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Intel Shows Off Conroe (Desktop) Processors
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Well, it won't. Intel needs AMD as a counterpart on the market. Anti-trust anyone? As long as AMD isn't a serious threat (and at 20% vs. 75+% isn't) they will let it live.various posters said:
Interesting to see so many of you celebrating Intel and questioning even AMD survival. What's with you people? Looks like everybody was pulled in Steve's distortion field 
First of all, Intel is just closing a gap and certainly not overtaking AMD. For more realistic view, please check http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060307-6334.html
First of all, Intel is just closing a gap and certainly not overtaking AMD. For more realistic view, please check http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060307-6334.html
Mikael said:
INTEL Duo does not beat the single core G5 clock for clock, hell the Intel duo has trouble vs the single core G4. Not to mention the G4 & G5 are at 90nm... Look at the floating point performance the PowerPC wins period.
I would rather see the Dual Core G4 in the Powerbooks vs INTEL Duo...
Higher frequency does equate to better performance...
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/8271/
INTEL chips are not better than PowerPC chips, Apple is forcing them upon Mac users and everyone is just jumping on the bandwagon blindly. If Apple "must" use INTEL chips they should leave rinky dink X86 chips for their consumer lines (iMac, iBook, Mac mini) and PowerPC chips for the pro's (Powerbook and PowerMac)
On point 2, here's very encouraging information from AnandTech:ksz said:
"Merom will make its debut in the second half of this year on a platform Intel is referring to as the Napa Refresh. The new platform is essentially Napa, but with a Merom processor instead of Yonah. The other beauty of Merom is that it is 100% compatible with existing Yonah designs, meaning that all Core Duo notebooks today should be able to accept a Merom processor with at most a BIOS update."
Sadly, MacBook Pros have soldered CPUs which (in practical terms) rules this out, but new Mac mini and iMac owners have something to cheer about!
Where did I say that? I'll buy a PC with Conroe this fall. Don't care when it ends up in a Mac. I'll look at an Intel based MacBook Pro the next time I buy a laptop, but that's pretty far into the future.itguy06 said:
Well, I haven't disputed that fact, have I?itguy06 said:
You're right, Conroe was shown to be faster than 20% in several cases, despite some 5% lower clock frequency. Even if Conroe's advantage turns out to be just 10% and a lower power consumption, it will still be enough to get back most of those lost marketshares. Well, unless AMD dumps their prices like in the good old AthlonXP days. We all know how good that was for business, though...itguy06 said:
Conroe performance, especially in games, does look a bit too good, though. There's not much doubt that it will be faster than the A64 clock for clock, but a few of those gaming test do look a little too good...
If they are true, the new Core microarch really is quite an accomplishment, though.I'm not the one that said AMD was going anywhere. I said the opposite. Seems you got us mixed up or something...itguy06 said:
Yes, the G5 is likely faster at floating point. It is however probably slower on integer math. It's also worth noting that floating point performance without AltiVec isn't all that impressive. From the few tests I've seen, it can't really match an Athlon64 clock-for-clock.backdraft said:
The thing is that we're not talking about Yonah here. Conroe is a pretty different design compared to Yonah. My guess is that G5 isn't going to seem very impressive when Conroe arrives...
Why? Barefeats just tested a 2GHz G4 versus a 2GHz Core Solo and although there were only a few tests that were totally CPU dependant, the G4 didn't look very nice in comparison. This is not the first test showing that the G4 generally performs quite a bit worse than the Core arch.backdraft said:
What's with this cult around old PPC chips anyway? The G4 is still a pretty nice CPU, but just like a Pentium III or AthlonXP it does show its ages these days.
You are so wrong that it is laughable
You don't know what you are talking about.
Back when the G5 actually showed up on spec.org it got trounced by the Pentium-M (Dothan). Something like 1300 vs 900 integer and 700 vs 900 (the other way) for floating point. Yonah is 2 generations newer than Dothan, is faster, has more cache, and also has 2 cores.
The Single G5 has NEVER been faster than a comparable pentium 4. It may have squeaked by in floating point, but the integer gap has always been humongous.
In all actuality, even the G3 which supposedly trounced the equivalent pentium 2's, did not. Read some old arstechnica articles, back before they were pitching softball to apple.
The G5 brought apple close to parity with Intel/AMD. And I think there is considerable doubt that PowerPC was ever in the lead.
That being said, faster is always better, and I have a G5 on my desk, because I like their hardware and operating system. And a dual processor G5 is nothing to sneeze at.
I am still up in the air about buying a new intel mac pro/macbook pro, etc. not because I doubt the viability of the chips, but because I don't see enough progress on the software side of things yet-- I'm waiting to pull the trigger.
Regards
backdraft said:
You don't know what you are talking about.
Back when the G5 actually showed up on spec.org it got trounced by the Pentium-M (Dothan). Something like 1300 vs 900 integer and 700 vs 900 (the other way) for floating point. Yonah is 2 generations newer than Dothan, is faster, has more cache, and also has 2 cores.
The Single G5 has NEVER been faster than a comparable pentium 4. It may have squeaked by in floating point, but the integer gap has always been humongous.
In all actuality, even the G3 which supposedly trounced the equivalent pentium 2's, did not. Read some old arstechnica articles, back before they were pitching softball to apple.
The G5 brought apple close to parity with Intel/AMD. And I think there is considerable doubt that PowerPC was ever in the lead.
That being said, faster is always better, and I have a G5 on my desk, because I like their hardware and operating system. And a dual processor G5 is nothing to sneeze at.
I am still up in the air about buying a new intel mac pro/macbook pro, etc. not because I doubt the viability of the chips, but because I don't see enough progress on the software side of things yet-- I'm waiting to pull the trigger.
Regards
Mikael said:
It stems from the fact that on PPC's introduction, and even through the G5, it is a vastly superior architecture, it's just that the implemented chips haven't lived up to the hype.
Yes, A 64-bit PPC chip with AltiVec is a kick-ass product. Yes, if operated at equal clock frequencies to a NetBurst-core Intel, it would blow the Intel away. The problem has been Mot/Freescale and IBM's manufacturing. The day the G5 came out, it was the best processor with the best support chipset available. Unfortunately, Intel's manufacturing dominance won. Intel has scaled their clock speeds significantly higher than IBM did.
While Intel has hit a wall, they realized that switching to a more efficient core would gain them processing power improvements even at lower clock speeds. The 'Core' architecture is at least an equal to the G5, clock-speed-for-clock-speed. Yes, the G5 may win in a few minor artificial tests, just as the Core appears to win by huge margins in a few minor artificial tests.
Unless IBM pulls a rabbit out of their hat, and releases a 45nm process dual-core G5 at 3.5+ GHz, the G5 doesn't stand a chance against Core.
This actually makes me sad. PPC's big selling point early on was that it was a much simpler architecture that could then scale to obscenely fast clock rates compared to the more complex x86. Unfortunately, this hasn't been the case. And it's mostly due to manufacturing issues. If Intel was to take the design for the PPC970MP, and re-jigger it for their manufacturing, they could probably get it to fly at 3.5+GHz. I would actually have rather seen that than a switch to x86.
I'm not saying Intel is perfect... Just look at Itanium. Another architecture that looked great on paper, but thoroughly failed in the market. And in the interest of disclosure, once upon a time I was an Intel employee; a technician/engineer in the server dept. I had no impact on the design of processors or chipsets, and our department even released product with competitor's chipsets, eschewing Intel's own chipsets.
ksz said:
No.
Hell no.
This was indeed clearly answered. The rumor came from a misreading of some Intel specs. That is that Yonah is the base for a server chip codenamed 'Sossaman' that will be sold under the label 'Xeon LV' and aimed for high-density blade servers, so it needs to be high-processing-power, low-electrical/thermal-power. Someone got confused and assumed that since it would be a 'Xeon', that it would be 64-bit; and then that got re-told and re-told until someone came to the conclusion that Yonah was 64-bit.
The reality is that Sossaman is 32-bit, just like Yonah.
There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and rumors.
Yonah and Merom
For those who had questions regarding Merom working on Yonah machines
From Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2715)
Merom will make its debut in the second half of this year on a platform Intel is referring to as the Napa Refresh. The new platform is essentially Napa, but with a Merom processor instead of Yonah. The other beauty of Merom is that it is 100% compatible with existing Yonah designs, meaning that all Core Duo notebooks today should be able to accept a Merom processor with at most a BIOS update.
For those who had questions regarding Merom working on Yonah machines
From Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2715)
Merom will make its debut in the second half of this year on a platform Intel is referring to as the Napa Refresh. The new platform is essentially Napa, but with a Merom processor instead of Yonah. The other beauty of Merom is that it is 100% compatible with existing Yonah designs, meaning that all Core Duo notebooks today should be able to accept a Merom processor with at most a BIOS update.
backdraft said:
Apple must use Intel if they want to sell a Windows compatible machine, it can easily create a 2 digit market-share with it and a stock happy company like Apple can't drop that profit for a few Macheads like us. x86 and Windows is just the only possible way to keep growing because trying to make everybody switch clearly didn't work. As long as Apple keeps developing osX i'm happy, Windows compatibility is just an extra bonus for who needs it and lots a lots of cash for Apple. i'm keeping my stock firmly in hand
If PPC becomes promising i'm certain Apple somehow will keep using it, they have a choice now. Having choices is a good thing and Apple is in a unique position in that regard.
That is most likely not the case. The reason that Intel manages to get their Netburst chips to those high frequencies is mostly because of the very long pipeline. I don't know how familiar you are with pipelining, but, basically, the longer the pipeline you have the shorter the signal delay between each stage and the higher you can go with the fequency. Just look at the differences in max frequency between Yonah and Dothan compared to the P4 and Pentium-D. The former use a pipeline length similar to the 970 and they are also able to run at about the same frequencies.ehurtley said:
Mikael said:
I am familiar with the problems with pipelines.
I was referring mostly to the fact that Intel is indeed good at getting max frequency out of a given design, and the fact that they now have a production 65nm process.
backdraft said:
Rather poorly written article MacDailyNews with bad interpretation of information (except for pointing out when Apple made various claims they did make sense at the _time_ they made them).
In a nut shell and at a high level...
- A single core in an Intel Core Duo will usually outperform a single core G5 clock for clock when doing integer scaler operations.
- A single core in an Intel Core Duo will usually be about the same as a single core G5 clock for clock when doing floating point scaler operations.
- A single core in an Intel Core Duo will usually underperform a single core G5 clock for clock when doing integer vector operations.
- A single core in an Intel Core Duo will usually underperform a single core G5 clock for clock when doing floating point vector operations.
- A single core in an Intel Core Duo will usually outperform a G4 when doing any operation.
Then looking at some real-world examples...
MacBook Pro 2.0GHz versus PowerBook 2.0GHz (!)
iMac Intel Core Duo 2.0GHz versus Others
Intel Mac mini Core Duo versus PPC Mac mini
MacBook Pro Performance Analysis
iMac 17" Core Duo
The merom & conroe look to have improvements to SSE which will improve vector abilities in comparison to AltiVec.
/me a PowerPC ISA lover
The problem with all these arguments for PowerPC is that they all rely on the "If this was done then PowerPC would be faster." The chips don't exist and currently Intel's x86 chips are handing PowerPC chips their...behind.
I'm not really for one side or the other, as I used to believe PowerPC chips were faster (ala Apple benchmarks, then I learned how fabricated those are) so I wondered why Apple was switching to Intel. However, even the EXTREMELY inefficient Pentium-4 line competes with the G5's, which is extremely sad.
Anyway, Conroe is looking to make sure that the G5's don't even stand a chance. Comparing the Core Duo and Core Solo to a G5 is also sad, simply because these chips are LAPTOP chips and aren't meant to be powerhouses. When a laptop chip is beating a desktop chip in any area you know something's not right.
I'm not really for one side or the other, as I used to believe PowerPC chips were faster (ala Apple benchmarks, then I learned how fabricated those are) so I wondered why Apple was switching to Intel. However, even the EXTREMELY inefficient Pentium-4 line competes with the G5's, which is extremely sad.
Anyway, Conroe is looking to make sure that the G5's don't even stand a chance. Comparing the Core Duo and Core Solo to a G5 is also sad, simply because these chips are LAPTOP chips and aren't meant to be powerhouses. When a laptop chip is beating a desktop chip in any area you know something's not right.
I found a diagram for a dual Woodcrest workstation. Scroll down the page until you see Glidewell Workstation Platform. This is different from the Woodcrest server platform in that it includes PCI Express. It also looks like it will accept the next generation Woodcrest chips in 2007, which I assume means quad core. By that I mean socketed replaceable chips would be a possibility. Don't take this to mean I actually know anything.
http://www.2cpu.com/review.php?id=109&page=3
http://www.2cpu.com/review.php?id=109&page=3
I had to go look up a Wikipedia article because I don't have these names memorized. According to that, Kentsfield will be the four core version of Conroe, while the four core version of Woodcrest will be called Cloverton, or Clovertown depending on which article you look at.~Shard~ said:
So I'm saying that since it appears Intel is developing the Glidewell platform for using two Woodcrest processors in a workstation, it sounds reasonable that it would be the foundation for a new PowerMac, or Mac Pro.
I was trying to find a source the $850 Woodcrest price but couldn't.
Thanks for the reminder. I remember seeing $850, but forgot it included a link. I agree with your point there that Apple would want the new PowerMac to be priced about the same as the current edition. Checking the link gives me hope for a lower Mhz version at a lower price.ksz said:
Two 3.0 Ghz Woodcrest chips = $1700
Two 2.0 Ghz Woodcrest chips = $ 660
I could be happy with a 2.0 Ghz Woodcrest "Quad."
From the link:
"The 5160 clocks at 3GHz, the 5150 at 2.66GHz, the 5140 at 2.33GHz, the 5130 at 2GHz, the 5120 at 1.86GHz and the 5110 at 1.6GHz.
The price cashcade when you buy loads of these is $850, $700, $470, $330, $270 and $230."
Merom Into MBP From The Get Go
Seems too retro when I know 64-bit is just a few more months away. WWDC SteveNote August 7 will tell us a lot about what's really up. I think my Quad will hold its own against dual Conroe or Woodcrest. And I'm thinking that until a pair of Kentsfield Quad Cores are inside a Mac (for a total of 8), I'm not gonna feel too weak to enjoy this platform a few more months - esp with a Universal Quad Enhanced, Oct Ready, Leopard and iLife '07 out in ten months max.
While I enjoy watching this unfoldment, I have to say this year is looking more and more like a wait and see time for me. I'm starting to think Leopard and iLife '07 are going to need to be the bait that will make me want to bite the Intel portable hook after January's MacWorld San Francisco 2007 SteveNote.
That's only 5 months after the August 7-11 WWDC this year - delayed two months this year for at least two reasons:
1. Leopard needs to be almost ready to ship so developers can adapt to it ASAP after WWDC in time for MacWorld SF Leopard enhanced & compatible versions.
2. Merom, Conroe and Woodcrest need to be near shipping dates so Steve can blow everyone's minds with one of the most amazing software and hardware unveilings he's ever made at once.
I agree ScottB. And the 64-bit advantage will make waiting for Dual Core Merom in a 17" MBP logical to all but who must have faster portables NOW. I for one will wait for a Merom 17" MBP before I pull the trigger on my first MacIntel portable. I don't really want a 32-bit processor in a portable when I am driving four 64-bit processors on the desktop already.ScottB said:
Seems too retro when I know 64-bit is just a few more months away. WWDC SteveNote August 7 will tell us a lot about what's really up. I think my Quad will hold its own against dual Conroe or Woodcrest. And I'm thinking that until a pair of Kentsfield Quad Cores are inside a Mac (for a total of 8), I'm not gonna feel too weak to enjoy this platform a few more months - esp with a Universal Quad Enhanced, Oct Ready, Leopard and iLife '07 out in ten months max.
While I enjoy watching this unfoldment, I have to say this year is looking more and more like a wait and see time for me. I'm starting to think Leopard and iLife '07 are going to need to be the bait that will make me want to bite the Intel portable hook after January's MacWorld San Francisco 2007 SteveNote.
That's only 5 months after the August 7-11 WWDC this year - delayed two months this year for at least two reasons:
1. Leopard needs to be almost ready to ship so developers can adapt to it ASAP after WWDC in time for MacWorld SF Leopard enhanced & compatible versions.
2. Merom, Conroe and Woodcrest need to be near shipping dates so Steve can blow everyone's minds with one of the most amazing software and hardware unveilings he's ever made at once.
Merom will be compatible with the current iMac and MacMini !!!!!!!!
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2715&p=2