Clarksfield quad-core only 35W TDP, and Lynnfield prices

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: aigomorla
wait i5 < i7 yet why does it almost cost the freaken same?

LGA 1156 the use of interfaces, the beginning of a total of three clock market, including the 2.66GHz, 2.8GHz and 2.93GHz, built-in 8MB L3 Cache, 2.66GHz model will not support Hyper-Threading technology, the highest TDP to 95W, priced at 1000 per unit cost of $ 196, $ 284 and $ 562 U.S. dollars.


Hello Intel... i thought i5 was suposed to be mainstream???

2.93 = i7 940 class btw..

Maybe cheaper motherboards?

Dear god yes one would hope. I love my DS3L, $85 and gets the job done. i5 will have market penetration trouble if they can't field a sub-$100 bare-bones board.

 

[jones377]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: aigomorla
wait i5 < i7 yet why does it almost cost the freaken same?

LGA 1156 the use of interfaces, the beginning of a total of three clock market, including the 2.66GHz, 2.8GHz and 2.93GHz, built-in 8MB L3 Cache, 2.66GHz model will not support Hyper-Threading technology, the highest TDP to 95W, priced at 1000 per unit cost of $ 196, $ 284 and $ 562 U.S. dollars.


Hello Intel... i thought i5 was suposed to be mainstream???

2.93 = i7 940 class btw..

Maybe cheaper motherboards?

Dear god yes one would hope. I love my DS3L, $85 and gets the job done. i5 will have market penetration trouble if they can't field a sub-$100 bare-bones board.

I'm curious whether it will lead to cheaper systems or just cheaper motherboards. With the north bridge totally integrated into the CPU, Intel could charge more for the CPU to offset the lower motherboard price.

 

[nyker96]

I do agree with an earlier poster that amd might need more than a process change to combat intel now. they need a new core design that can be more efficient. as to their server market share. that is hard to say. intel might do well in consumer markets but server loads tends to be different. there's also the question of platform support. amd does have very decent boards for their chips.

 

[ilkhan]

Bumping to add that tech powerup posted charts with different data. 1.6-2Ghz, 2.8-3.2Ghz on turbo mode. 45/45/55W for the 3 SKUs.
I dont know if this is "better", but they are saying its from the mobo makers.
http://www.techpowerup.com/986..._Feature_Low_TDPs.html

 

[drizek]

Seems like marketing BS to me. They clock it at 2ghz to advertise a 45W TDP and then let you "overclock" it to something actually usable. Nevermind that 45w is already way too high for a laptop. Maybe they should give out a certificate for a Darwin award for everyone that buys one, because when running at 3.2ghz these things are going to get REALLY hot.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: drizek
Seems like marketing BS to me. They clock it at 2ghz to advertise a 45W TDP and then let you "overclock" it to something actually usable. Nevermind that 45w is already way too high for a laptop. Maybe they should give out a certificate for a Darwin award for everyone that buys one, because when running at 3.2ghz these things are going to get REALLY hot.

Then you don't understand how Turbo works then. IMO, its very compelling to laptop users. And BTW, 45W is not bad because it includes 10W from the Northbridge that would have been in a seperate chip anyway. If they lowered TDP to 35W including Northbridge that would have indicated a performance loss from the 45W parts.

The Turbo on Clarksfield will only clock to 3.2Ghz on Single Core. You aren't overclocking it, the PCU does it while watching temperature/current usage/power consumption so it doesn't fry the chip like it would normally happen when YOU do it.

I think its pretty brilliant as before Clarksfield, the quad core CPUs aren't exactly straight upgrades as single thread applications do not benefit and the quad cores still use a lot of power. After Clarksfield, Quad Cores will be at least fast as the dual cores.

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: IntelUser2000
I think its pretty brilliant as before Clarksfield, the quad core CPUs aren't exactly straight upgrades as single thread applications do not benefit and the quad cores still use a lot of power. After Clarksfield, Quad Cores will be at least fast as the dual cores.

I hadn't thought of it that way before. Basically your "get your cake and eat it too." Quad for multi-threaded apps or high clock speed for single-threaded apps. All monitored internally for heat. The only negative I see is higher chip cost, not a huge deal from a system perspective.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: IntelUser2000
And BTW, 45W is not bad because it includes 10W from the Northbridge that would have been in a seperate chip anyway. If they lowered TDP to 35W including Northbridge that would have indicated a performance loss from the 45W parts.

Does clarkfield include MCM'ed IGP like arrandale/clarkdale or am I thinking of the cancelled havendale chip? If clarkfield includes MCM'ed IGP then that takes some of the thermal budget too.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Does clarkfield include MCM'ed IGP like arrandale/clarkdale or am I thinking of the cancelled havendale chip? If clarkfield includes MCM'ed IGP then that takes some of the thermal budget too.

No, Clarksfield is a quad core with no IGP. Still, I think 10W assumption for Northbridge is reasonable.

To 21stHermit: Yea, I think Intel learned a lot from the P4 days. Straight up clock speed increases don't cut it for the majority of the market. It'll be more expensive but kind of makes sense since it won't be like nowadays where you pay more for quad core but don't always get better performance. I think Turbo Mode will be an extensive focus for Nehalem generation products. I dare say its even a potent "weapon" for the architecture.

Here are some information about Nehalem which I find very interesting: http://www.canardpc.com/dossie...on___Overclocking.html

Remember how Intel touted all the power conservation techniques in Nehalem but didn't seem to fruition in the actual tests? Well, since the current Bloomfields are rated at 130W, it only makes sense to compare with the 130W Core 2 Quad parts, not the more mainstream 95W versions.

Anyways, according to the CanardPC review, the power management works very impressively. Single core, the i7 has lower power consumption than the Core 2 Quad. It's only at 4 core + HT which then exceeds power consumption of the Core 2 Quad CPU. What I find especially interesting is how close to TDP the CPU gets on the Bloomfield. If that's any indication of PCU's efficiency in managing power(it scales up when it needs to, and down when it doesn't), it isn't Bloomfield that will show the true face of Nehalem's advantage, but the upcoming desktop and (especially) mobile products.

 

[drizek]

Originally posted by: IntelUser2000

Originally posted by: drizek
Seems like marketing BS to me. They clock it at 2ghz to advertise a 45W TDP and then let you "overclock" it to something actually usable. Nevermind that 45w is already way too high for a laptop. Maybe they should give out a certificate for a Darwin award for everyone that buys one, because when running at 3.2ghz these things are going to get REALLY hot.

Then you don't understand how Turbo works then. IMO, its very compelling to laptop users. And BTW, 45W is not bad because it includes 10W from the Northbridge that would have been in a seperate chip anyway. If they lowered TDP to 35W including Northbridge that would have indicated a performance loss from the 45W parts.

The Turbo on Clarksfield will only clock to 3.2Ghz on Single Core. You aren't overclocking it, the PCU does it while watching temperature/current usage/power consumption so it doesn't fry the chip like it would normally happen when YOU do it.

I think its pretty brilliant as before Clarksfield, the quad core CPUs aren't exactly straight upgrades as single thread applications do not benefit and the quad cores still use a lot of power. After Clarksfield, Quad Cores will be at least fast as the dual cores.

If that is the only way it works then a 2ghz quad core with no "quad core turbo" sounds like it will be pretty slow. It might be better in terms of architecture than arrandale, but then once you consider the advantage in manufacturing process and the price tag, I don't really see the point(im assuming that arrandale will be affordable at around 2.4ghz). Besides, won't this have the same split power plane issues that nehalem/Phenom II had with Cool n Quiet?

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: drizek

If that is the only way it works then a 2ghz quad core with no "quad core turbo" sounds like it will be pretty slow. It might be better in terms of architecture than arrandale, but then once you consider the advantage in manufacturing process and the price tag, I don't really see the point(im assuming that arrandale will be affordable at around 2.4ghz). Besides, won't this have the same split power plane issues that nehalem/Phenom II had with Cool n Quiet?

Nehalem? I didn't hear issues with Nehalem. The difference is that on Nehalem the architecture designers realized this and don't really do individual core frequency changes but just switch them off with the combination of PCU and power gate transistor which also takes care of Windows thread switching issue.

About the Phenom issue: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=3572&p=2

I have a feeling that Arrandale's dual core and single core mode will be clocked similarly to Clarksfield dual and single core Turbo Mode. With 45W quad core Clarksfields(effectively 35W), they are trying to bring the quad cores to more mainstream.

 

[Pneumothorax]

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: aigomorla
wait i5 < i7 yet why does it almost cost the freaken same?

LGA 1156 the use of interfaces, the beginning of a total of three clock market, including the 2.66GHz, 2.8GHz and 2.93GHz, built-in 8MB L3 Cache, 2.66GHz model will not support Hyper-Threading technology, the highest TDP to 95W, priced at 1000 per unit cost of $ 196, $ 284 and $ 562 U.S. dollars.


Hello Intel... i thought i5 was suposed to be mainstream???

2.93 = i7 940 class btw..

Maybe cheaper motherboards?

As the price of the chipsets seem to be the main difference between i5 vs i7 prices, if a 3rd party was able to make a cheaper x58 compatible chipset (ie Nvidia) it would easily throw a wrench into Intel's plans. I think that's why they're fighting Nvidia tooth-n-nail to keep them from releasing a i7 chipset. There's really no reason for the x58 to be so damn expensive considering it's a simpler chipset than the core2quad chipsets.
But yeah since Intel is back on top, we're getting circa pre-Athlon pricing of the 90's, Pentium 133's for >$1000 anyone?

 

[drizek]

Originally posted by: IntelUser2000

Originally posted by: drizek

If that is the only way it works then a 2ghz quad core with no "quad core turbo" sounds like it will be pretty slow. It might be better in terms of architecture than arrandale, but then once you consider the advantage in manufacturing process and the price tag, I don't really see the point(im assuming that arrandale will be affordable at around 2.4ghz). Besides, won't this have the same split power plane issues that nehalem/Phenom II had with Cool n Quiet?

Nehalem? I didn't hear issues with Nehalem. The difference is that on Nehalem the architecture designers realized this and don't really do individual core frequency changes but just switch them off with the combination of PCU and power gate transistor which also takes care of Windows thread switching issue.

About the Phenom issue: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=3572&p=2

I have a feeling that Arrandale's dual core and single core mode will be clocked similarly to Clarksfield dual and single core Turbo Mode. With 45W quad core Clarksfields(effectively 35W), they are trying to bring the quad cores to more mainstream.

I didn't realize that the cores were literally turned off. That will fix the problem I guess, but you also lose the ability to offload background tasks to the underclocked 3rd and 4th cores.

I also did not realize that arrandale was going to support Turbo mode as well. Between the aggressive power savings and 32nm process, I have high expectations in terms of battery life from arrandale.

Edit: Fudzilla keeps saying that arrandale is coming in Q1 2010. I thought it was supposed to come out in Q4 2009.

 

[ilkhan]

they are still available for use, but no power is going to those cores (until they get used). Which will make task management interesting. Do you activate another core, or do you wait for the current task to finish?

And yes, arrandale will have turbo. Probably an aggressive turbo mode at that.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: ilkhan
they are still available for use, but no power is going to those cores (until they get used). Which will make task management interesting. Do you activate another core, or do you wait for the current task to finish?

And yes, arrandale will have turbo. Probably an aggressive turbo mode at that.

Well, Clarksfield is supposed to be like this(mobile quad core Nehalem).

2.0GHz Base(3.2GHz SC Turbo)
1.73GHz Base(3.06GHz SC Turbo)
1.6GHz Base(2.8Ghz SC Turbo)

Arrandale won't be able to pull as much in terms of percentages because you can only turn off one core as opposed to maximum of 3 on a quad. I'm thinking we'll see a hypothetical 2.6GHz Arrandale with 3.06GHz Turbo.

Drizek: Some power is going to those power-gated cores, but in a desktop-chip level they are considered insignificant(1-2W or so). The power-gated cores work on a C6 level. Perhaps SMT(Hyperthreading) is one way of taking care of the background tasks.

 

[ilkhan]

I think we'll see at least the same 3.2Ghz turbo and maybe more. But likely higher base clocks.
I thought the new circuit materials were supposed to bring the power usage down to 0W when desired.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: ilkhan
I think we'll see at least the same 3.2Ghz turbo and maybe more. But likely higher base clocks.
I thought the new circuit materials were supposed to bring the power usage down to 0W when desired.

It's said to be ~0W. It allows cores to enter individual C6. I guess on a MID/UMPC level its not really 0, but on a desktop CPU it can be considred one.

 

[21stHermit]

Are any of these 32nm?

Intel has updated its launch schedule for notebook-based Clarksfield CPUs, new CPUs for ultra-thin notebooks, desktop-based Lynnfield CPUs and several server CPUs, according to industry sources.

Intel's three Clarksfield CPUs ? the Core 2 Extreme XE 2GHz, Core 2 Quad P2 1.73GHz and Core 2 Quad P1 1.6GHz ? will be ready to debut sometime around the end of September and October of 2009, the sources noted.

Intel also plans to announce Celeron SU2300 and Celeron 743 CPUs for ultra-thin notebooks by the end of September.
Desktop-based Lynnfield CPUs and P55 chipsets will be announced between September 8-11.

Intel will announce Xeon W5590, W3580, W3550 and L5530 CPUs for servers in early August, and is also preparing to launch Xeon X3470, 3460, 3450, 3440 and 3430 CPUs along with Lynnfield CPUs, and 3400 and 3420 chipsets.

From Digitimes this morning.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: 21stHermit
Are any of these 32nm?

From Digitimes this morning.

45nm.

 

[drizek]

Why the silence on Westmere? I'm starting to get worried.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: drizek
Seems like marketing BS to me. They clock it at 2ghz to advertise a 45W TDP and then let you "overclock" it to something actually usable. Nevermind that 45w is already way too high for a laptop. Maybe they should give out a certificate for a Darwin award for everyone that buys one, because when running at 3.2ghz these things are going to get REALLY hot.

Originally posted by: drizek
If that is the only way it works then a 2ghz quad core with no "quad core turbo" sounds like it will be pretty slow. It might be better in terms of architecture than arrandale, but then once you consider the advantage in manufacturing process and the price tag, I don't really see the point(im assuming that arrandale will be affordable at around 2.4ghz). Besides, won't this have the same split power plane issues that nehalem/Phenom II had with Cool n Quiet?

Originally posted by: drizek
I didn't realize that the cores were literally turned off. That will fix the problem I guess, but you also lose the ability to offload background tasks to the underclocked 3rd and 4th cores.

I also did not realize that arrandale was going to support Turbo mode as well. Between the aggressive power savings and 32nm process, I have high expectations in terms of battery life from arrandale.

Edit: Fudzilla keeps saying that arrandale is coming in Q1 2010. I thought it was supposed to come out in Q4 2009.

Originally posted by: drizek
Why the silence on Westmere? I'm starting to get worried.

Stealth troll here? Every single comment so far has a slight negative caste toward i7/i5. C'mon, if you don't like them don't buy - just quit trashing Intel.

I wonder how the 2-core/4-thread chips will fare against AMD's X3 chips. I would think in CPU-intensive apps the X3 would hand out an ass-whooping as the 2/4 Intel chips really only have two physical cores working. But the Nehalem architecture is faster clock-for-clock and they OC better so I'm not so sure which side will win that fight.

EDIT: BTW could you guys expound on the PCU controlling the cores for better "off" mode in Windows? I thought the way Windows like to hand threads around to all cores would prevent Turbo Mode from ever really being enabled/used properly.

 

[ilkhan]

Originally posted by: Denithor
EDIT: BTW could you guys expound on the PCU controlling the cores for better "off" mode in Windows? I thought the way Windows like to hand threads around to all cores would prevent Turbo Mode from ever really being enabled/used properly.

That IS something Im concerned about. Goes back to needing a nehalem peculiarity aware scheduler in the OS. Would depend on the power profile, I presume.

 

[drizek]

Originally posted by: Denithor

Originally posted by: drizek
Seems like marketing BS to me. They clock it at 2ghz to advertise a 45W TDP and then let you "overclock" it to something actually usable. Nevermind that 45w is already way too high for a laptop. Maybe they should give out a certificate for a Darwin award for everyone that buys one, because when running at 3.2ghz these things are going to get REALLY hot.

Originally posted by: drizek
If that is the only way it works then a 2ghz quad core with no "quad core turbo" sounds like it will be pretty slow. It might be better in terms of architecture than arrandale, but then once you consider the advantage in manufacturing process and the price tag, I don't really see the point(im assuming that arrandale will be affordable at around 2.4ghz). Besides, won't this have the same split power plane issues that nehalem/Phenom II had with Cool n Quiet?

Originally posted by: drizek
I didn't realize that the cores were literally turned off. That will fix the problem I guess, but you also lose the ability to offload background tasks to the underclocked 3rd and 4th cores.

I also did not realize that arrandale was going to support Turbo mode as well. Between the aggressive power savings and 32nm process, I have high expectations in terms of battery life from arrandale.

Edit: Fudzilla keeps saying that arrandale is coming in Q1 2010. I thought it was supposed to come out in Q4 2009.

Originally posted by: drizek
Why the silence on Westmere? I'm starting to get worried.

Stealth troll here? Every single comment so far has a slight negative caste toward i7/i5. C'mon, if you don't like them don't buy - just quit trashing Intel.

I wonder how the 2-core/4-thread chips will fare against AMD's X3 chips. I would think in CPU-intensive apps the X3 would hand out an ass-whooping as the 2/4 Intel chips really only have two physical cores working. But the Nehalem architecture is faster clock-for-clock and they OC better so I'm not so sure which side will win that fight.

EDIT: BTW could you guys expound on the PCU controlling the cores for better "off" mode in Windows? I thought the way Windows like to hand threads around to all cores would prevent Turbo Mode from ever really being enabled/used properly.

I am just asking these questions because I have only been looking at AMD Desktop CPUs and I want to catch up on Nehalem/Westmere. I want to know if it is worth waiting for Arrandale or if I should just get a Macbook Pro right now. It comes with a free iPod Touch and printer until september, so I will be giving that up by waiting.

I also don't really understand the logic of having 45nm quad cores and 32nm dual cores to start with. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Clarksfield just doesn't look like it will be compelling until about a year from now when it gets shrunk.

 

[ilkhan]

arrandale battery life will be significantly superior to C2D battery life, plus the superior onboard GPU vs X4500MHD.
<edit> it'll also be significantly faster and be capable of 4 threads.</edit>
I won't comment on the mac thing, besides a simple "don't".

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: drizek
I also don't really understand the logic of having 45nm quad cores and 32nm dual cores to start with. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

The logic is about Volume + Yield = Profit.

Unlike past node increments theirs no competitive pressure to outdo AMD, 45nm Nehalem's are more than adequate to compete with anything AMD has or likely will have for 6-12 months. Low volume quads do not generate that much revenue.

Clarkdale & Arrandale (2 cores @ 32nm + 45nm IGP) OTOH is the meat and potatoes of the market. Because the CPU chip will be so small, it'll have high yields with lots of dies per wafer, hence huge profit potential.

Classic business strategy, once you've driven your competition into a marginal technical position, use your leadership to generate revenue. Accolades are no longer needed.