly, you would be better served by getting an 8800 instead of an 8600 GeForce for the difference in CPU and motherboard costs. Plus, those SLI motherboards for AM2 are around $150 vs. the $220 + for Intel ones.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
There seems to be a conspritorial thread running though alot of these comments which seems to assume that Intel already HAS 45nm processing up and running in volume and is deliberately holding it back just to make AMD looks bad. This is ridiculous for several reasons:
1) If Intel could produce volume 45nm right now it would - better chips, cheaper to make, higher performance, higher margin on the best ones - why would they hold back?
2) Even if Intel just cared about humiliating AMD, it would do it much more thoughly if Intel could bring out the 45nm stuff BEFORE Barcelona even ships. Believe me, if Intel could do that, it would.
3) Anyone who has any idea what's going on in the industry knows Intel is putting massive effort behind getting out the 45nm technology as soon as possible. There is NO financial upside in living with older process technology any longer than you have to. (Unless you're AMD and you don't have the latest process technology and have to bring out your flagship quad core on old 65nm process)
So, in summary, 45nm stuff may well give Barcelona a run for it's money, but there's no way Intel is holding it back for dramatic effect.
While your argument holds at normal scales, at the nano-scale, even small differences in size can make large differences in the chemical and electrical properties of a substance. Therefore, it is possible that the change in size from 65 to 45 nm could create significant technical challenges that require real innovation to overcome.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
The idea itself is not innovative. The devil, as always, is in the details.
It actually does require innovation; old things have to be done in completely different ways.
What you're saying is that if someone created a space ship that could travel at light speed, that would not be innovative. We already have space ships that go slower than light speed, so it's trivial to scale it up. That's obviously not the case.
Ideas, by themselves, are worthless. The real innovation is how to actually do it. That, combined with the ability to do it, is what makes a technology company money. Nanoscale chip fabrication does in fact require real innovation. Materials at this scale have different properties than they do at a larger scale. If it didn't require innovation, we would have been making 5nm chips for years now.
Yeah, but performance is not the top concern anymore. The three big questions are
(1) How much power does it draw?
(2) How much heat does it make?
(3) How loud is it?
The market is worried about how "livable" computers are. That's why laptop sales have grown so much.
AMD x2's are good chips (I have one and like it fine), but the market will turn on efficiency questions not performance.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
So you overclocked and they didn't? Somehow you think you can compare the systems?
Yep, except Intel isn't being anticompetitive by creating superior processors or withholding them for the right time. Many businesses, like movie studios and game publishers, delay releasing their content to maximize their profits. It's not illegal to conspire to put your competitors out of business.
From the article:
Until AMD launches the Barcelona, Intel have no reason to start selling 45 nm processors.
Umm, that's not true at all. Here are some reasons:
1) Lower cost - you get more 45nm CPU's per wafer than 65nm CPU's so they cost less if you have similar yield ratios.
2) Lower power systems are attractive now to large purchasers. On a system level, AMD is very competitive with Intel (and sometimes ahead of Intel) on performance per watt. This is very important to companies with huge server farms.
3) Higher single-threaded performance per core. The 45 nm shrink will allow them to run cooler and at higher clock speeds thus producing high-end high-margin CPU's that gamers and performance junkies crave.
4) The way to crush your opponents isn't to let them catch up before you move forward. Have you ever seen someone in a relay race wait for their opponent simply because they know the next runner on their own team is fast? You have to get ahead and stay ahead as far as possible. If you even let them have the appearance of catching up, you won't maintain your image of indomitable superiority.
His: 1.9 -> 2.4 (26% OC)
Friend's: 2.4 -> 3.6 (50% OC)
It becomes quite a different comparison when it is fair.
* Tested first-hand w/Prime95, Orthos, SuperPi, 3dmark. But I run mine at 3.2 GHz (33% OC) for everyday use, just to bring this conversation back to reality.
** Damn, I forgot to include a bad car analogy.
Ugh, it bugs me that they always put those benchmarks on linear scales. Anything less than a factor of 2 (ok, maybe factor of square root of 2) difference is just noise. At the extreme end of it, people are stretching to come up with a reason they like their slower thing better, but speed improvements are like f/stops in lenses. A few percent is barely noticeable.
His comparison was flawed, but the difference in their unmodified machines would not be so much as to justify an additional $400.*
In fact, this is why I always step back my performance requirements to roughly the middle of the pack. The savings you get there can enable you to completely replace your entire machine twice as often as your state-of-the-art friends. If you time your purchases right, you can barely spend one year out of four with a machine inferior to your friends for the same money
*to a sane individual. Hardcore gamers excluded.
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