If the speculation about a new MacBook Pro is on the money, the step up to Intel's quad-core mobile technology would have a profound impact on this vaunted line of Apple laptops.
Is a Core i series Apple laptop on the way?
(Credit: Apple)So, why would Apple adopt a Core i processor in a laptop? The short answer is OS X Snow Leopard. The new operating system is designed to be better at wringing more performance out of multicore processors--and the Core i chips pack four cores.
The long answer is the Core "i" chips themselves. The Core i, a.k.a. "Nehalem," is a brand new Intel microarchitecture brimming with performance improvements over the current Core 2 design.
For starters, the recently announced mobile i7-820QM processor integrates a hefty 8MB of cache memory--compared with the 6MB in the fastest Core 2 Duo that Apple currently offers on the MacBook Pro. Generally, the larger the cache memory, the better the performance.
But Intel has done a lot more than just up the transistor count via a larger cache. While the quad-core i7-820QM is rated at 1.73GHz, a single core can be "overclocked" to 3.06 GHz. Intel does this with a technology dubbed Turbo Boost, which speeds up and slows down individual cores to meet processing and power-efficiency needs, respectively.
Need more convincing? The Core i7 also comes with Hyper-Threading, which can double the number of tasks--or threads--a processor can execute. You won't find that in the Core 2 chips.
Digital media creation also gets a boost. Intel claims up to 81 percent faster video encoding.
And the mobile Core i7 is not a power hog--relatively speaking. The i7-820QM is rated at 45 watts, less than a third of the power envelope of the desktop Core i7. With such a powerful processor, heat would be an issue of course but the 45-watt power envelope is manageable.
That said, there are reports that Apple is not bringing out any more products this year. So, along these lines, alternatively, Apple could opt initially for the upcoming "Arrandale" Core i chips--due by the beginning of next year--that are based on a more advanced 32-nanometer manufacturing process. (Current Core i processors use a 45-nanometer process.)
Arrandale integrates graphics silicon into the same chip package as the main processor--a first for Intel. Because of this high level of integration, Arrandale, however, is a dual-core chip.
But probably the closest thing to a rumored MacBook Pro refresh is the iMac, which has the same space-constrained characteristics of a laptop. The quad-core Core i7 in the new iMac "boosts application performance up to 2x over the previous-generation iMac," according to Apple--and that's what consumers can expect with a Core i series laptop.
Advanced Micro Devices will try to inject new life into the lackluster desktop PC market with the first sub-$100 quad-core processor aimed at Windows 7--and Intel.
It's all about mobile computing today. But AMD's Athlon II X4 quad-core processor will give consumers something to consider on the desktop when Windows 7 ships in October. The chip is priced at $99 for "system builders," according to AMD.
"The introduction of the new AMD mainstream desktop platform coupled with Windows 7, allows...a faster, higher performing experience at an attractive price point," said Mike Ybarra, general manager of Windows Product Management at Microsoft, in a statement.
Some reviewers were quick to praise the chip. "It's often hard to get excited about low-end and mainstream hardware," wrote technology Web site Hot Hardware on Wednesday. "However, AMD's new quad-core Athlon II X4 processors are something we can definitely get excited about."
AMD is trying to create some buzz for Windows 7 desktop PCs
(Credit: AMD)"AMD didn't just deliver on price, they also managed to produce quite a competitive product that was able to keep up with more expensive processors like Intel's Q8200 and AMD's own Phenom IIs," the review said. The closest competing quad-processor from Intel is the Core 2 Quad Q8200, priced at around $150 at resellers.
Other reviews, however, were more Tepid. "The Athlon II X4 620 is just $20 cheaper than the Phenom II X3 (triple core)...in terms of performance the triple-core chip will likely be faster than the Athlon II X4 620 in most cases, as it is also clocked 200MHz higher," TechSpot wrote.
Beyond price, AMD is also claiming energy efficiency, saying that the use of the latest 45-nanometer manufacturing process allows it to draw less power than a standard 75-watt light bulb. Until this year, AMD had been building its processor on a 65-nanometer process. Typically, the smaller the geometries of a chip, the faster and more power efficient it is.
The quad-core processor is used in combination with the 785G chipset, which integrates ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics silicon. The pricing of the chipset is separate from the processor.
Pricing for consumer-ready systems based on the Athlon II X4 processor were not immediately available.
ZT Systems will be selling systems later this month through Sears.com and Buy.com that are expected to be priced around $500, according to AMD spokesman Matt Davis. Other resellers, such as iBuypower and CyberPower, are also expected to bring out systems.
Intel updated its processor list Monday with new Core 2 chips for Macbook Air-class laptops and a crush of Xeon processors for workstations and servers.
The number of new processor models is 20 in all.
Intel Vice President Pat Gelsinger holds a new Xeon chip.
(Credit: Intel)As reported earlier, Intel has introduced new power-sipping low-voltage (LV) and ultra-low-voltage (ULV) processor models for laptops such as the Apple MacBook Air and Dell Adamo.
The new LV and ULV processor models include the 17-watt SL9600 (2.13GHz, $316) and 10-watt SU9600 (1.6GHz, $289). More power-hungry Intel mainstream mobile processors are typically rated at 25 watts or 35 watts.
And over a dozen new Xeon quad-core processors based on Intel's new Nehalem chip architecture were added to the Intel price list.
Processors in the Xeon 5500 series range in price from $1,600 for the 130-watt W5580 (3.2GHz) to $423 for the 60-watt L5506 (2.13GHz). Intel, for the first time, is also listing each new Xeon chip's giga-transfers-per-second rating (GT/sec). For example, the W5580 is rated at 6.40 GT/sec, while the L5506 is rated at 4.80 GT/sec.
Other Xeon 5500 series models include the 95-watt X5550 (2.66GHz, $958), the 80-watt E5520 (2.26GHz, $373), and the 60-watt L5520 (2.26GHz, $530).
Intel also debuted the Xeon 3500 series, including the 130-watt W3570 (3.2GHz, $999) and the 130-watt W3520 (2.66GHz, $284).
Intel has delayed a high-end server chip, billed as the world's first 2 billion transistor microprocessor, originally expected as long ago as 2007.
Tukwila is a quad-core update to the Itanium processor, which has had a less-than-promising run since the original version was announced back in 2001. The chip's architecture--based on explicit instruction-level parallelism--is a radical departure from the x86 design used in PCs today. It was believed at one time that Itanium would replace x86 chips in many Intel-based computers.
So, what's delaying it this time? Intel has "made some engineering enhancements to the Tukwila platform," according to a statement Thursday from Intel. As one enhancement, Tukwila and its follow-on processors on the Itanium roadmap, Poulson and Kittson, will be socket compatible. Intel is also introducing a technology called "scalable buffered memory" to Tukwila platforms. Scalable buffered memory enables higher memory capacities and uses newer DDR3 (Double Data Rate, third generation) memory.
The number of CPU pins that can be dedicated to a memory interface is limited. Scalable buffered memory acts as a memory expander by connecting to multiple DDR3 RDIMMs (Registered Dual In-line Memory Modules) for each CPU memory interface, thus increasing the total memory capacity compared to natively attached memory configurations, according to an explanation provided by Intel.
"Validation testing of the Tukwila processor with the new memory will move the Tukwila platform launch from early '09 to mid '09," and Intel spokesperson said.
Current and past users of Itanium processors include Hewlett-Packard, SGI, NEC, Fujitsu, Unisys, and Hitachi.
The processors are targeted at high-end enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems.
Intel and DreamWorks plan to show off the fruits of their 3D collaboration in a Super Bowl 3D extravaganza this Sunday as DreamWorks prepares to tap into future Intel Larrabee graphics silicon.
The Super Bowl ad sponsored by DreamWorks Animation, Intel, and NBC will feature a 3D trailer of the animated movie Monsters vs. Aliens, coming out in March. A second spot will be a 3D commercial for PepsiCo's SoBe LifeWater energy drinks. Viewers--as they will in the movie theater--will need special 3D glasses to see the effects. (Intel has made 125 million of the InTru3D glasses, which are available for free at stores such as Target and Best Buy.)
Stereoscopy--which in a primitive form has been around since the 1840s--creates the illusion of depth by presenting a slightly different image to each eye. Starting this year, DreamWorks will produce all of its feature films in stereoscopic 3D for use with the special glasses.
DreamWorks CEO Jeffry Katzenberg dons Intru 3D glasses that are used for viewing the Super Bowl 3D trailer of Monsters vs. Aliens
(Credit: Intel)The InTru3D technology will provide more vibrant colors than traditional technologies that use 3D glasses, according to Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive officer of DreamWorks, in an interview posted on an Intel Web page.
"Instead of (traditional) red and blue lensing, there's a different set of filters that are used" that are better at reproducing color, said Katzenberg. "The second thing is a greater level of precision in terms of the broadcast signal--right eye, left eye. The blurry kind of stuff is cleaned up a lot," he said.
But there's a lot more going on with Intel and DreamWorks than meets the eye. Think Intel's future Larrabee graphics chip is just a smoke screen or paper tiger? Listening to Katzenberg, it sounds very real. "We are well on our way to upgrading our software to really take advantage of Larrabee," said Katzenberg, in the Intel video interview. "Larrabee raises the bar of what we can do not just by 2X or 3X but by 20X," he said.
DreamWorks is also using Intel software tools. "This is allowing us to create a completely new paradigm in movies," Katzenberg said, referring to Intel's InTru3D technology, which Intel describes as "uniting the best in computer-generated moviemaking with the latest high-performance processing technologies."
Last year, DreamWorks said it was dropping technology from Advanced Micro Devices in favor of Intel--and at that time the two companies announced a strategic partnership aimed at redefining 3D filmmaking technology. DreamWorks had been in a three-year partnership with AMD.
DreamWorks uses rendering farms with thousands of Intel processing cores to create animation.
Before it adopts Larrabee (later this year), DreamWorks will move part of its rendering farm to Intel's Nehalem processor for servers, due later this quarter.
Intel is planning price cuts to its lower-end mainstream quad-core processors on January 18.
Barron's Tech Trader Daily first reported the news, citing Pacific Crest analyst Michael McConnell.
These cuts are happening because of the recent introduction of Advanced Micro Devices' 45-nanometer Phenom II and "Shanghai" Opteron processors.
AMD's quad-core Phenom II "Dragon" processor platform has been garnering solid reviews and its Shanghai server chip has been adopted by top-tier server suppliers including Hewlett-Packard, Sun, Dell, IBM, and Fujitsu.
Cuts are expected mainly on quad-core processors, though other processors may also receive cuts.
Let bygones be bygones. That's what Advanced Micro Devices is hoping for with the roll-out of its first 45-nanometer processor Thursday.
(AMD also announced its upcoming 45-nanometer "Phenom II X4" desktop technology. See below.)
The No. 2 PC processor supplier will make the case that Shanghai is not Barcelona. The latter chip--AMD's first quad-core processor--was rolled out in September 2007 to great fanfare but then faced prolonged delays. This gave Intel an opportunity to regain ground it had lost to AMD in the server chip market. (AMD lost more than five percentage points to Intel in the server market during the third quarter of this year, according to various reports.)
AMD Shanghai die
"Barcelona was obviously a pretty rough start for them. And that does not appear to be the case for Shanghai," said Dean McCarron, the principal and founder of Mercury Research, a company that tracks chip market movements. "One of the big distinctions was they wanted to be absolutely sure that Shanghai was ready to go."
Shanghai is not a new architecture but essentially a refresh of AMD's Barcelona Opteron chip. AMD claims Shanghai is 35 percent faster than Barcelona without using more energy. The chip is being built on 45-nanometer process technology, while Barcelona was a 65-nanometer part. Typically, the smaller the geometries, the faster and more power efficient the processor.
Major customers are brimming with accolades for Shanghai. "We've been very pleased. Thrilled with their execution," said with Paul Gottsegen, vice president of Industry Standard Servers, HP, in an interview.
"We'll have products that will be shipping just after launch. We had high performance expectations for the product and it exceeded our expectations," he said. "We're going to put Shanghai across the meat of our product line. You'll see six different rack servers, three different blades, all up and down parts of our product line."
And HP likes the fact that Shanghai is more power efficient, a critical metric for many server applications. "We're seeing a significantly higher performance-per-watt over previous-generation AMD," Gottsegen said.
HP would not comment on AMD's checkered quad-core past. In response to a question about drawing a comparison with AMD's Barcelona launch last September and Shanghai, Gottsegen would not comment. "This is their Shanghai launch. I want to focus on Shanghai," he said.
Cray is also expected to use Shanghai in its supercomputers, according to AMD.
Both HP and Dell are targeting Shanghai processors specifically for virtualization, which allows a data center to reduce the number of physical servers. Shanghai has a silicon "assist" that facilitates virtualization.
Praise from vendors doesn't necessarily translate into market success, however. Especially when the market is going south in a hurry. "We have a demand-falling-off-the-cliff scenario," said Ashok Kumar, an analyst at investment bank Collins Stewart.
"Shanghai, which in a normal environment may have had a window of opportunity, it's not likely to do so today," Kumar said. "By the time demand recovers in the second half of next year, Intel will be fielding their (next-generation) Nehalem product," Kumar added, referring to Intel's server version of the Nehalem processor.
Shanghai Opteron processors are available immediately, the company said. The 75-watt versions of the processor range from 2.3GHz to 2.7GHz in clock speed. Enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron HE (55-watt) and SE (105-watt) processors are planned for the first quarter of 2009, AMD said.
Shanghai technology ahead of Intel
Much of Shanghai's raw technology is a generation ahead of Intel. In a posting at EE Times, Don Scansen, a semiconductor technology analyst at Semiconductor Insights, said that many of the features that Intel is touting as new are not new to AMD and were initially introduced in AMD's Barcelona processor.
"Intel's Nehalem is due out soon, but many of the features of what has widely been touted as a 'new' architecture are only new to Intel," he writes.
"There is no question that Intel is at the cutting edge of process (manufacturing) technology, but that's not true for architecture. Intel probably decided it made more sense to introduce a highly integrated, quad-core design on 45nm rather than 65nm just to keep the chip size down. Whatever the reasons, the introduction of Intel's Nehalem architecture will come more than a year later than AMD's Barcelona."
Scansen says that, among other things, AMD has reduced the "die footprint" (chip size) by more than 10 percent, despite doubling the total cache memory from 4MB to 8MB.
Upcoming 45nm desktop processors
AMD plans to bring Shanghai 45nm processor technology to the desktop PC market in Q1 2009 with a platform codenamed "Dragon."
"This platform will be the second-generation AMD performance desktop platform, featuring all next-generation components in comparison to the first-generation AMD 'Spider' platform released in 2008," AMD said in a statement.
The Dragon platform will combine 45nm AMD Phenom II X4 quad-core processors with AMD 700 Series chipsets and ATI Radeon HD 4000 series graphics.
Advanced Micro Devices' first 45-nanometer chip, the Shanghai quad-core Opteron, has made its debut at resellers.
The officially unannounced Opteron 837X and 838X series processors are not cheap. Online reseller PC Connection lists the Opteron QC (quad-core) 8384 at $2,509. Another reseller, Buy.com lists the same processor at $2,240.
The 8384 is expected to run at 2.7GHz and draw 75 watts, relatively low power consumption for a quad-core server processor.
The 8385--same clock speed with a faster system bus--is offered for $2,509 at PC Connection.
Other processors listed include the 8382 (2.6GHz), 8380 (2.5GHz), and 8378 (2.4GHz), priced at $2,177, $1,768, and $1,360 respectively at PC Connection. Note that these prices will differ from official pricing from AMD.
The Shanghai Opteron 230X series includes the 2382 (2.6GHz) and 2380 (2.5GHz). These are priced at $1,019 and $814 respectively at PC Connnection.
Rollout of the chip is expected officially on November 13, according to industry sources.
AMD is hoping to make a much better impression with Shanghai. Its first quad-core chip, Barcelona, was rolled out in September 2007 to great fanfare only to be delayed a whopping eight months (or more, depending how the delay is calculated) due to production glitches and bugs. This gave Intel an opportunity to regain ground it had lost to AMD in the server chip market.
Shanghai is in full production right now, Pat Patla, general manager of AMD's server and workstation chip business said last month. The was confirmed during AMD's earnings conference call earlier this month.
Server vendors are expected to be shipping systems as early as this quarter. A Sun Microsystems spokesperson said Tuesday that it plans to offer Shanghai processors on its current x64 platforms running Barcelona. Systems using the new processors are targeted for the first quarter of 2009, the spokesperson said.
At the same clock frequency (speed), Shanghai will outperform Barcelona by about 20 percent, Patla said last month.
AMD is also boosting the size of the cache memory, which typically speeds performance, from 2 megabytes to 6 megabytes. Another speed improvement will come from increasing "instructions per clock."
Patla also said last month that AMD is "turning on HT3 (HyperTransport 3)"--a communication path between chips--and that partners will start to validate systems in the first quarter of next year with this technology.
AMD said Monday it is set to roll out its next-generation "Shanghai" chip--minus the mistakes of the last generation.
The No. 2 processor maker wants to make one thing crystal clear: Shanghai is not Barcelona. The latter chip was rolled out in September 2007 to great fanfare only to be delayed a whopping eight months (or more, depending how the delay is calculated) due to production glitches and bugs. The chip was also hampered by speed (core clock frequency) limitations. This gave Intel an opportunity to regain ground it had lost to AMD in the server chip market.
"We had some mis-starts in getting Barcelona to market and wanted to bring as much velocity to Shanghai as possible. Learn from our mistakes and, as a company, never do that again," said Pat Patla, general manager of AMD's server and workstation chip business.
Shanghai--a quad-core product targeted at servers--will be AMD's first 45-nanometer processor. (Barcelona is 65-nanometer.) Typically, the smaller the geometries, the faster and more power efficient the chip. Intel has been shipping 45-nanometer processors since last year and these processors now make up most of Intel's offerings.
AMD needs Shanghai to succeed. It is reeling from a string of losses and is on the verge of announcing . "To bring it back to profitability the execution of the server product line is absolutely critical," said Ashok Kumar, an analyst at investment bank Collins Stewart. "That is really their only profit pool."
... Read moreDoes Intel vPro ring any bells? Not for most people. The newest version of vPro software and accompanying Intel hardware introduced Monday won't command the attention paid to an Intel processor rollout.
Understandable because vPro is an under-the-hood, non-performance-driven technology that falls off many PC users' radar screens. In essence, vPro allows PCs to be fixed and maintained remotely, potentially saving businesses money because they don't incur the cost of IT staffing levels necessary if maintenance was done at each PC on site.
For example, a feature called Remote Alert will "call" IT on its own if the PC is experiencing problems "outside preset parameters," Intel said.
And for small businesses which may need immediate help with PC problems, Intel introduced Remote PC Assist Technology that connects businesses with service providers. After the business user enters a key sequence, the service providers can use vPro to solve problems.
Intel says this is also good for the service provider, allowing broader access to customers. Initially, Intel Remote PC Assist will be available in North America.
One of vPro's marquee features is the ability to access a computer even if it has been turned off. This can be done on either a wired or a secure wireless network. And laptops outside the company firewall can be accessed with the newest versions of software and hardware, according to Intel.
Intel, of course, is a chipmaker and so there is plenty of silicon that goes along with the package. The third-generation vPro suite (formerly code-named McCreary) uses Core 2 quad-core or dual-core processors in combination with Q45 Express Chipset, the 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection, and Intel Active Management technology 5.0. Mobile chipsets, such as the GM, PM, and GS Express chipsets also support vPro.
Intel also introduced two motherboards Monday supporting all of the new Intel vPro features. Aimed at channel customers, the DQ45CB is for standard-sized PCs and the DQ45EK is for small-form-factor systems.
