Dont forget the failure of Intel's 90nm + the netbus architecture also contribute a lot to the success of AthlonXP & AMD64.

Is the current C2D bandwidth limited in most situations? I don't think so. The faster FSB will probably help some of the SPECFP scores nicely though. And also to compete against what i believe will be AMD's streaming FP performance advantage in the K8L.

This post has been edited by ikanayam: Apr 3 2007, 09:22 AM

From a cost and rampability perspective it is a big issue. A major strength of Intel compared to AMD is they are able to balance cost and rampability (Craig Barrett's doctrine of "Manufacturing Muscle"): cheaper strained silicon vs expensive SOI, dry etch 45nm vs immersion litho etc.



The 90nm process wasn't bad - Netburst was the problem. The Pentium-M was on 90nm and what a world of difference vs Prescott. The Northwood's were pretty good too.

I can see them delaying certain things like SOI, which is not THAT big a performance boost, and also comes with some downsides (floating body effect etc), so it is a fair tradeoff. I think part of the reason for AMD using SOI is because they are in a joint process development with IBM, and IBM is the one that develops the process for the most part, and IBM is big on SOI. But i doubt Intel will lag behind for something as big as a switch to Ge. Just like they were ahead in the switch to High-k + metal.

The intel 90nm high speed process optimized for the Prescott was terrible. The leakage was bad, about half of the on current, since they optimized it for all out speed. I would be extremely shocked if the Pentium-M used the exact same 90nm process.

Penryn's not really a big deal because again the current LGA775 platform/chipsetwould become insufficient to support the higher bus speed and also supplying the required power for it to work.

Granted that if it is going to be a high speed bus, it would mean a debut for its DDR3 product/chipset as well which if most of you people have been upgrading thus far would mean a higher $$$ for the upgrade.

What is the point of it when the consumer CPU market is low on margin and this technology would mean that at anytime when it becomes available, the server market would not benefit from its adoption owing to the high price of platform + RAM.



Anandtech's Take

for every massive gain in micro architecture, it will usually call for a change in the platform/chipset as well which is $$$.

For the the inadequacy of the previous pre-5000 series Xeon, Intel would not have to introduce the newer S5000 chipset to support the newer Xeon 5000 series.

This post has been edited by cre8tif: Apr 3 2007, 07:39 PM

wah.. not bad.. when i see some ppls replies .. they are talking as if amd goin to die ... if amd die ... it will be almost impossible to buy a graphic card / processor / motherboard in future .. nvidia and intel gonna conquer .. coz the price will be jacked sky high.. i'm seeing intel fanboys getting soo excited lol .. but they dont even notice what will happen if amd die.. hehe well .. didn't really bother about them. .i still support the smaller company .. coz their low and mid end still worth for money you pay about K8L .. its not K8L .. it is K10 .. weather it is failure or not .. it will seat on current amd AM2/new AM2+ socket.. amd even thinking of released a 8 core processor on a single socket.. those new intel chips.. you gonna require new motherboard.. maybe new ram .. so on... so every time intel release now processor you need new mobo ? hehe this is cool ... for some ppl it doesn't matter .. coz they keep on changing their mobo and so on... but not good for normal consumer .. so i think amd should really focus on low and and mid end instead of high end.. coz high end stuff is not really that important ... right now ... amd stil can survive with their current line of product.. nothing wrong with it ... whether 65nm or 45 nm ... comparing to 90nm amd proc and 65nm c2d ... the power usage is almost the same.. just that i notice .. intel is just copying amd all the way ... with the integrated graphic chip on the processor and integrated memory controller ... the most cekap part is .. AMD64 / X86-64 .. which created by amd.. intel applied their own processor with EM64T which is same technology by amd ..hmmm so nowdays i'm seeing .. AMD is getting more creative than intel .. just intel is trying to kill amd with their capacity advantage .. they have tons of money and can create new technology easily .. even 32nm .. so we'll wait and see whether amd gonna die or not

This post has been edited by Creative: Apr 4 2007, 05:51 PM

intel is showing reports of profit loss over a few consequetive terms for now, and their earning per chips sold are also very thin now........but so does AMD haha.......so it's going to be harder for them to survive but this also means more creative strategy needed........

hoepfully they are force to push the quad core to a more friendly price sooner....... may be end of this year or so.......... haha

Let a paid fanboi retort:

1. Integrated mem controller and integrated graphics - done back in 1999 IIRC on Tinma which was cancelled. But from Tinma came Banias.

2. Guess who copied the original x86?

3. Do monopolies mean higher prices for everyone? Not necessarily.

4. High end is not important? You obviously don't understand the microprocessor business. The high-end with its high margins supports the mid/low-end business.

Oh you really like to use elipsis don't you? Hard to read your post.

cks2k2, AMD already released the integrated memory controller which is exist in market and you are talking about product which isn't released at all and non of the consumer even seen it in action so no point there for you to argue about it. Then about x86 back then, AMD been making processor for intel and they have agreement to share their technology each other so nothing wrong with the x86 at that time, but now in return amd created x86-64 and intel is sharing it. Both companies are sharing the instructions sets such as SSE and so on. What i am trying to explain is intel just getting lazy and amd getting more creative these days. Maybe you dont get the point. but then i dont come here to argue or anything, just trying to explain where some ppl dont really realize about whats happening but they just throw their words just like that. How many geeks buying high end pc where a cpu company could make enough money out of high end stuff? just go and check the statistics yourself where majority of consumers goes for low or mid most of the times. Not everyone are gamer, the high end does produce high margin but then it is very rare. Now i'm out of this forum, you all can argue all you want:) tata

How is intel getting lazy? As far as i can see, they're really flexing their strength, especially lately.

Also, the high end CPU costs about the same to make as the low end one because they are the same chip (assuming the difference is in clocks). So however many more dollars it is priced above the lower end chip just means more profit.