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News on Pentium IV
MotaK writes "Ace's Hardware and ARS-Technica has reported on PC Worlds article on the Willamette Processor, dubbed the P4. This proc. will apparently be only a 200Mhz frontside bus, and launch sometime in 2000. "
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AMD has had a 200 MHz FSB since they released the Athlon. Intel is only now getting around to it. I also heard recently that in AMD's Dresden fabrication plant that they are turning out 1.2 GHz chips while Intel is only /talking/ about getting over a GHz (w/o cooling). I think that Intel's star is falling and that the Athlon's superior performance over the P3 was no fluke. (Also that is one mighty unoriginal name)
If the money had been put into decent development, we might be seeing high-speed, 64-bit, dynamically configurable processors -today-.
(As it is, we'll have to wait another 3 or 4 weeks for Transmeta to release theirs.)
Alternatively, we could have seen, for the same cost as developing a new processor, Intel, or one of the other premier chip companies, experiment with preparing silicon or gallium-arsonide in microgravity. A slow-cooled batch, under those conditions, would be near flawless, and allow for some serious clock-speeds. And people -would- buy! I'm sure of it!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
From Intel, analysts expect 800-MHz PIII chips during the second quarter, and the Pentium IV chip, code-named Willamette, by the end of the year. Willamette is expected to handle more simultaneous instructions than the PIII, and to break the 1-GHz barrier. The accompanying chip set will likely support a 200-MHz system bus, like the Athlon's.
I couldn't disagree more with what they write:
"Itanium won't be relevant for PCs until 2003 at the earliest, more likely 2005,"
Especially because their main argument is:
"Software has yet to be written or recompiled to accommodate a 64-bit processor. "
So, they really think that Microsoft will be able to hold back computer progress once again? Last time, there were no alternatives. You would run 16-bit dos, like it or not, but now we have choice and freedom.
If Microsoft doesn't move fast on this one, they'll be losing market shares on the server end of things in no time, and increasingly rapidly on the desktop too.
If they move fast, however, they will have to abandon their huge installed base and start at the same level as anyone else. It would be dangerous position for a company that has never excelled at quality and innovation.
I think 64-bit architectures may very well turn into Bill Gates' Waterloo; and it will all be over before we know it.
I'm always in a bit of shock after I talk with people that are relative newbies (ie, less knowledgable than us folk :) about computers. They'll tell me something like "I got the 12.2 gig RAMs with a 15" drive and 256 of cache. Of course, it's a Pentium III. They're the fastest, you know."
Explaining that the speed increase between a P2 and a P3 is negligible doesn't seem to help any. They just know that they've got to have that "III," they have to have that "MMX" on there.
I wonder how much longer it will continue like this? Remember the rabid VCR market in the late 80s and early 90s? Maybe it was just my young geek mind, but it seemed to me that there was always some new feature, some great reason to upgrade to the next great generation of VCRs.
Where has that gone? In part, DVDs have increased the upgrade crazy, to be certain. But, if we go back a couple of years, you'll notice a laid-back attitude about these simple devices. "Does it record? Good enough." Again, this might just be my perception.
This same pattern has been repeated with radios, telephones, TVs (to some extent), coffeemakers, refrigerators, and just about any other overpriced gadget that you can think of. They become a commodity.
Is the processor industry going to drive itself into commodity status? I assume so. No doub t that you and I will keep right on upgrading and getting the biggest backside cache and fastest motherboard speed that we can. But as computers are reduced to appliance status, consumers won't care about whether it's a P3 or a P4. They'll just want to know if it's "on the e-mail."
Oddly, no mention of the Alpha, which I expect will end up owning the 64 bit arena for the foreseeable future. Why wait 'til 2003 for 64 bit performance when you can get it today? And the alpha today will probably be faster than Intel's deliveries years from now.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I think the author of the PCWorld article has Windoze on the brain. When the Merced chips hit the streets you can BET that there will be a Redhat distro for it the same month (if not the same day).
It may be true that you won't be able to get Win200X (Specially built for Pentium IV! Upgrade today!) for quite some time, but the folks that just need to recompile like Linux, or BSD, will be there instantly. Slashdot itself has run the articles on Linux booting off a Merced simulator, and GCC being ported to run as well.
With Transmeta, 1.2 GHz Athalons, and Merceds coming out, next year should be very interesting.
Well, gosh guys, no wonder intel chips are slower than AMD chips. They run Roman Numerals for crying out loud. It probably takes a few more clock cycles to add XX, IV, M and then divide by V than to use that pesky binary stuff.
Personally, I am waiting for the Pentium XXVII, which should be a real screamer.
"...this addition to the PIII design is responsible for supercharging Microsoft Office apps."
For some reason, I had trouble taking the rest of the article seriously after I read this line.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
The magazine is about Personal computing. Thats why they aren't talking about the Alpha 21364. The G5 has nothing to do with personal computing, and the G4 is already out.
Two banks of memory operating in tandem so that each bank is operating at only 100MHz. Will only give you the performance in burst mode access, but as caches tend to work that way (AIUI), that's not such a bad thing.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
As a consumer, I just can't WAIT to get my hands on one, Intel. I'm just seething with anxiety over new features. Heaven forbid that they should f00f this one up.
Of course it's all simple mathematics, really. The more Intel rushes things, the more likely AMD will come out ahead.
:-)
Best regards,
SEAL
What we need now is innovation. Speed could only take us so far, now we need a brilliant flash of insight into making computing different... Better. What's the next step?
Great question, easy answer: 5 words -- ubiquitous wireless broadband internet access.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Try the engine metaphore.
:)
:)
I always tell people that the MHz is more like RPM's and not horsepower...
P-III = V6
Athlon = V8
G4 = V12
Alpha = nitrous burning funny car engine!
My saturns rpm-ometer goes up to 9,000 RPMs... My friends mustang goes to i think 7. Mine needs 3700 RPM's to get to 85, while the mustang needs 1900.
It's a fitting match!
Sorry if i went a little off topic though
For a start I was a little un-impressed with the article. The news item had me expecting some specific information but the article had few specifics.
Several of the posts here I've read seem to imply that AMD is soon to get the upper hand and that Intel is playing catch up. This is unlikely to be true for the foreseable future, the lead Intel has will stay with us for a while yet regardless of the competition.Here are some of the biggest issues surrounding the market.
Intel Brandname: Many of you will remember that not that many years ago only the total techies like us actualy new who made the processor inside your computer, the brand was the manufacturer, how many of you today know who made the chips in your mobilefone? your pda? your wristwatch? your microwave oven? Intel changed all this with an extensive and heavy duty branding efort (The Intel Inside stickers, the TV adverts and all that). AMD has not got a brand name anything like as big as intel, the general public 'Knows' that Intel is the best even when it isn't.
AMD Will slash Athlon Prices: This is one of the biggest misconceptions about, for a long time AMD has been known for being the cheap option, not because they could design or makes the chips vastly cheaper than Intel but becuase they had to cut costs to compete. This all changed with the Athlon that for the first time put them ahead in the performance stakes, the Athlon price is now in the same bracket as the Intel chips and it can't cut the prices by mutch, the development costs have really cut into their revenue to the point that they have no choice but to compete on a level price playing field. That leaves AMD fighting only on the performance and branding front's and they only have edge in one of those areas.
AMD Has The Performance Advantage: True, but for how long. Many people have said that AMD has now proved they can make better processors and will continue to have the edge. This is not necisarily true, Intel is very large with vast resources. Basicly AMD have cought Intel napping, for far to long Intel has has a clear lead in the field and they have got more than a little complacement. The Intel Brandname will only cary them for so long, Intel knows they will have to fight to regain the performance edge, and Intel knows how to fight. I am reminded of the over quoted Admiral Yamamoto after pearl harbor "We have awakened a sleeping giant and have instilled in him a terrible resolve". And I'm sure you americans will be quick to point out that not eveyone caught napping is the inferior side.
Natalie Portman: Has nothing to do with this issue.
Enough with the oxymoronic names already! "Pentium IV"? Please. You'd think that Intel could make it's chip names correspond a little better to chip differences, too. The only significant difference between a PII and a PIII is the (little used) SSE support, whereas you have to shop carefully between PIII releases to make sure you get one of the uber-cache "Coppermine" (disclaimer: no copper included) models that actually can compete with an Athlon.
It's a shame that Pentium IIIs, while invariably poor consumer buys, are still doing well because of marketing. Want a cheap computer? Get a Celeron. Want a fast computer? Get an Athlon, which will outrun any PIII of the same price.
A neighbor of mine got their first computer last Christmas. Maybe my advice got there too late, because their overpriced, unstable Compaq PII system was coupled with a lousy ATI video card and a winmodem. I had the pleasure last month of trying to figure out driver problems with someone's dual PIII, 128MB (or was it 256?) RAM, Voodoo 3 3500, behemoth system... that was having conflicts with his ISA network card.
Granted, there are a lot of CPU-intensive things (Quake 3 - intense!) out there I'd love to have an 800Mhz Athlon for, but those are the exception (Quake 3 - exceptional!) rather than the rule. (Quake 3 rules!)
And even in 3D games, we're getting to the point where the processor won't be the limiting factor anymore. I mean, once you're getting 60fps at 1024x768, do you shoot for 90fps? No, you crank up your resolution, detail, or color depth. And once you do that you're worrying about your video card's fill rate, texture memory, or texture RAM bandwidth, not about your CPU. Hell, with T&L going on new video cards, we're going to be at the point where the AGP bus and human perception are the limiting factors on visual quality, not the CPU. Maybe games like Halo will have ultra-impressive physics and AI to use all those CPU cycles, but I'd like to see it.
Granted, there are always going to be applications (if only Beowulf clusters) where CPU value increases linearly with CPU speed.. but these are niche things compared to the huge consumer market being sold to today.
What I want to see isn't faster CPUs, it's broadband access! I have a K6II on a 10baseT college dorm connection this year, and if I have to trade it for a quad 1.2Ghz Athlon on a 56K modem when I graduate, it's not going to be a good trade. Whoever thought up Intel's "our CPU makes the internet faster!" campaign should be flogged.
Besides, the primary (ie most significant to the majority of users) difference between the PPro and the P54 class CPUs was the location of the L2 cache (on the chip vs. on the board).
.18micron allowing higher clock speeds. Integrates 256kb of cache into the core at processor speed (similar to the celeronA but with SSE and more cache). Also introduced FCPGA (flipchip packaging) and Socket that allows enhanced cooling of the core.
Not true. The PPro was a large design change with a heavy focus on 32-bit operations, hence the poor 16-bit performance. Yes it biggest change was integrating the cache into the same die as the core package (leading to a huge & expensive chip).
Pentium (P54) - Original 586 Core with Good 16/32bit CPU with pipelined FPU, later added MMX
PPro - New Core (P6) with Great 32bit, poor 16bit, even better FPU, full speed cache, but only 64kb, large memory support. No MMX.
Pentium II - Evolution of PPro(P6), higher clockspeed, added MMX, moved cache into chips on a board in slot 1, running at 1/2 speed. Upped cache to 512Kb. Same bus as PPro only Slot design to reduce cost. Overclocked Pentiums were sometimes faster than the early 233Mhz PII on 16bit games and apps.
Celeron - Same as PII Core only originally no cache, leading to poor performance and a bad reputation. Regular Pentiums often outperfomed it, clock for clock.
Celeron A - New core added 128kb of cache integrated into the core at processor speed, different from PPro(cache was in the die not the core on PPro), different from PII(cache was in Chips at 1/2 processor speed on the slot1 board). Great chip with a low price. Later offered in Sockets for even lower price.
Pentium III - Updated PII core with SSE instructions added. Later upped Bus speed to 133Mhz.
PIII Coppermine - New PII core at
-Jay