Core i7 launch

[MikeC]

Core i7 news

and our own review:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Intel_core_i7_launched

[QuietOC]

I think this may be as big a failure as the Pentium 4. This just isn't a desktop chip. I hope Intel has something else in store for desktops. (Maybe I shouldn't have bought that Intel stock last week.) I am sure a few people will like these in some new Apple Mac Pros.

[shadestalker]

I see pushpins.

[npp]

I think this may be as big a failure as the Pentium 4

Wow, this was completely out of place... I don't want to start explaining how different things are nowadays, let's just say that simply because a CPU doesn't fit your needs isn't a reason to call it a failure. I wonder what you mean by "something for desktops"?..

And what is wrong with the Core i7, anyway? It has an even better performance/watt ratio than current Penryns, and is architecturaly superior to them in every aspect.

Some "hardware experts" won't hesitate claiming anything under 40-50% performance increase to be a failure for an Intel CPU, yet they'll throw their hats in the air if a new GPU manages to sqeeze 5 more FPS in Crysis... If it were AMD, everyone would be speaking of some great success, I guess.

[Strid]

Interesting chip!

However, it doesn't seem like it's much better than current Core 2 Duo processors for the average desktop PC users. It may be a huge leap for multi-threaded performance and large servers, but for me, I think I'm better off with a Wolfdale processor than any Core i7 CPU as it is now.
I'm looking forward to see smaller dual-core versions of Nehalem. I don't think we're gonna see many of the quad-core Nehalems on this board - they're simply too extravagant. But maybe if more down-to-earth versions of Nehalem motherboards are marketed we'll like them. But the boards I've seen are loaded with features for overclockers and benchmarkers. They've created a new Dodge Ram 4x4, though what we want/need is just a new Vespa, lol.

[QuietOC]

And what is wrong with the Core i7, anyway? It has an even better performance/watt ratio than current Penryns, and is architecturaly superior to them in every aspect.

No, it does not. It has very high idle power, which is what most desktop CPUs do most of the time.

It is fine for a workstation chip. When it is actually using all its cores it uses a little less power than a Core 2 Quad for the same amount of computation.

[jessekopelman]

The point people miss is that Intel is not going to stop making Core2 chips any time soon. I think you have at least two more years of that architecture being widely available (probably more like 4 or 5). If you aren't maxing out your 45nm quad core already, what does this release even have to do with your needs? I know that by the time I'm ready to upgrade in 2 or 3 years, Core i7 will be very old news and have effected me not at all. In the mean time, everyone should be happy that this new release will push down the prices of the Core2 chips they actually want to buy!

[mai9]

here's another review I enjoyed.

What troubles me about this i7 is the price of the only mobo so far, the ASUS P6T Deluxe which costs 300$

[npp]

No, it does not. It has very high idle power, which is what most desktop CPUs do most of the time.

Not that THG is a great source to quote, but they measured idle power to be some 1-2W in idle. It's load power consumtion that has increased, but given the higher performance you get, it actually transfers to lower total power consumption after all, as seen @techreport. I'm curious what anandtech is going to some up with in the next days, Anand seems to be working on a power consumption analysis right now.

@jessekopelman: check out the article here: http://www.techpowerup.com/71659/Intel_ ... ineup.html

[fri2219]

I think this may be as big a failure as the Pentium 4.

I don't see any reason to want one of these at all, especially a 965- not for HPC, not for home computing, and definitely not for business use. With the G7's economies going the direction they are as of late, I don't even see where this will sell well to the narrow niche of spoiled children.

When the chip market is moving to Atom-sized margins and good enough for web surfing performance, I can't see how a chip that isn't a ten-fold leap in dual-threaded performance is going to be a success. Anything more than two threads at a time seems to be beyond most application developers, even though CS programs been teaching non-blocking, multithreaded I/O, for two decades.

[kittle]

Im quite interested in one of these things. Ive been eyeing a system upgrade for a while now, but I want another dual socket system, and with the current generation stuff that means a pair power hungry xeon server cpus. the core i7 seems to solve some of the SMP issues, and the idle power looks very nice.

Yes the startup price is nasty but give it a few months after launch and prices will be more reasonable.

[AZBrandon]

I've gone through a handful of the reviews and I really don't think Core i7 is going to shine until two events:

1) The 32nm die-shrink
2) The affordable mobo's and dual-core varients

I agree with the others who point out that in terms of dollars per performance, it makes no sense right now for just about anyone. It's an advance in the top of the line, but with even the most basic upgrade requiring you to shell out $600+ for the mobo, chip, and DDR3 ram (at least for the majority still using DDR/DDR2) it's a whole ton of money for something that's only faster in certain, very specific applications.

[Elvellon]

Core i7 that have been released now are "high-end" varinats like the Athlon FX. 6-12 months from now (AFAIK) Intel will release mainstream quad- and dualcores based on the same architecture which will be interesting, as well as the 32 nm shrink.

WE should also remember that + 5-10% numbers over Core 2 are the median (? - a suitable word?) of improved architecture and things that were made _slower_ in order to have better energy efficiency.

[jessekopelman]

@jessekopelman: check out the article here: http://www.techpowerup.com/71659/Intel_ ... ineup.html

Some existing Core2 products will be discontinued in 2009, but other new Core2 products will be launched. Do you think this contradicts or supports my statement about Core2 products being widely available for at least 2 more years?

[QuietOC]

Not that THG is a great source to quote, but they measured idle power to be some 1-2W in idle.

I hadn't read Tom's. Well, there might be some hope for Intel desktop chips. AMD's Phenoms also have horrible idle power consumption, and I wonder if high speed QPI/HT links are to blame. Power is proportional to frequency ^ 3, and both AMD and Intel are now both high clockspeed buses compared to the original 800 MHz HT speed.

Perhaps the quad-pumped P4/Core 2 front side bus wasn't so bad after all?

[npp]

Some existing Core2 products will be discontinued in 2009, but other new Core2 products will be launched. Do you think this contradicts or supports my statement about Core2 products being widely available for at least 2 more years?

The E8xxx series was released less than year ago (in January), and it's about to be phased out now. You should be able to do the math for yourself. I just wanted to point out that another 2 years are an unrealistic lifespan for current Core 2 CPUs (just as it is nearly impossible to get a Pentium D nowadays - not that anyone would want to do that).

In the grand scheme of things, 99% of the products launched around shouldn't concern me; I've got an old slow 2Ghz PC that will serve me well for the next time, and I really appreciate the damage everyone of us does to the environment when buying new products one actually don't need. I won't upgrade to Core i7, nor would I buy and LCD TV as long as my old CRT does the job well. For me, the Core i7 is interesting solely as a technological leap, not as something I would potentially buy.

[Modo]

The E8xxx series was released less than year ago (in January), and it's about to be phased out now.

Won't it just be renamed to Celeron something, and live like that for a while?

[Mats]

I don't think the E8000 can be phased out yet since the successors won't show up until 9 months from now.
Until then, Intel have nothing really new to show up that costs less than $250.
Intel is making things complicated and expensive with the new sockets, it's almost like they want to make some room for AMD.
I think the last S775 CPU's will be remembered for a long time because of their low price and their ability to overclock.

[shadestalker]

An important point to bear in mind here is that this is a new architecture. That's the important part for Intel. This is their answer to hypertransport and the killer lead AMD has had over them in multi-socket bandwidth intensive applications. To review the new platform as a desktop replacement takes the advances it brings almost completely out of context. This should prove to be a huge win on the server side, where FSB has hampered Intel versus AMD until now.

[Ch0z3n]

But I think that is what they are upset about, Intel is releasing a new chipset that makes a few important structural changes, but the first release isn't for meant for desktops. They are sad that there is a new toy that in its current iteration is not for them to play with.

[jessekopelman]

The E8xxx series was released less than year ago (in January), and it's about to be phased out now. You should be able to do the math for yourself. I just wanted to point out that another 2 years are an unrealistic lifespan for current Core 2 CPUs (just as it is nearly impossible to get a Pentium D nowadays - not that anyone would want to do that).

I think you are misreading the article you linked. Specifically the part where it says, "all products will phase out between the first and second quarters next year." All products is all products listed in the PDNs, not all existing Core2 products. Only a single E8XXX is specifically listed as being discontinued, the E8300, not the entire line. Also, the article lists a gaggle of chips launching on 11/30 and a E7500 that will be launched in Jan 09. You think these products will all be discontinued < 6 months after launch? Even if so, end of production does not mean end of availability. You can still get a brand new Prescott P4 from Newegg! Anyway, as others have stated Core2 technology is bound to live on as Celerons or the like for quite a while. They were still making Celerons based on Core up until a few months ago (maybe still are for the OEM market). This issue would be getting a lot more press if your take on it were the norm.

[Woland]

I don't see any reason to want one of these at all, especially a 965- not for HPC, not for home computing, and definitely not for business use. With the G7's economies going the direction they are as of late, I don't even see where this will sell well to the narrow niche of spoiled children.

You're not the target market for these chips. Intel doesn't care that you're nonplused and unwilling to spend ~$,1000 on one of these new CPUs. Intel is also well-aware that plenty of people can do everything they need with a Pentium M. For those of us running applications that thread well, though, and need lots of bandwidth, it's going to be a beast. There are things at work that I wouldn't even bother trying to run on my current workstation that Nehalem will eat up. How's that for a reason to want in on one of these? Going from 'not able to do it' to 'able to' is as big a performance boost as you can get.

When the chip market is moving to Atom-sized margins and good enough for web surfing performance, I can't see how a chip that isn't a ten-fold leap in dual-threaded performance is going to be a success. Anything more than two threads at a time seems to be beyond most application developers, even though CS programs been teaching non-blocking, multithreaded I/O, for two decades.

Some of the market is well-served by Atom-powered boxes. And what novel CPU tech has provided a ten-fold performance leap over the last generation?

In the grand scheme of things, 99% of the products launched around shouldn't concern me; I've got an old slow 2Ghz PC that will serve me well for the next time, and I really appreciate the damage everyone of us does to the environment when buying new products one actually don't need. I won't upgrade to Core i7, nor would I buy and LCD TV as long as my old CRT does the job well. For me, the Core i7 is interesting solely as a technological leap, not as something I would potentially buy.

Everything about our lifestyles damages the environment. Your CRT isn't exactly innocent as the driven snow. It may be a sunk environmental cost now (not really, because some day it needs disposal), but it still has a footprint.

Go look at the 'Task Energy' numbers at techreport. The i7-940 beats everything else they tested in joules consumed over the render period. The idle power draws for the 940 are middle of the pack that TR tested, but it's worlds better than my current workstation.

I could also point out that Core i7, like the latest Core series CPUs, are manufactured using a lead-free process.

But you're not the market for this chip, and your needs do not represent the needs of all computer users. Fuck, 99% percent of us aren't the market for this thing. It's aimed at workstations and servers. If it wasn't for my job, I wouldn't care about it either, other than for the 'Ooh...' factor. Nehalem just isn't aimed at the mainstream or low-end/low-power market now. Nehalem-based chips for laptops aren't even due until next year. That doesn't mean the architecture isn't interesting or impressive, though.

[npp]

Everything about our lifestyles damages the environment. Your CRT isn't exactly innocent as the driven snow. It may be a sunk environmental cost now (not really, because some day it needs disposal), but it still has a footprint.

You clearly know what I meant when I wrote this. I never said my CRT is "innocent as the driven snow", it's an example for a tech device that I have used for many years so its environmental cost gets amortized over time. If you want to get picky, you must kill yourself at the very moment, since almost everything you do damages the environment you live in. My point was that we should try to use the things we have as long as they would serve, and not just upgrade them because of "wow, my rig looks aged now, what do I do" or "god, those new 60" LCD screens look really nice in my living room".

[Metaluna]

No, it does not. It has very high idle power, which is what most desktop CPUs do most of the time.

Not that THG is a great source to quote, but they measured idle power to be some 1-2W in idle. It's load power consumtion that has increased, but given the higher performance you get, it actually transfers to lower total power consumption after all, as seen @techreport. I'm curious what anandtech is going to some up with in the next days, Anand seems to be working on a power consumption analysis right now.

@jessekopelman: check out the article here: http://www.techpowerup.com/71659/Intel_ ... ineup.html

I've only skimmed a couple of articles so far so maybe this has been covered already, but hopefully the people doing the power testing recognize that the memory controller is now on chip, so you really need to take the whole CPU/northbridge/memory subsystem into account when comparing power consumption to the Core 2 (could be problematic given the large variety of Core 2 chipsets with widely varying efficiencies). So it could be that the power savings are even larger when you consider how much power some of the Core 2 northbridges draw, and also that you now have one fewer power-consuming I/O bus involved in a memory transaction (specifically, the CPU-to-NB interconnect).

[QuietOC]

So it could be that the power savings are even larger when you consider how much power some of the Core 2 northbridges draw, and also that you now have one fewer power-consuming I/O bus involved in a memory transaction (specifically, the CPU-to-NB interconnect).

It seems the new chipset is a huge power consumer. There are no fewer total busses with just moving the memory controller from one chip to another.

[AZBrandon]

As for power usage, Anandtech measured at the plug, so that means the chip, mobo, chipset, memory, etc are all factored in.

Anandtech review

Bottom line is that Core i7 is more power efficient for any given workload. This continues to make the case that they designed the chip with datacenters and blade computing in mind and that yeah, we won't see the mainstream stuff until next year, but then again we knew that already based on the pricing alone.

[Metaluna]

It seems the new chipset is a huge power consumer. There are no fewer total busses with just moving the memory controller from one chip to another.

Yes the bus is still there, but I was thinking more about bus utilization. You would still use that bus for PCIe traffic, for example, but for memory intensive operations it no longer needs to be involved which should in theory save some power since off-chip buses tend to use much more power than an on-chip connection between the CPU and memory controller. Of course, if the NB turns out to be a power hog anyway then the point is moot. It sounds like the X58 is targeted towards people running systems with SLI setups that idle at 100+ watts anyway, so they probably won't care. Hopefully we'll see some better options eventually.

[fri2219]

This continues to make the case that they designed the chip with datacenters and blade computing in mind

This is not a DataCenter chip- i7 doesn't compare favorably to the T2 or Power6 for data center applications. Several Intel speakers said as much at the last IDF sessions aimed at scientific computing, and the engineers I know at the Ronler Acres fab have said the same as well (off the record, of course).

Otellini himself has said that Intel is due for some huge losses on their next 10K filing- I don't think anyone (aside from the blinking lights/3Dgameman audience) expects much out of this first pass on the new architecture.

[nutball]

This is not a DataCenter chip- i7 doesn't compare favorably to the T2 or Power6 for data center applications.

I think that might depend on whos data centre you're talking about and what it's doing. The term seems to be used very loosely to apply to any room with more than a dozen servers in it!

Several Intel speakers said as much at the last IDF sessions aimed at scientific computing, and the engineers I know at the Ronler Acres fab have said the same as well (off the record, of course).

Well if you're in the market for a T2 or POWER6 I'd bet that Intel would rather sell you an nice expensive Itanium rather than a cheapo Nehalem. It's not surprising that Intel would downplay the relevant of Nehalem in such a situation.

[Tzupy]

The new article at Anandtech (page 3) shows that Nehalem uses significantly less power in games:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/in ... i=3453&p=3
So if you can't tap all the power of Nehalem you are still getting lower power consumption, I believe this is nice.