58 MAXIMUMPC DECEMBER 2007
Intel calls it “tick-tock,” but we call it hopscotch. First, there’s a
small jump, which is followed by a big, wiggle-your-ass broad jump.
Penryn is the easy small jump. The ass wiggling will come in late
2008 when the company introduces its Nehalem family of CPUs. For
Intel, Nehalem is proof that it ain’t the same old chip company.
The old Intel couldn’t bring itself to say that AMD was fi rst.
The new Intel is open to learning from AMD, and then doing it
better. Nehalem fi nally drop-kicks the shared front-side bus topol-
ogy of earlier dual-core chips for a chip-to-chip interconnectcalled QuickPath. Intel also moved the memory controller directly
onto the die with three-channel DDR3. And Nehalem promises an
open co-processor standard via QuickAssist using PCI Express. If
all this sounds AMD-like, Intel doesn’t mind.
As representatives of the company said at Intel’s fall developer
conference, Nehalem might sound rather Opteron-like, but it’s only
skin-deep, because the CPU will be far superior to AMD’s offerings.
Right now, it’s just chest thumping that can’t be trusted until
the CPUs are in everyone’s hands. But one key difference exists
between AMD’s Bulldozer talk and Intel’s Nehalem talk: Intel has
already demonstrated the new chip running an OS. That means
the company is pretty confi dent it’ll have Nehalem out by next
year. AMD, meanwhile, doesn’t expect Bulldozer until after the
45nm die-shrink at its Shanghai fab next year.Intel Marches Onward
to Nehalem
Q
Is Yorkfi eld a “true” quad core,
and does it even matter?A
If you’ve kept up with current events,
you know that Intel builds its quad-
core CPUs by mating two dual-core
processors inside a CPU package, with the
two entities communicating over the front-
side bus. In a way, it’s like a dual-processor
machine, but both cores are stuffed into one
package. AMD’s upcoming Phenom FX CPUs
are touted as “true” quad cores because all
four cores are on the same piece of silicon.
The advantage to AMD’s approach is that the
cores can all communicate at much, much
faster speeds. For chip purists, AMD’s design
is far more elegant and forward-looking.
Even Intel recognizes that the future is
in integrating all four cores on one die—its
upcoming Nehalem CPU will use a similar
design. For now, however, Intel can argue
that it’s better to have a bird in the hand
than two in the bush. The technique of join-
ing two dual cores has allowed Intel to sell
a functioning quad core that kicks Athlon 64
butt for more than a year. AMD’s quad core,
meanwhile, is still nothing more than a slo-
gan. Intel’s pragmatic design also pays off in
CPU yields, as it’s easier to produce a large
number of fl aw-free dual-core chips on a
silicon wafer than it is to produce quad-core
versions. In fact, many wonder if AMD’s plan
to introduce a tri-core CPU isn’t a way to
recycle quad-core parts that have one bad
core on them.
As far as we’re concerned, all that mat-
ters is a chip’s speed, not what new tech-
nology it uses. Case in point: Intel’s Trace
Cache in the Pentium 4 was a revolutionaryfeature at the time, yet it didn’t help the
Pentium 4 against the generally faster
Athlon CPUs.Q
Is Penryn faster than the current
Core 2 quad cores?A
We don’t want to give away the
punch line but, generally, an equiva-
lent Penryn runs up to 14 percent
faster when compared clock-for-clock with
the current Core 2 quads. The exact speed
increase depends on the benchmark. In
some, you’ll see no change in performance;
in others, a healthy increase is possible. But
remember, Penryn isn’t the big leap forward.
Intel’s CPU schedule dictates a little jump
one year and then a big jump the next year.
This is the little jump. Intel hopes to make
a big jump when it introduces its Nehalem
CPU in late 2008.Q
Will Penryn work in my mother-
board?A
Long-time Intel lovers have been
vexed by this for years, as the
company’s been in the habit of
invalidating perfectly good motherboards
by requiring new or updated chipsets to
run its latest CPUs. Want a 1,066MHz
P4 on a 925X mobo? Sorry, you need a
925XE. Pentium D on a 925XE? Nope, you
need a 955X chipset. Pentium 955 EE on a
955X? Guess again: 975X.
Fortunately, Intel has gotten a little bet-
ter in this area, and there is a very good
chance that a QX9650 will work in many
existing motherboards. Certainly mother-
boards that use Intel’s P35 and X38 chip-sets will support the new CPU (although
a BIOS update might be required). Some
Intel 965 and 975X boards might also work
with the new CPU and we understand that
the majority of 680i boards will be compat-
ible. To be safe, however, before you buy
any board/CPU combination, check the
manufacturer’s website to see what pro-
cessors it has validated with the design.
Just because the Yorkfi eld and Wolfdale
are LGA775 doesn’t mean they’ll work in
the board of your fancy.Q
What’s this I’m hearing about a
consumer dual-processor plat-
form from Intel?A
Responding to AMD’s Quad FX and
FASN8 enthusiast dual-processor
platforms, Intel has come up with
“V8,” which offers support for two quad-
core processors. Initial V8 rigs were noth-
ing more than dual-Xeon motherboards,
but Intel’s “Skulltrail” is closer to what an
enthusiast would want, offering SLI with
up to four x16 PCI-E slots. The reason V8
can run SLI, while the X38 chipset cannot,
is that it uses an Nvidia bridge chip similar
to the one in the GeForce 7950 GTX single-
card SLI boards. V8’s handicap, however,
is the requirement of pricier FB-DIMM
RAM. Intel says newer FB-DIMM modules
run faster and cooler than previous gen-
erations, but we’re still not sold. Despite a
new name and SLI support, Skulltrail is still
a reworking of a workstation platform. The
odd turn of events is that AMD might kill
FASN8 due to lack of resources.PENRYN
Up Close and Personal