Apple looks set to pinch all Intel's top-bin PenrynsAxis of weavilBy Nebojsa Novakovic: Friday, 05 October 2007, 5:28 PM REMEMBER OUR Harpertown (Penryn Xeon for the laymen) review series recently, all based on a 3GHz X5472 chip?Yeah, it is fast, but, since April's Beijing Spring IDF, Intel have been showing 3.2GHz X5482 Xeon-type and 3.33GHz extreme desktop type Penryn parts in almost all demo systems. How come there aren't more of these top bin parts now? One answer, of course, is that, until that long-awaited B2F/BA/B3 - whatever spin of Barcelona and Phenom comes out - running at north of 2.6GHz, Intel's got little reason to actually do anything about 3GHz on Penryn, as the performance advantage is still there.So, to get Intel back into the aggressive overdrive mode, we need AMD to speed up its schedule, very literally.However, the high-rpm hummingbirds buzzing around Tokyo told us another reason yesterday, which sounds far more plausible to - Apple loves the Penryn. It covets both the Yorkfield Extreme for its mainstream boxes and Harpertown Xeons for the next Mac Pro. In particular, the massive memory throughput and SSE4 improvements help Mac-type apps shine more - think about an in-memory huge image manipulation task than needs both of these features.So, the rumour says that Apple pretty much pre-booked all the amounts of top Penryn bins that could be booked for this year - especially the X548". This excludes the minimum quantities for other big vendors so that they will be able to claim at least starting to ship their stuff. Those other vendors will, in reality, mostly have to count on the "standard" Penryn speed bins, a notch or two below the top ones.Of course, Apple could be paying a premium for this "privilege". It might also pass any such premium, multiplied by three or more, on to its unimaginably faithful flock of customers.All is not lost. Bear in mind that, right after the 12 Nov launch of X5482, QX9650 and a few other extreme Penryns, we'll also have the "unlocked Harpertown " version for the Skulltrail dual-socket gaming monster, as well as other similar platforms that may come out from one or two Taiwanese vendors.So, if you want your own - not Apple's iDiotised - dual socket desktop supercomputer, just grab a few of these. µ
All Penryns are out and about alreadyIntel promotes the headroom, confident of 4GHzBy Nebojsa Novakovic: Tuesday, 13 November 2007, 12:45 PM WE DROPPED by the Singapore edition of Intel's global Penryn 45 nm CPU launch party today. Even though it focused on those initial 16 server, workstation and high-end desktop CPUs - since Intel reckons the current 65nm mainstream and mobile offerings still do a good competitive job - there were some interesting observations from the way Intel execs talked on stage, and talked to us.First, they now confidently promote the huge performance headroom of these new CPUs, emphasising Shamino's and other overclockers' 6GHz runs, besides the usual air-cooled 4++ GHz regular operation. And these are just the initial official 45nm steppings.It also looks like the Skulltrail mobo might not be the only wildly overclockable dual-CPU Xeon platform. At least one ultrabig Taiwan vendor - we won't mention the name - has decided to respin its brand new dual FSB1600-enabled 2-CPU Xeon workstation slim ATX mobo to support at least some reliable overclocking on both CPU and FSB/memory side.Talking about gigglehertz, Intel has repeated that it won't slow down the Penryn frequency ramp just because of AMD's performance headaches. Even if Nehalem ends up early, as it may, there was a very quiet possibility of seeing a 4GHz FSB1600 "official" Penryn grade on future improved steppings, on both Yorkfield Extreme desktop and Harpertown dual-socket processors by mid-2008. That happens to be the expected launch date of the first dual-socket Nehalems - maybe in the Taipei June heat?On the chipset side, the X48 spin of the X38 is pretty much ready, according to friends on the partner floor. And, combined with the QX9770 CPU or high-quality XeonUP Yorkfield variants in a month or two, you can count on very reliable everyday FSB2000+ operation - provided you liquid cool the North Bridge, we presume.The i5400 "Seaburg" chipset for the dual-FSB Stoakley platform also underwent a few stepping changes recently. The B1 and newer ones could now wrest even more performance out of expected ultra low-latency DDR2-800++ CL3-3-3 T1 FB-DIMMs (SPD settings!) expected from Kingston, OCZ and Corsair soon.This will be useful not just for Skulltrail, but for other workstation mobos supporting these high-speed modules for Barcelona-like extreme memory performance. Remember to ask your mobo vendor for some "BIOS flexibility" here - it will help as new, lower -latency 60nm DDR2 dies come out with better latency potential.In summary, Chipzilla seems confident of its continued domination, but it has learned from its Netbust mistake and, seemingly at least, is not slowing down the push to keep the dominance. The chips are out, in fact sold out, and the only complaints that the partners on the floor have is that they can't get enough high-end parts, as Tier 1 gorillas are grabbing everything despite the $1K+ price tag per piece.A very "happy problem" for Intel, isn't it? How we wish there was a 3GHz Barcelona and Phenom duo out there right now - as it should have been according to some earlier promises - to make life interesting again.Mr Dirk Meyer, our Alpha friend, can you quickly repeat your EV-6 heroic techno deed from a decade ago, and take the helm of the ship along too? µ
Intels answer to amd, just speed the chp up and sell it for more money, lol!
But that is what intel does and is doing, just give it a bit more juice, charge more.
Yes and no, charging $1000 for a chip that should sell for $500 cause nothing else comes close isn't nice, thats why AMD needs to step up!
Quote from: Prowl on November 15, 2007, 03:54:42 PMYes and no, charging $1000 for a chip that should sell for $500 cause nothing else comes close isn't nice, thats why AMD needs to step up!Now's theres something we can BOTH agree on...
