The important thing is that the new chip addresses power and thermal issues.
Intel Corp. introduced its latest microprocessor for server computers Monday, one of a trio of new chips the world’s biggest semiconductor maker is counting on to regain market share lost to Advanced Micro Devices Inc.The new chip, the Intel Xeon 5100, is the company’s answer to AMD’s Opteron processor, whose performance and power management have stolen share from Intel for more than three years. Intel says the new Xeon more than doubles the performance of its previous top-of-the-line server chip while drawing 40 percent less power.
Will it help bring Intel’s market share back?
I think all the processing power people will ever need has already been created. Lowering the power and noise levels is probably more useful now.
Intel market share will trickle forward if …
* pricess fall in line of Opteron
* inventories are stable
* and lastly…all the claims of the intel marketing team match the hype about low power and abilities
I am not pro-intel or pro-amd. I am pro-“give me the most performace for the least cost”.
AB CD – then you have no idea what you are talking about 😉
However lowing power is good, that would lower heat, and therefore also lower noise. A lot of the noise in a modern PC is the PSU anyhow… its amazing the difference a good PSU can make…
1 I think all the processing power people will ever need has already been created.
I agree with you until I try to author a DVD from DV, and my computer takes a few hours to perform MPEG2-encoding of a 1-hr DVD.
The processing power I “need” may have already been created, but the money I need to purchase it has yet to be “created” – according to my most recent checking-account statement. [grin]
Tom’s Hardware has a headache inducing woodcrest article on the new processor line.
Screams of compromises, compared to AMD’s elagant solution. In my opinion, Intel has thrown millions at the problem of simply beating AMD in MIPS and power consumption, to satisfy the investors, not focusing on the long term.
Intel simply improved all the little things here & there.
In the short term, AMD will beat Intel again, because the AMD CPU’s can be clocked at a much higher Ghz, the Intel CPU’s are maxed out.
In response to ABCD’s comment
“I think all the processing power people will ever need has already been created. Lowering the power and noise levels is probably more useful now.”
Bill Gate’s once said “640K ought to be enough for anybody.” He couldn’t of been any more wrong.
CPU’s will keep evolving, along with their efficiency, people will need them to run more sophisticated machines and programs.
Welcome back the king to the top…
However, Intel needs to stop pushing their marketing arm and focus more on R&D, it’s just wasting resources at this point. Majority of people still buy their computers via OEMs, it’s convincing the OEMs that Intel should market more too. A few ads here and there for the simple non-tech folk should be it. Let the OEMs market to them.
I likes what IBM is working on with transistors and silicon-germanium technology!
Researchers at IBM and the Georgia Tech have gotten a SiGe—or silicon-germanium—chip to run at 500GHz by freezing it to minus 451 degrees Fahrenheit.
The chip speed is a record for silicon-based processors and is 250 times faster than what is normally found in chips in cell phones, which run at about 2GHz. Processors in servers and PCs run at up to 3.8GHz.
The experiments, announced June 20, was part of a larger project designed to test the speed limits of SiGe devices, which run faster at lower temperatures. According to the researchers, the chips used in the project—prototypes of fourth-generation SiGe technology developed by IBM on a 200-millimeter wafer—run at about 350GHz at room temperature.
A temperature of minus 451 degrees is normally only found in outer space, though it can be re-created on Earth through the use of such materials as liquid helium. According to IBM, absolute zero—the coldest possible temperature in nature—is at minus 459.67 degrees.
SiGe chips are the same as standard silicon chips in many respects, though they also have germanium in them to improve performance and power efficiency. They’re used in cell phones and other communication devices.
Microprocessor Advances
According to the IBM and Georgia Tech researchers, SiGe chips running at very high frequencies have potential uses in such areas as defense, space exploration and remote sensing.
Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT Research, said users shouldn’t expect to see such chips in commercial devices anytime soon.
“It’s not the sort of thing they’re going to see in a desktop or laptop in the next three years,” said King, in Hayward, Calif.
Still, what’s impressive is that IBM continues to test and improve its processors using methods other than simply increasing the number of transistors. The Armonk, N.Y., company also continues to use science to enhance its computer technology, King said.
PointerIntel researchers show how using simple processor cores can present a radically different approach to building processors. Click here to read more.
IBM has been looking at ways of improving its processor technology for years, he said. The company was the first to look to multicore chip technology. “They saw early on the limits to performance improvements by squeezing more microtransistors onto a single chip,” King said. Now, all chip makers, from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices to Sun Microsystems, are pursuing multicore chip strategies.
We talked about that here:
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=5811