Intel Discusses Mobile Nehalem. Quad Core Notebooks Coming Next Month.

[CWallace]

I honestly can't see the MBP's getting quad core first. I could be completly wrong here but I suspect that it will be the iMacs first as it's easier to keep them cool.

Well the iMac could certainly take the (now) 2.4GHz QX9300 if it's still at 45W TDP.

The current MacBook Pro would need to wait for the slower 35W TDP Q9100 part, however if Apple is indeed changing the MacBook Pro's form factor, it could take into account CPUs with higher TDPs and could possibly handle a 45W QX9300.

 

[odaiwai]

MacBook Pros (and OS X) already support drives that large. They don't exist yet.

Well, of course they support the drives. You can plug in a drobo or similar system and get multiple gigs available. My Macbook has a few terabytes of NFS drives available when it's within wireless range of the home network.

But, if there were new drives (and i think there are some 750GB 2.5" in the pipelines), the MBP 17" would be the first to get them.

 

[LeoFio]

looks like I will be waiting until the second half of 2009 to replace my 1.5ghz Powerbook G4 There's no hurry on my part.

 

[whooleytoo]

This Turbo Mode thing actually sounds not unlike the old Turbo Button; in both cases, for some reason, and contrary to what the name suggests, your processing power gets switched downwards.

"Nehalam Processors: Now with even slower Turbo"...

A bit like shutting down your Windows machine from the Start menu..

 

[darklyt]

Do you think that Snow Leopard is going to ship with a free cage, whip, stool and instructional DVD so that we can learn to tame our beasts? I'm personally feeling the tug of fight-or-flight at the thought of a 16-core Mac Pro decked out with 32(+?)GB of RAM, 4(+)TB HD space, Firewire 3200 coupled with an OS designed to take advantage of the hardware.

The best analogy I can muster (as I wipe the drool from my chin) is putting human consciousness into an actual leopard (or tiger). Totally sick. Imagine how snappy Safari is going to be...

 

[andiwm2003]

looks like I will be waiting until the second half of 2009 to replace my 1.5ghz Powerbook G4 There's no hurry on my part.

i'm in the same boat. my PB 1.5GHz is doing fine. However i want two computers because I'm too dependend on my mac. So i plan to get a 13.3 inch Montevina MB now if I like the redesign. That will be my portable computer.
in 2009 i will buy a quadcore MBP as desktop replacement and retire my PB.

with this stragtegy I get a nice speed increase now with good portability and won't have to feel it's underpowered in 2 years because i bought it for portability. the quadcore MBP will be my workhorse for more heavvy computing.

 

[dissdnt]

omg quad core macbook pro, i'm so buying.

 

[hotshotharry]

Quad core mini? Oh Yeah !

 

[Superman07]

Some people are not being specific enough with their questions and comments. There are two very different chipsets mentioned - quad core versions of the current architecture as well as nahelem mobile chips. The latter of the two will be out at the earliest in 2H 2009.

 

[iMacmatician]

I also noted that the first notebook quad-core will be 2.4GHz and not 2.53GHz as the QX9300 was expected to be. I wonder if that means Intel is still having problems getting the TDP's down? The QX9300 was supposed to be 45W at 2.53GHZ, but if they had to underclock it, I wonder if that means the Q9100 will be more like 2GHz instead of 2.27GHz to maintain the 35W TDP?

OUCH! That's bad news. This could mean that the 2.27 GHz is actually 45 W to maintain the $851 price point.

Of course this could mean we can see a 2.13 GHz 35 W $530 quad-core... (fat chance)

Sounds good... i'd be really interested to see how the performance stacks up against a Core 2.
I hope that if quad core laptops are released that it won't raise the price too much.

Theoretically speaking:

A 2.4 GHz quad-core is 57% faster than a 3.07 GHz dual-core in multithreaded situations but 78% as fast in single-threaded situations.
A 2.27 GHz quad-core is 62% faster than a 2.8 GHz dual-core in multithreaded situations but 81% as fast in single-threaded situations.

Quad-cores also have twice the cache of dual-cores.

Cores are the new Ghz race. Once Intel starts pushing more cores as the norm, people will start to see clock speed in a different way.

AMD is well in the core race.

It's obvious that 4-core Nehalem will beat 4-core Shanghai. But what's not obvious is whether 4-core Nehalem will beat the new 6-core CPU, Istanbul, coming in H2 2009. And then early next year AMD will double up Istanbul for a 12-core monster named Magny-Cours. By then Intel will only have 6- and 8-core CPUs for extreme and server parts.

Intel revises the microarchitecture every other year to make a larger and more powerful core. But that can be countered by AMD by just more cores. So just like GT200 vs. (2x) RV770, AMD has the chance to get in the lead with more cores in 2009 and 2010.

I honestly can't see the MBP's getting quad core first. I could be completly wrong here but I suspect that it will be the iMacs first as it's easier to keep them cool.

They got the G5s first too.

 

[Marx55]

Remember that AMD and ATI have processors with 256 and 800 cores. The race has just started!

 

[iMacmatician]

Remember that AMD and ATI have processors with 256 and 800 cores. The race has just started!

These cores aren't the same as CPU cores.

 

[commander.data]

AMD is well in the core race.

It's obvious that 4-core Nehalem will beat 4-core Shanghai. But what's not obvious is whether 4-core Nehalem will beat the new 6-core CPU, Istanbul, coming in H2 2009. And then early next year AMD will double up Istanbul for a 12-core monster named Magny-Cours. By then Intel will only have 6- and 8-core CPUs for extreme and server parts.

Istanbul's targeted launch date of H2 2009 put it more in competition with Westmere which is a 6 core native part rather than Nehalem. And Istanbul's primary focus is probably still in the 4S+ server market where AMD has so far still held up well. Even if Westmere is a bit late, in the server market the 6 core Istanbul will be up against the 8 core Nehalem-EX aka Beckton. And seeing the performance gap in Barcelona where even Core 2 Duos can often match AMD's 4 cores, I wouldn't be surprised if a quad core Nehalem with HT for 8 threads can keep up with a 6 core Istanbul.

 

[diamond.g]

AMD is well in the core race.

It's obvious that 4-core Nehalem will beat 4-core Shanghai. But what's not obvious is whether 4-core Nehalem will beat the new 6-core CPU, Istanbul, coming in H2 2009. And then early next year AMD will double up Istanbul for a 12-core monster named Magny-Cours. By then Intel will only have 6- and 8-core CPUs for extreme and server parts.

Intel revises the microarchitecture every other year to make a larger and more powerful core. But that can be countered by AMD by just more cores. So just like GT200 vs. (2x) RV770, AMD has the chance to get in the lead with more cores in 2009 and 2010.

The sad thing is AMD quad cores are already native. That is partly why they lost so much ground to Intel (plus they seem to be having a hard time getting them to scale). I don't know how fast AMD will be able to go to 6 core native. It doesn't seem like their style to just tape two tri core chips together (much like Intel did the quad-core cpus). Intel would be more likely to stitch two native quad core dies together than AMD would.

 

[lostngone]

Quad core mini? Oh Yeah !

Apple will have to rename it "Space Heater" if they do that.

 

[CWallace]

AMD is well in the core race.

Intel revises the microarchitecture every other year to make a larger and more powerful core. But that can be countered by AMD by just more cores. So just like GT200 vs. (2x) RV770, AMD has the chance to get in the lead with more cores in 2009 and 2010.

The problem is AMD is likely soon to not have any fabrication facilities as they sell off their fabs (like Dresden) to generate cash to keep them alive. As such, they will need to outsource their entire CPU production and that means their chips will cost more to make then Intel and they will be limited in how many CPUs they can make, overall.

AMD is also so desperate for sales that they continue to push bleeding-edge CPUs into the channel that can't perform to spec because the production processes are broken or under-developed. AMD eventually get the processes right and the later revision versions perform as originally expected, but in the meantime it just allows Intel to smack them silly and push down AMD's ASPs with mid-level CPUs while still raking in the cash with the top-level CPUs.

As such, I expect the first AMD Istanbuls and Magny-Cours to under-perform Intel's top-end Nehalems. As such, Intel will continue to be able to sell their top-end chips at $1000+ and cut the price on the lower-spec Nehalems that match Istanbul and Magny-Cours to keep AMD's ASPs a good deal lower then they wanted.

 

[deputy_doofy]

Seems like "Cores" are the new "MHz/GHz." Instead of 100000000000000000000 cores, how about extremely efficient cores, so that it doesn't need so many to be a good processor?

 

[iMacmatician]

I also noted that the first notebook quad-core will be 2.4GHz and not 2.53GHz as the QX9300 was expected to be. I wonder if that means Intel is still having problems getting the TDP's down? The QX9300 was supposed to be 45W at 2.53GHZ, but if they had to underclock it, I wonder if that means the Q9100 will be more like 2GHz instead of 2.27GHz to maintain the 35W TDP?

http://download.intel.com/pressroom/kits/events/idffall_2008/IDF_Day1_FactSheet.pdf

Mobile Quad Core Processors - Intel’s first mobile quad-core processors, the Intel® Core™2 Extreme QX9300 and the Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q9100, offer four separate and powerful processing cores to deliver unprecedented multi-threading performance:

World’s first and highest-performing mobile quad-core processor – Intel 45nm Hi-K process technology; four cores running at 2.53 GHz with a 1066MHz FSB and 12MB L2 cache.

Istanbul's targeted launch date of H2 2009 put it more in competition with Westmere which is a 6 core native part rather than Nehalem.

Westmere's coming in H1 2010, right when Magny-Cours is expected.

 

[137489]

This is such a bad time right now for people who need to buy a a laptop like me. With new announcements everyday about new laptops, I really have no idea when to buy.

as the addage goes - if you need now, buy now. In 6 months it will be out-dated anyway.

I got sick of waiting on all the rumors and bought my macbook in April, and bought my wife a mini about 2-3 weeks ago. Both of us have been very happy.

I also started thinking about a tablet for school. Apple keeps rumoring it to come out, I cannot afford the price of an Axiotron Modbook and I do not want Windows, but I want a full keyboard for when I do type. So, I went to BestBuy and bought a Wacom Bamboo. Yes it is not a true tablet laptop, yes I need a little more deskroom and it is another plug in thing.... This will serve the purpose for my homework and my livescribe pen will serve the purpose for taking notes at school.

I love my Wacom add-on. I went for the lower model (They have a Bamboo Fun that sells for $30 more). The people at Best Buy say the more expensive fun has better accuracy and more options for photo editing or painting, but since I was just looking to turn my mac into a tablet and use it for note taking (handwriting recognition) - this would serve the purpose. I got home, plugged it in, went through the tutorial (you have to go through the entire 5 minute tutorial as options will not be turned on if you do not), turned on inkwell in my system preferences and Presto - my macbook is now a tablet.

Even with my bad handwriting I have 90% accuracy (greater if I slow down and actually scribble legibliy).

I am very interested in all these announcements, but now it comes to need over wants. I do not think I would be upgrading my 2.4 ghz 2gb, 250gb macbook anytime soon - even with this 8 core technology.

 

[dvince2]

"Turbo Mode"? Seriously? Surely I can't be the only person who immediately thinks of this?

(aka the pointless "Slow"/"Very Slow" button)

Nope.. first thing I thought of too

 

[Belly-laughs]

"Turbo Mode"? Seriously? Surely I can't be the only person who immediately thinks of this?

(aka the pointless "Slow"/"Very Slow" button)

hehe, "turbo mode" gave me a flashback too.

 

[CWallace]

Thanks for the link, iMacmatician.

Dadi Perlmutter of Intel said during his IDF presentation yesterday that the CPU would run at 2.4GHz, which is what threw me. Maybe he didn't get the memo.

 

[commander.data]

Westmere's coming in H1 2010, right when Magny-Cours is expected.

http://www.canardplus.com/dossier-35-200-Processeur_de_Nehalem_a_Haswell.html

The Tick-Tock strategy has always targeted 2009 as the introduction year of 32nm processors. Of course, this'll likely only mean a Q4 2009 introduction of Westmere in server and high-end desktop just like Nehalem.

And in terms of Magny-Cours, a competitor is very easy for Intel to do either via a dual die approach with on die QPI links which is what Magny-Cours may well be (with HT links of course) or a native 12-core processor, since the architecture is designed such that the shared L3 cache is external (part of the uncore) to the processing core so as many cores as needed can be attached to the L3 cache. Of course a native 12 core is not that likely due to production yields.

 

[min_t]

Damn... hardware ages so fast. My 1 and so year old macbook will feel inadequate in not too long

Actually, technology-wise, your macbook is Medicare-eligible already.

 

[137489]

"Turbo Mode"? Seriously? Surely I can't be the only person who immediately thinks of this?

(aka the pointless "Slow"/"Very Slow" button)

Wow that brings back 386/486 memories and basically if you did not have turbo turned on, your system was slower than ever. Basically what I remember (especially with SX machines) was that the SX was due to the chip's math co-processor failed so they were putting these out and charging double for a DX processor with a math co-processor. the turbo was a way for the motherboard to simulate an over clock (actually it just made the CPU run a normal speed instead of the slowed down installed speed) in order to try to compensate for the lack of the co-processor. At anyrate I do not remember anyone who ran the machines with turbo turned off.

I think this article has a mis-wording. Maybe it should say hyper-threading? Hyper-threading has been around but went away briefly since Windows Apps and Web Apps tended to get hung with it turned on. they are supposed to have fixed hyper-threading and bringing it back. I remember going to all our servers and turning hyper-threading off so that they would stay running.