Humpty-Dumpty Was Pushed
...and other favorite Easter Egg shockers
I
t takes years to design a high-end microprocessor, and
although simulation tools can estimate performance,
engineers don’t really know what they’ve got, until
the first chip comes back from the fab. When the first
samples of the Prescott Pentium 4 came out of the
oven, Intel’s engineers probably lost no time calling
headquarters: “Santa Clara, we’ve got a problem.”
It’s not only that the fastest Prescott consumes more
power while running at the same clock speed as the
fastest Northwood Pentium 4 (103W vs. 89W at 3.4GHz).
Prescott also leaks significantly more power, even
when it’s not working hard, and benchmarks indicate it
delivers only a little more performance than Northwood
with most software. Intel says clock speeds will creep
up to 4GHz by the end of the year, just an 18 percent
improvement.
What happened? One problem is that, for now at
least, Intel isn’t getting all the usual benefits of moving
production to a smaller fabrication technology. Prescott
is fabricated in a new 90-nanometer process, while
Northwood is made in a 2-year-old 0.13-micron (130-
nanometer) process. Historically, a process shrink
allows a chip to run at a higher clock frequency and
a lower voltage, and the lower voltage minimizes the
greater power consumption of the higher frequency. But
upon introduction, Prescott isn’t faster than Northwood
and operates at the same voltage. Because Prescott has
many more transistors than Northwood (125 million vs. 55
million), it burns more power.
Another reason why Prescott runs hotter is that
its transistors leak more current in their “off” state.
Although current leakage has been getting steadily
worse at smaller process geometries, it hasn’t been a big
problem until now.
Prescott’s larger L2 cache (1MB vs. 512K) accounts
for about 25 million extra transistors. Intel hasn’t fully
accounted for the remaining additional transistors. The
latent 64-bit extensions, SSE3, and deeper pipeline (
stages vs. 20 stages) explain some, but not all, of the
transistor bloat. The pipeline also suggests why Prescott
isn’t killing Northwood (or Athlon 64) in benchmark
tests: Deeper pipelines are better for data-intensive
applications like games and multimedia than for general
productivity software. Prescott’s super-pipeline, the
longest of any general-purpose microprocessor, tells
me that Intel is focusing on games and multimedia
almost to the exclusion of other applications. (That’s not
necessarily a bad thing, because even a 1GHz machine is
fast enough for productivity software.)
Intel knows Prescott has problems, so count on future
versions to offer a better power/performance ratio.Why Prescott
Sucks
Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor for Byte magazine and
now an analyst for Microprocessor Report.FAST FORWARD BY^ TOM R. HALFHILL
INTEL ADDS 64-BIT EXTENSIONS
At the Intel Developers Forum in mid-February, the company stated that the public
can expect 64-bit capability in its upcoming Xeon CPU, code-named Nocona. The
proc will also feature SSE3, a higher frontside bus, 1MB of L2 cache, and use Intel’s
new 90nm process. While the extensions will be compatible with AMD’s 64-bit
extensions, unlike AMD, Intel has no current plans to offer it to desktop users.
MO' BETTA MOZILLA
Maximum PC editors love the lean ‘n’ mean version of the Mozilla web browser for-
merly known as Firebird. The new 0.8 version of the browser, dubbed Firefox , adds an
installer, better web page rendering, a download manager, and a host of bug fixes.
Repeated head-butting with other software product names makes this the third
name for the brave new browser (after Phoenix and Firebird ) in as many new ver-
sions. With this in mind, we propose a candidate for browser name number four:
FireSeaCucumber. Surely, that’s not spoken for!
COMMUNICATIONS AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT
You think your 1.5Mb connection is fast? How would you like a 1.9Gb connection
instead? That’s gigabits, folks, and Intel recently demonstrated the concept using a
relatively inexpensive silicon-based optical modulator. The modulator emerged from
an attempt to use inexpensive standard semiconductor components to build optical
networks, and Intel’s success with this 2 billion-bits-per-second switch may result in
the price of fiber optic networks plummeting. It could also eventually lead to PCs that
span entire cities over high-speed communication lines.
FUN-SIZE NEWS
Quick Start
APRIL 2004 MAXIMUMPC 13
It’s April, which means April Fools, which means it’s time for us to point out the
year’s most curious and rewarding gaming Easter EggsThe game : Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
What to do: You’ll need to go to the “Eight Ten VCN”
building, which is one of the first buildings on your right
after crossing the North Bridge en route to Prawn Island.
Use the door to get to the roof where the helipad is. Go to
the northwest corner and take a flying leap through the
closest set of windows in the adjacent building. Holy cow!
Rockstar raises the bar on postmodern gaming cool
with an Easter Egg that knows it’s an Easter Egg.The game: Deus Ex: Invisible War
What to do: When you return to Liberty Island at the
game’s conclusion, head over to the UNATCO map.
Grab the flag nearby and take it down into the bath-
room next to Manderley’s office. Drop the flag, and
then flush the toilet (yes).
It’s not all religious fanaticism and back-stabbing
in Deus Ex: Invisible War. At the end of the game,
you’re invited to the wrap party!The game: Star Trek Elite Force II
What to do: On the Attrexian Station Level 1a, go to the
weapons locker and bash in the wall at the back. Jump
into the pipe and you’ll, uh, warp to a hidden level.
Take a break from Elite Force II with a little
retro-gaming excitement.INTEL ADDS 64-BIT EXTENSIONS
Firefox: Less is more.