Intel Blows Hot for Cold

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 10:33 am

I noticed this news on mini-itx the other day:

http://www.mini-itx.com/news/68536996/

Intel are gradually announcing details of their next generation processor architecture at IDF this week.

The architecture represents a shift away from raw clock speeds and room-heating CPUs towards multiple cores and lower power consumption, introducing a concept that we've been talking about all along: Performance per Watt.

In an unusual change of direction, Intel last year cancelled Tejas, their proposed successor to the Pentium 4, in favour of more efficient designs with a smaller cache, multiple smaller cores and reduced power consumption.

It sounds to me like we may be entering an era where CPUs in general will be getting cooler and more efficient, even the ones that get put in Dells.

Thoughts? Opinions? Old news?

cotdt · Post by **cotdt** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 11:05 am

it's nothing that new from the pentium m tho they claim its a new design

vertigo · Post by **vertigo** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 4:44 am

It sounds to me like we may be entering an era where CPUs in general will be getting cooler and more efficient

I wonder if they'll ditch BTX now.

SoopahMan · Post by **SoopahMan** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 9:17 pm

I slam Intel a lot for the awful 197 Watt sucking Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, but really they're a company that tried to make a highly efficient CPU (Itanium) and failed, and so went with clock speeds and anti-competitive practices (Dell payoffs) scraping to survive. Itanium is still their ace in the hole though - that is one very efficient chip and they intend to make that the core of their line by next year. Who knows if they'll be at all successful, but they're still swinging for the desktop with it.

The Pentium M, though efficient, is not very viable as a competitor going forward. It's a Pentium 3 made in a smaller process. They need a new architecture to compete with AMD, and either it will share roots with Itanium, or be a wrapper for Itanium, or their claim of moving to cooler parts is a lie.

Cerb · Post by **Cerb** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 10:00 pm

SoopahMan wrote:I slam Intel a lot for the awful 197 Watt sucking Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, but really they're a company that tried to make a highly efficient CPU (Itanium) and failed, and so went with clock speeds and anti-competitive practices (Dell payoffs) scraping to survive. Itanium is still their ace in the hole though - that is one very efficient chip and they intend to make that the core of their line by next year. Who knows if they'll be at all successful, but they're still swinging for the desktop with it.

The Pentium M, though efficient, is not very viable as a competitor going forward. It's a Pentium 3 made in a smaller process. They need a new architecture to compete with AMD, and either it will share roots with Itanium, or be a wrapper for Itanium, or their claim of moving to cooler parts is a lie.

With the P-M being similar in performance per clock to a A64 (check reviews that use desktop chipsets on the Asus boards), and not being too far behind in actual speed, why is the Itanium needed? If they use Itanium for anything we care about, it would need an x86 layer, killing performance--M$ has already said x86-64 is all they will support.

Tweaking the P-M for a desktop could easily keep them competitive with the K8s going forward to '07, when we'll finally see really new stuff from both Intel and AMD.