The above statements can only be seen as garbage. First clock rates have increased due to the new technology. Intel hasn't had the need to introduce chips with significantly faster clock rates because they have vastly enhanced the core of their processors.
Hardly. They've gone back and improved their processors precisely
because they hit practical walls in clock speed. If they could have just kept up a clock speed race, they wouldn't have changed. Intel switched gears because their processors were being outperformed by cooler, more efficient, better designed processors from AMD.
The fact that these C2D's easily over clock to 3GHz completely disqualifies your statement.
3GHz has been attainable since 2004. The processors released today are slower in clock speed than the ones that were previously available, which is exactly what I referred to originally.
The impact of multicore technology on benchmarks is variable at best. If the bench mark is single threaded and the Core 2 Dual executes it considerably faster than old CPU technologies then that is due to improvements in the core of the processor.
It is directly attributable to the abandonment of NetBurst in the majority of cases, not to some new technology that wasn't available in 2004.
In any event I have to disagree with your statement about clock rates. Just about every C2D can be run significantly faster than the speeds at which it is marketed. It does so while doing much more per clock.
So can most Pentium D CPUs (air cooled to over 4GHz, water cooled to nearly 5) as well as all Athlons. Comparing potential performance beyond spec is at best a spurious way to make a claim. Stick to official numbers.
This is tied to the improvements gained at 65 nm. The one thing that is obvious is that if Intel wanted to they could market the Core 2 D based on clock rate if they wanted to.
Nonsense. The 65nm process doesn't make it any more or less easy to break 3GHz than the 90nm process. Size reduction lowers temperature, TDP, and power consumption. It does not increase clock speed room unless the constraining factor is heat. Heat has not been the primary constraining factor for quite some time now, so it's a moot point.
This is more or less the case. What you seem to be missing is that the Core 2's have a huge amount of head room as far as clock rate goes. This is related to 65nm.
They do, but it has very little to do with the 65nm process and a great deal to do with the refinements made to the Pentium M core.
You are making unfounded assumptions here. No one knows how the new materials will impact processor construction and thus costs.
Granted, but you miss the point. The point is that the Core lineup was introduced with nothing new. The fundamental architecture was preexisting, the 65nm process had already been debuted in the Pentium D, the chipsets had already been developed, the socket was preexisting, and the materials and methods were proven. This is unlike the launch of previous processors, which involved all-new cores or previously unused materials/methods/die sizes. The net effect is that the launch price of the Core 2 Duo is substantially less than a typical launch. Look no further than AMD, which cannot match Intel's prices with their X2 lineup despite having launched the A64 at a much lower price than Intel's Pentium 4. Intel can certainly afford to play pricing games, but that's an artificial effect that has no bearing on the fact that the next generation of Intel processors will be a great deal more expensive to produce than the C2D have been.
You don't think that the Core 2 was the result of a processor redesign or overhaul? Frankly I see it as a very credible effort on Intels part.
It is indeed a credible effort, but it is not the result of anything new. SSE3, NX, EM64T, dual core, LGA775, 65nm were all preexisting technologies. All Intel did was expertly choose the best attributes to fuse together into the Core architecture. They took the Pentium D's dual core design and EM64T instructions (stolen from AMD) and integrated it with a Pentium M low-pipelined architecture and applied the whole thing to Intel's highly successful 65nm process. The end result is an efficient, powerful, sophisticated processor. But almost nothing in it is groundbreaking technology.
I believe that that statement is in opposition to what was being described by the manufactures.
That would only be the case if the description referred to the status quo. As it stands, they're simply trumpeting the future because they've got nothing on the shelves to stir interest
now that they weren't marketing 3 years ago, aside from dual core. They're very successful at marketing their products, but it takes more than marketing when you're trying to talk technology.
