Inside Intel's Core i7 Processor, Nehalem

MojoKid writes "Intel's next-generation CPU microarchitecture, which was recently given the official processor family name of 'Core i7,' was one of the big topics of discussion at IDF. Intel claims that Nehalem represents its biggest platform architecture change to date. This might be true, but it is not a from-the-ground-up, completely new architecture either. Intel representatives disclosed that Nehalem 'shares a significant portion of the P6 gene pool,' does not include many new instructions, and has approximately the same length pipeline as Penryn. Nehalem is built upon Penryn, but with significant architectural changes (full webcast) to improve performance and power efficiency. Nehalem also brings Hyper-Threading back to Intel processors, and while Hyper-Threading has been criticized in the past as being energy inefficient, Intel claims their current iteration of Hyper-Threading on Nehalem is much better in that regard." Update: 8/23 00:35 by SS: Reader Spatial points out Anandtech's analysis of Nehalem.

Comments

only the super high desk tops have Quick Path and

[Joe The Dragon]

only the super high desk tops have Quick Path and Triple channel DDR3 and the bigger joke is the that there will be 2 differnt 1 cpu desktop Socket.

also the mobile will not have Quick Path.

all AMD cpus use hyper transport and all desktops will use the same socket and the upcoming AM3 cpus will work in the older am2+ boards. Also on amd you can use more then 1 chipset will intel it looks like you will be locked in to a intel chipset.

Power effiiency is the new "it"

[Kjella]

Nehalem is really the realization of what many slashdotters have claimed before - the typical user doesn't need that much more performance. Both datacenters and laptop users ask for the same thing - power efficiency - and Intel delivers. The Atom is another part of the strategy, even though it's current coupled with a very inefficient chipset.

The thing is, today we have the knowledge and complexity to fire up kilowatt systems and more - but they're costly running. Certainly there's the extreme hardcore gamers who won't mind running the hottest, most powerhungry quad crossfire system, but they're few and far between. Laptop users think battery life. Desktop users think electricity costs. The result is Nehalem, which promises to deliver a lot more performance per watt.

If the practise is as good as the theory, AMD is unfortunately in deep shit. They've always been good at delivering ok processors at an ok price, but power efficiency has really only been their strength compared to the Netburst (PIV) processors, not P3 or the Cores. If it amounts to "yeah your processors are cheaper but they cost more to operate" things will fall apart, which is sad since ATI is really doing fine. The 48xx series are kick-ass cards, I just hope they can keep up the competition against Intel...

Re:Power effiiency is the new "it"

[Kneo24]

You are behind the times. ATI cards, as far as price vs performance, are spanking NVidia's cards with moon rocks. I think a big helping hand in that is that for whatever reason, AMD said to them, "make better drivers, or else!".

Also, AMD has gone the route of trying to be more open source friendly with their cards, more so than NVidia.

Currently, you just can't go wrong with owning a current generation Radeon card right now.

Re:Here we go again

[Traiano]

Don't assume that since Hyper-Threading failed with Netburst that it is forever doomed to fail again. The primary problem with that architecture was that stages along the pipeline didn't support multiple threads. So, any thread context switches forced a flush of Netburst's very, very long pipeline. Intel's next generation of pipelines track multiple threads at all stages and make the prospect of HT much more attractive.

Re:only the super high desk tops have Quick Path a

[beakerMeep]

Take a deep breath. It's OK if AMD and intel both have good chips. The question really comes down to the brand of salsa anyways.

Re:only the super high desk tops have Quick Path a

[hairyfeet]

Actually I don't know if they are cutting their own throat or not,but I have noticed I'm building a lot more AMD machines lately. And for the first time since the old K2(IIRC,they were the 400MHz ones) I am actually looking at building an AMD board for myself. The price on AMD dual cores has just gotten so cheap I can cut a good 35% off the cost by going AMD. But for most folks the X2 series has enough power that it is frankly overkill. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV