Intel Developer Forum 2007 - Day 1: Nehalem, Intel's GPUs, 32nm and More
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 18, 2007 1:17 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Nehalem: Single die, 8-cores, 731M transistors, 16 threads, memory controller, graphics, amazing.
Intel announced that in its largest configuration, Nehalem (2H 2008, 45nm) will feature 8 cores on a single die, each core supporting 2 threads per core (welcome back Hyper Threading) for a total of 16 threads per physical chip.
The Nehalem design is now complete, it was finished about a month ago, and Intel had a wafer of Nehalem at its 10-year anniversary IDF.
Each 4-core Nehalem is built from 731M transistors, nearly double that of Penryn. The 8-core variant isn't ready yet so we don't have a transistor count for that one as of this writing. Nehalem will sport an on-die memory controller and a new system interconnect called Intel's QuickPath Interconnect (Intel's answer to Hyper Transport).
Nehalem is fully expected to close the gap between AMD and Intel when it comes to memory performance and multi-processor scalability.
In its usual fashion, Intel demonstrated a fully functional Nehalem based on silicon that's only 3 weeks old. The silicon is booting both Windows XP and OS X, although we only saw the XP demo.
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coldpower27 - Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - link
It looks like Nehalem is coming in in both Native Quad Core and Native Octo Core configuration, no intermediate MCM Octo Core this time around.JackPack - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
Not incorrect.Nehalem is a modular design. There is a monolithic 8 core version of Nehalem for MP systems.
AmberClad - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
According to http://techreport.com/discussions.x/13232">TechReport: 'In its "largest configuration," Nehalem will pack eight CPU cores onto a single die'.Martimus - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
You showed some interesting stuff, and I read through the article with interest. What really threw me was your symantics. You sounded more like an Intel salesman than a reviewer. things like like it matters if Intels solution makes it's way there versus someone elses solution. Or when you say which is just a pure guess at this point. If you say "may" instead of "fully expected to", it wouldn't sound like a used car salesman trying to covince me that this is already a done deal. I already get that enough from my contractors trying to convince me that their product has some magical properties that make it head and shoulders above the competition.fitten - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
I don't read it like that at all...For example:
[quote]
Silverthorne is Intel's very simple x86 system-on-a-chip design, which Intel hopes will hopefully make its way into everything from smart phones to digital TVs[/quote]
[/quote]
Nehalem is fully expected by Intel to close the gap between AMD and Intel when it comes to memory performance and multi-processor scalability.[/quote]
Would you argue either of those are false?
Martimus - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
That would be the best way of putting it I think. Those two adjustments you made make it sound much better. The current writing implies a bias of the writer, but yours implies a bias from the company, which is to be expected. I'm not sure why it upset me to see my favorite site writing an article that seemed to show a favoritism toward a particular company, but I think it had more to do with the fact that I don't want to have to worry about the site that I use to make purchasing decisions having a bias. I want to be able to trust this site, because it is stressful when you lose confidence in the people you look to for help.JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
Just remember: this is the *Intel* Developer Forum, so any reporting is basically an overview of what Intel is saying and planning. Tradeshow articles don't tend to be quite as in-depth as actual reviews, and while we don't always explicitly state it or make it clear, meetings with any manufacturers are always them telling us what they hope/plan/want/etc.Nfarce - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
Huh. That is exactly the way I read it. Methinks a fanboi got just a tad overzealous in the bias accusation department and read more into it than was meant to portray. Geez.Roy2001 - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
Intel roadmap is impressive and they excuted well recently.code65536 - Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - link
Penyrn hasn't even been launched yet, and Intel is already demonstrating Penryn's successor? Well, they're certainly on top of things...