Intel Launches Power-Efficient Penryn Processors

Bergkamp10 writes "Over the weekend Intel launched its long-awaited new 'Penryn' line of power-efficient microprocessors, designed to deliver better graphics and application performance as well as virtualization capabilities. The processors are the first to use high-k metal-gate transistors, which makes them faster and less leaky compared with earlier processors that have silicon gates. The processor is lead free and by next year Intel is planning to produce chips that are halogen free, making them more environmentally friendly. Penryn processors jump to higher clock rates and feature cache and design improvements that boost the processors' performance compared with earlier 65-nm processors, which should attract the interest of business workstation users and gamers looking for improved system and media performance."

Comments

Re:revolutionary? no, but still noteworthy

[Azuma Hazuki]

I am a dedicated AMD fangirl...every computer I've ever built had an AMD chip in it. But Intel really hit it on the head with the Core 2 arch and I see no sign of them slackening. I am actually looking forward to Nehalem and its shrink (which is probably the next time I'll have the money to spend on anything not college or food/supply-related).

If this is how it ends for AMD, this is how it goes. I'll be sad, and may buy AMD anyway for some other reason (even if it's just stubborn fangirlism) but I respect Intel's design team. Their ethics, no, but their design is top notch this time around.

x86 already has elements of RISC & PowerPC is

[Blahbooboo3]

I believe that x86 already has many of the benefits of RISC chips incorporated into them. Way back in 1995 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86#Chronology.Intel added to the Pentium Pro a RISC core. From the Wiki article, "During execution, current x86 processors employ a few extra decoding steps to split most instructions into smaller pieces, micro-ops, which are readily executed by a micro-architecture that could be (simplistically) described as a RISC-machine without the usual load/store limitations."

As for PowerPC Macs, I doubt it. The switch to Intel is what made most new Mac users switch because there was no longer a risk of not being able to run the one Windoze program they might need. If Mac ever went to a non-mainstream CPU again it would be a big big mistake.

Re:revolutionary? no, but still noteworthy

[AvitarX]

One reason to buy AMD is that if they go out of business Intel may stop innovating.

Even if you are getting a worse deal in the short run, an upgrade cycle or two in the future may be much worse (comparatively) if everyone goes Intel.