bit-tech News: Intel Core i7 - Nehalem Architecture Dive

[news 28]

Hi all,

 

We have just published an *Intel Core i7 - Nehalem Architecture dive* -

if you could post a link on your site that would be very much appreciated.

 

*Link:*

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/11/03/intel-core-i7-nehalem-architecture-dive/1

 

 

*Picture:*

http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2008/11/intel-core-i7-nehalem-architecture-dive/fp_img.jpg

 

 

*Quote:

*/Well, as far as we know Intel is committed to the socket for the

foreseeable future, there are multiple CPUs available from launch with a

few more planned, but don't expect the wealth of choice currently

available for LGA775. We don't know how well Lynnfield will perform in

comparison to both LGA775 and LGA1366, but while the

PCI-Express-CPU-Memory transfer will be more efficient there will be

less memory bandwidth to play with. How important either of these

factors are in Nehalem - compared to Penryn - will provide a key to the

answer of how important the Lynnfield launch will be and whether it will

be worth waiting a long time until Q309 for an overhaul upgrade.

 

Both LGA1366 and Socket 940 used expensive, niche memory that's specific

to its platform, but the advantage Intel's new setup has is that it will

work with most DDR3 already available - so if you already own a dual

channel kit that will see you through for the time being. AMD's socket

940 on the other hand would only work with ECC DDR memory and there was

no performance market for this.

 

SLI and CrossFire on a single platform will also make it somewhat more

compelling than current LGA775 motherboards, especially since there's

more intense competition between Nvidia and ATI right now; however that

is on the presumption you care about multi-GPU of course.

 

All in all, the new Core i7 platform has more going for it than AMD ever

did with its socket 940 thanks to greater industry support from

enthusiast memory and multi-GPUs, however even the cheapest Core i7 920

processor isn't cheap if we consider what we're paying for E8400s,

E5200s or the super popular Q6600s. We can only cry at the loss of

extreme-value overclocking - many of the most successful overclockers in

the world started out as teenagers and students learning the ropes by

killing very cheap CPUs (an AMD Duron 750 for £35 here), so what will

this mean for future generations? Only if you have money to play and

"burn," can you be a big hit?

 

With Nvidia pushing its CUDA GPGPU "mass multi-core" as the way forward

- such examples are its Badaboom, Folding ( -at -) Home and the hugely important

Adobe Creative Suite 4, a few of us doubt that Nehalem can be such a

firm hit its predecessors were in the desktop market. However, then we

remember it's not all about the GFLOPS - it's about ease of use with the

millions of x86(-64) programs already available. Intel's competitor will

continue to be AMD, not Nvidia, and we encourage digesting our

performance analysis article in detail as well as keeping an eye on how

well the new Core i7 920 CPUs overclock (and how the soon-to-be-released

AMD Deneb CPUs perform) to see if your current setup should be retired

or not. The CPU as we know it today will stick around and be very

important for a while yet./*

 

*Cheers guys!

 

Tim Smalley

www.bit-tech.net