AMD and Intel

Intel's 6-core Xeon and Nehalem CPU info leaked

Vishnu

Intel's had its new processor plans slipped out to the public thanks to Sun, according to DailyTech. Details on the 6-core (!) Xeon Dunnington, as well as the kinda-sorta hush-hush Nehalem were apparently leaked out onto Sun's public web server over the weekend, including plans for the new Xeons to overtake the company's Tigerton CPU line. The Dunnington processors will have a 16MB L3 cache shared by all six cores, and will be pin-compatible with the Tigertons, thus making integration with your Clarksboro chipset slightly less painful... by being possible. The Nehalem also got the spy treatment, with news that it will not only replace the Penryn line in Q4 '08, but will also be the first time in 18 years that Intel includes on-die memory controllers. If this sort of thing is important to you (and we think it may be) hit the read link and get all the juicy details.

AMD Phenom II X4 940, 920, 925, 910, 810, 805 Processor Names Leaked

Vishnu

Internet rumors have revealed a new naming scheme for AMD's upcoming Phenom II processor family. It includes Phenom II X4 900, Phenom II X4 800 (Deneb), Phenom II X4 600 (Propus), Phenom II X3 700 (Heka), Phenom II X3 600 (Rana) and Phenom II X2 200 (Regor) CPUs. Deneb is a 45nm quad-core desktop version of Shanghai and both of them are based on K10.5 architecture. The new processors are rumored to have 512KB of L2 cache per core and 6MB of shared L3 cache. Interesting rumors floating around on the new Phenom II series and for a Monday morning it is fun to read and think about.

AMD plans to introduce 8 Deneb processors in Q1 2009:
Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition - 3.0GHz
Phenom II X4 920 - 2.8GHz
Phenom II X4 925 - 2.8GHz
Phenom II X4 910 - 2.6GHz
Phenom II X4 810 - 2.6GHz
Phenom II X4 805 - 2.5GHz
Phenom II X3 720 - 2.8GHz
Phenom II X3 710 - 2.6GHz

AMD unleashes a deluge of codenames that would make the X-Men proud

Vishnu

AMD

AMD is working hard to regain the market share it lost to Intel -- many analysts say that if AMD wants to mount an effective comeback it needs to launch products that will compete well in the marketplace.

InformationWeek reports that AMD has laid out its plans at an analyst's day for future processors and chipsets. AMD talked up its coming Intel Atom competitor codenamed Yukon. The Yukon platform will be used in netbooks, which are one of the fastest growing notebook segments today.

AMD isn't alone in wanting to compete with Intel's Atom processor for netbooks. AMD says that Yukon will be available in the first quarter of 2009.

Part of the Yukon platform will be a so-called slim processor carrying the codename Bobcat. When Bobcat is combined with a chipset, it will have a total power consumption of under 25 watts.

Plans for AMD in the low power, low-cost realm include Brazos expected to ship in 2011 for the notebook market. The platform will include a system on a chip implementation of Bobcat with the codename Ontario. The change from DDR2 to DDR3 will be supported by the Brazos platform.

Also in 2011, AMD plans to introduce another platform with the codename Sabine. Sabine will use what AMD calls an accelerated processing unit or APU going by the codename Llano. APU is AMD speak for a CPU and a graphics processor on one piece of silicon. AMD expects Sabine to bring significant power savings to notebook computers.

AMD also has something up its sleeve for mainstream notebook users planned for release in the second half of 2009 that includes a new platform called Tigris. The platform will feature 45nm dual and single-core processors with the codename Caspian along with the RS880M and SB710 chipsets. The follow-up to Tigris set for a 2010 release is called Danube, which will use AMDs first quad-core mobile processor.

AMD will be introducing a new high-end desktop platform early in 2009 called Dragon. Dragon will use 45nm Phenom II X4 quad-core Deneb processors and Radeon HD 4800 graphics. Kodiak 45nm Phenom processors for business computers are set for release at the same time.

In the second half of 2009 AMD will introduce Pisces, a platform using 45nm Phenom II quad and triple-core CPUs with support for DDR3 memory. The platform will also use the coming AMD RS880 chipset. A new home theater platform is coming before the end of 2008 called Maui that promises to link Vista Home Premium and Ultimate to devices needed for HD TV viewing.

AMD is already talking about its follow-up called Istanbul. These processors will be six-core parts that will ship in the second half of 2009. In the first half of 2010, AMD has plans to ship its next-generation platform called Maranello. Maranello will require a new socket and offer enhancements like DDR3 memory and AMDs first 12-core processors codenamed Magny-Cours along with a new six-core Sao Paolo parts.

Corsair Labs : Intel Core i7 Build & Architecture Changes

Vishnu

core i7, Intel

Introduction - The "Old" Way

Intel's newest architecture, known as Nehalem (nee-HAY-lem), is an interesting and mysterious beast. There are some of the most significant changes in years inside this bad boy, so let's get straight to the point.

The biggest and most important change for us to talk about today is the memory controller. The memory controller, much like its name implies, is the interface between the memory and the processor. Typically located on the "North Bridge" chip on the motherboard, the memory controller communicated to the processor through the "Front Side Bus" or FSB.

THE OLD WAY - A SYSTEM WITH A FRONT-SIDE BUS

In this image, the FSB is the connection between the processor(s) and the memory controller. Notice the memory controller is the interface between the CPU and the memory, as well as the interface between the CPU and the I/O controller, which would control your hard drives, USB ports, etc.

In the past, overclocking was usually achieved by tweaking this FSB. For example, on a Core 2 Duo system where the processor's multiplier is locked, we might have seen the FSB at 800 or 1066. Typically this was twice what the actual host frequency was, so a processor would have a multiplier based on the actual host clock.

Example: The Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 runs at 3.2 GHz, and claims a "1600 MHz" FSB. This is a "Quad-pumped" FSB and the host clock is truly running at 400 MHz, still extremely fast. So the multiplier of this processor is 8.

Host clock * Multiplier = Clock Speed

400 MHz * 8 = 3200 MHz, or 3.2 GHz.

Introduction - The "New" Way

But "Nehalem" changes everything. Much like AMD did with their initial launch of the Athlon64 years ago, Intel has finally moved the memory controller onto the processor itself.

Here's how the new way works.

THE NEW WAY - QUICKPATH INTERCONNECT

The FSB has been removed completely - the memory controller and processor now have very little delay. This allows much lower latency and provides a significant increase in computing performance.

How significant? Let's find out....

The Build - Processor and Motherboard

First things first, let's compare a Nehalem Processor - known as the Core i7 - to an older Quad-Core, the Yorkfield processor.

As you can see, the QX9770 pictured on the right is physically smaller and contains many fewer pins than the Core i7 965 on the left.

However, the front isn't so different. Our processor is an engineering sample, which is why the logo on the front says Intel Confidential. Retail products will have the part number on them.

As you may have deduced by now, a new processor design requires a new socket, and a new socket requires a new motherboard. We've chosen Asus's P6T Deluxe.

Asus has a great reputation in the industry for providing rock solid overclocking boards, and we're using this one for a couple of reasons. For one, the only Nehalem compatible chipset, (Intel's X58 chipset) is tough to find right now, and this board was available. Secondly, our initial results in the lab while testing memory on this board were very positive.

The new socket is called LGA1366, or Socket B. This replaces LGA775, or Socket T, which Intel has been using since the Pentium 4 days.

Here's a quick shot of what the new socket looks like.

As you can see, it's fairly similar to the LGA775 socket, just larger. It will require a new heatsink mounting mechanism, though. So if you're planning on using a 3rd party heatsink, like we did, you should request the mounting hardware from the manufacturer.

DHX+ - Three Way Memory

Now the cool part of Core i7 is not just that it's got an onboard memory controller. That's cool, sure.

The real cool part is that it's got a triple-channel onboard memory controller. That's three channels of memory for optimum bandwidth.

Meaning six slots of RAM.

Check this out.

See that? Six slots. Three channels. You could easily install up to 12GB of RAM in that right now. That's pretty sexy.

But what's the sticker say? Well, because Intel's put the memory controller on the CPU, they advise against high VDIMM, or memory voltage. Anything over a 10% increase (from 1.5V to 1.65V) they say could be potentially hazardous to the processor. This is something overclockers have known for quite a while - increasing voltage shortens the lifespan of your products.

Nonetheless - most of Corsair's triple memory kits are rated at 1.65V or lower.

Including the kit we're using - the 1866C9 6GB kit.

Three 2GB modules rated at 1866 MHz @ 9-9-9-24 latencies, optimized for Nehalem. But wait, what's the new heatsink all about?

Corsair invented the world's first true memory heatsink with the Dominator with DHX technology. We're now talking about the Dominator with DHX+ technology. New fins, new heatsinks, and the same great technology exists for our modules - only now, there's more flexibility. We'll see more about that very soon.

But what about cooling them? Nehalem boards have six slots and the Dominator Airflow can't fit over all six, can it?

Looks like it can. The new Airflow is optimized for Nehalem with two 60mm fans that spin at a very low noise level. The best performance you can get out of the box, bar none.

Let's build it...

Let's talk a second about the last few components...

The new Western Digital Velociraptor hard drive, a 2.5" 10,000 RPM drive in a 3.5" heatsink enclosure. SATA II, 300GB of pure, angry speed. A great drive to use for a system build.

The Corsair HX1000W PSU, of course. The best PSU in the industry right now, and the first 1000W PSU to get certified for 3-way SLI. A rock-solid part with industrial grade components.

Add these together with a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme....

Plug in the memory.... (we're using orange slots here for Channels A, B, and C)

Snap on the Airflow fans and power the system on...

And install everything into one of our favorite cases, the Silverstone TJ07B.

Now that we've got all that done, let's get to the meat of it...

The BIOS

First things first, every new motherboard has a new BIOS to learn.

This one is no exception, but there's some interesting things we should talk about, and we'll go through them one at a time.

This is the main BIOS screen, it's pretty self-explanatory and common. Nothing too different here, if you're familiar with Asus boards. It's a typical AMI Bios.

But here's where it gets interesting. The AI Tweaker section is where we'd go to overclock anything, and there are some new things on this list we should look at.

For example, you can see "CPU Ratio Setting" is highlighted. This allows us to modify the multiplier of the processor should we need to. Since Nehalem doesn't have a FSB, it uses a host clock, and thus Nehalem processors have much higher multipliers.

The processor we're using, a Core i7 965, has a 24x multiplier for a host clock of 133 MHz. 133 x 24 = 3.2GHz clock speed.

And of course, the QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) speed.

This should be as high as possible - the fast this runs, the more your CPU can do. However, this is going to be dependent on how fast the processor is running, so in order to get a great overclock, you might have to drop this down just a bit. Keep that in mind as you go through your settings.

On to overclocking....

The first thing we have to do is turn the Overclock Tuner to Manual

This allows us to change the other settings. For example, the host clock.

The Host Clock is the soul of your overclocking attempt. If you are trying to get a good overclock, start here.

Say you have a Nehalem processor at 2.66 GHz. This would be a 20x multiplier and a 133 MHz Host Clock.

Remember before, the FSB in older systems? Same concept here.

Host Clock * Multiplier = Frequency

133 MHz * 20 = 2660 MHz or 2.66 GHz.

If we were to raise that host clock to 150 MHz....

150 MHz * 20 = 3000 MHz or 3.00 GHZ

So anytime you're going to overclock a Core i7, keep the Host Clock in mind, it's where you'll start.

DRAM Frequencies and Performance

DRAM frequency. Since memory bandwidth has increased significantly, having faster DDR3 memory actually makes a huge difference with Nehalem. How much?

But having fast memory doesn't work by itself. It's going to need to be tweaked.

First things first, we'll have to hit DRAM TIMING CONTROL and change the latencies.

Since our DDR3-1866 kit is rated at 9-9-9-24, we've gone ahead and changed that.

Next, we need to work on the Voltage.

Remember, higher than 1.65 isn't recommended by Intel, the closest this BIOS allows is 1.66, so we're going to go with that. Once we've done this, we'll go ahead and reboot into Windows.

I ran a couple of tests to give you an idea of the performance.

First things first, here's our CONTROL SYSTEM

Processor: Intel Kentsfield QX9850 (3.0 GHz)
Memory: 4GB DDR3-1333 @ 9-9-9-24 (dual channel)
Motherboard: Asus P5E3 Deluxe

Here's the Everest read/write performance numbers for a baseline.

Now let's talk about our NEHALEM SYSTEM

Processor: Intel Core i7 965 (3.2 GHz)
Memory: 6GB DDR3-1866 @ 9-9-9-24 (triple channel)
Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe

Here's the Nehalem at the exact same memory settings (DDR3-1333)
everest - nehalem1.png

Here's the Nehalem at the advertised memory settings (DDR3-1866)

everest - nehalem2.png

Look at those huge increases! Performance numbers through the roof!

Just for curiosity's sake, let's look at another one....

These are numbers taken from SiSoft Sandra 2009! Look at the huge increase in bandwidth!

The latency numbers are equally impressive.

Truly, the Core i7 looks like a monster.

FPU/Gaming Performance

There are going to be all sorts of gaming performance reviews out soon, and plenty around the net to take a look at. Here's some interesting data from 3DMark06.

Kentsfield system with NVIDIA GeForce GTX280

Nehalem system with NVIDIA GeForce GTX280

The performance difference is significant. In the coming days, we'll see a lot more benchmarks and performance numbers from Nehalem, but one thing's for sure - the performance benefit is very real, and it's huge.

Intel's done it again, and this new platform combined with the plummeting costs of DDR3 over the last year make it an attractive buy for the enthusiast and a must-buy for the performance junkie.

Intel Plans 32-Core Processor by 2009/2010

Vishnu

It might be time to change our way of thinking about processor speed. Now Intel is hinting at processors with 32 cores available by the end of this decade. Sure, the company predicted 20GHz chips by 2010 a few years ago, but now instead of higher gigahertz numbers, they're talking multiple cores that will result in a processor that will be 15 times faster than today's quickest chips.

Intel has assigned the pet name "Keifer" to the many-core processor project in general and "Gulftown" specifically to its 32-core processor that will be manufactured using a 32nm process, and it will include eight processing nodes, each with four cores. The jaw-dropper is that each one of these cores will be running at a paltry 2GHz, but since there are 32 of them, they'll leave today's processors in the dust. That is, unless Intel thinks of something else between now and then, which wouldn't be all that unusual. – Charlie White

XFX launches an 8200 motherboard

Vishnu

XFX has announced a new motherboard based on Nvidia's Geforce 8200 chipset. Placed on a microATX form factor PCB, this motherboard packs quite a punch and looks great in black and green.

This microATX motherboard supports AMD's AM2+ quad and one-core-less-quad Phenom processors (you mean 8xxx series tri cores? Not funny, not at all... sub.ed.) as well as older AMD Athlon processors. Other features include DirectX 10 support via the integrated Geforce 8200 chipset, DDR-1066 memory support and Nvidia Hybid SLI.

The motherboard uses a heatpiped silent cooling system to cool both the chipset and the VRM. It also features a single PCI-Express x16 2.0, one PCI-Express x1 and two plain PCI slots neatly packed on a small microATX form factor board. Just so it won't be yet another boring motherboard, XFX has decided to include clear CMOS and debug LED on the rear panel, as well as the dual BIOS option.

Other noted specs include six SATA ports, Gigabit Ethernet and integrated 8-Channel HD audio. Of course, let's not forget that it features an HDMI, VGA and DVI connector.

This is how it all looks.

AMD 2009 2010 PLANS

Vishnu

AMD Company plans to release its 45- nm servers processors with shanghai code names in the second-half of this year. These new solutions, will support: the system bus HT3.0, IPC (instruction-per clock enhancement) and have from 2 to 6 MB cache in the third level.

Istanbul, 6 core servers will use socket F1 (1207), and it will appear in the second-half of 2009. As it is expected, such processors will allow OEM- producers to reduce expenditures for the development of platforms and to increase the productivity of system per W. The special feature of these processors will be the Direct connect architecture, which will allow to accelerate interaction between system processors .

The third generation AMD opteron and g34 socket platform are expected in first half of 2010. Socket g34 platforms will operate with DDR3 memory , it will use the chipset AMD RD890 and HT3.0 system bus . Furthermore, AMD plan to use a supplemental line HT3.0. The g34 platform will be used with both 6 and 12- core processor : Sao paolo and Magny cours.

According to associate :12- core processor will not be native , but it will use two 6 core chips in the multi-chip packaging.

AMD and Intel

Intel's 6-core Xeon and Nehalem CPU info leaked

AMD Phenom II X4 940, 920, 925, 910, 810, 805 Processor Names Leaked

AMD unleashes a deluge of codenames that would make the X-Men proud

Corsair Labs : Intel Core i7 Build & Architecture Changes

Introduction - The "Old" Way

Introduction - The "New" Way

The Build - Processor and Motherboard

DHX+ - Three Way Memory

Let's build it...

The BIOS

DRAM Frequencies and Performance

FPU/Gaming Performance

Intel Plans 32-Core Processor by 2009/2010

XFX launches an 8200 motherboard

AMD 2009 2010 PLANS

Intel or AMD best for gaming......

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