The Consequence of Waking Up a Sleeping Giant: Intel Roadmaps Inside
by Kristopher Kubicki on January 25, 2005 7:44 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Dual Core on the Horizon
So we lied originally - we have even better news. Dual core Smithfield processors, which are really nothing more than two Prescotts slapped together with independent caches, are scheduled to launch a little earlier than we originally claimed in previous roadmap articles. In fact, part of the push to launch so early seems to be to coincide with the 945/955 launch as those chipsets are the only ones to support the multiple core processors. Recall AMD's dual core launch strategy is to enable existing hardware (nForce4, K8T890, 8xxx) to run multiple cores. So while you can't plug a Smithfield into your existing 925X motherboard, it may be for the better. DDR2 has plenty of bandwidth to offer, but as we have seen in server benchmarks, multiple Pentium 4's competing on the memory bus can be quite slow. Dual core Pentium 4's might be horribly inefficient without DDR2-667, however that is another theory we can put to the test on launch day. If you look carefully, you'll see the Smithfields launching only at 800FSB. We find it slightly unusual that the entire 945/955 platform supports a front side bus speed that two $1000 SKUs utilize.
| Intel Dual Core PerformanceDesktop Lineup LGA775 | ||||
| Processor | Speed | L2 Cache | FSB | Launch |
| Pentium 4 840 | 3.20GHz | 2x1MB | 800MHz | Q2'05 |
| Pentium 4 830 | 3.00GHz | 2x1MB | 800MHz | Q2'05 |
| Pentium 4 820 | 2.80GHz | 2x1MB | 800MHz | Q2'05 |
Also note that the dual core processors on the desktop do not support HyperThreading. The server implementation of Smithfield, "Dempsey," has HyperThreading enabled. For database applications, this makes sense - although we have known for a long time that single threaded applications take a performance hit when a HyperThreading processor exclusively runs that program. Interestingly enough the Smithfield lineup has some very competitive price points according to the launch data. The 820, 830 and 840 models will launch at $241, $316 and $530 respectively - compare that to the Pentium 4 lineup today [RTPE: Pentium 4 775]. At today's prices that's only an $80 premium on the second core.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
74 Comments
View All Comments
danidentity - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
When are the new chipsets launching? Do we have an exact date? You say next month...as in February? That's earlier than I have been hearing.Falloutboy - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
I have a feeling that dual core will be pretty hard to comeby from intel in the 2Q thier just doing it for marketing reasons because amd was shooting for 3Q.footballfan - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
it could be that all a 925XE based motherboard needs to support dual core is a BIOS update...I'm hoping.That article didn't really specify that 925XE won't support dual core.
I'm hoping I'm right.
ksherman - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
interesting how Intel current gen chipset wont support dual core... I thought that AMD's dual core only required a BIOS update, not a new chipset...footballfan - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
When would motherboards with the new chipsets come out?footballfan - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
Interesting developments.The 915 and 925X chipsets don't support dual core. So I'm guessing that the 925XE won't support dual core either.
KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
Palek: Sorry about that - I thought you were joking the first time around.Typos Happen :-X My bad.
Kristopher
Regs - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
I agree with Darth. All I see is a revamp. Prescott is not going anywhere fast under 4.0 GHz. The Prescott needs a faster clock cycle for its larger pipeline. The die shrink made it possible for Intel to stick even more transistors onto the Prescott so it could be fitted wit a 2MB cache.AMD is doing just fine with the 90nm. I don't see A64 Winchesters soaking up the 12v rail @ 65c like the Prescott's.Intel needed it, AMD does not.
JarredWalton, if you read, Intel had the most troubles out of them all last year trying to get their CPU's out onto the market. How many times was the Prescott delayed in 04'?
Illissius - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
Heh. I'm still waiting for a dual core, 3GHz Pentium M derivative with SSE3 (4, if they have it by then), x86-64, and an integrated dual channel 800MHz DDR2 (3?) memory controller.That would be the equivalent of what, a 30GHz Northwood Celeron? :D
Palek - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
Kristopher, forgive me for pointing this out again, but your very last sentence does say "sleazes" instead of "sleeves".