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Blog: Hardware DailyTech Digest: Intel's "Penryn"
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - May 14, 2007 7:49 PM

9 comment(s) - last by Black69ta.. on May 17 at 12:45 AM

"Penryn" family to have "Yorkfield" and two "Wolfdale" models

Intel’s Penryn processor family is right around the corner with an expected desktop launch in Q1’2008. Penrynwill spawn Yorkfield and Wolfdale for consumer desktops. Yorkfield is the quad-core Penryn variant while Wolfdale is the dual-core Conroesuccessor. Intel Yorkfield processors will feature a 1066 MHz front-side bus, a step back from the upcoming Core 2 Extreme QX6850. However, Intel roadmaps dictate Yorkfield will have up to 12MB of L2 cache.

Wolfdale is essentially half the processor Yorkfield is. Intel plans to equip upper-echelon Wolfdale processors with a 1333 MHz front-side bus and up to 6MB of L2 cache. Intel’s latest roadmap introduces a new Wolfdale variant for the lower models with 3MB of L2 cache. The new budget Wolfdale, which we will refer to as Wolfdale-3MB, is to the 6MB Wolfdale as the Core 2 Duo E4000-series is to the E6000-series.

In addition to having 3MB of L2 cache, Wolfdale-3MB will have a slower 1066 MHz front-side bus. Intel also intends disable Intel VT and TXT technology support on Wolfdale-3MB processors. However, features such as Enhanced Intel SpeedStep, Intel 64 and Execute Disable Bit remain supported.

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Compatibility?

By Preyfar on 5/14/2007 9:54:03 PM , Rating: 2

Any news on if the new chips are backwards compatible with current chips? While I know Intel chips traditionally aren't, I'd love for my 680i to be able to upgrade to a more beefy quad core down the line.

RE: Compatibility?

By jpeyton on 5/14/2007 10:27:55 PM , Rating: 3

Intel's thirst for selling new chipsets knows no bounds.

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RE: Compatibility?

By Marcus Pollice on 5/15/2007 3:05:13 AM , Rating: 4

That's kind of true. As far as I know Penryn-based CPUs will require a new VRM (11.0) which is not present on current mainboards. The Bearlake family is designed to support the 45nm CPUs, Broadwater is not.

It might be possible for manufacturers to allow using them nonetheless, possibly with some voltages out of spec. Of course manufacturers could introduce updated mainboard revisions but thats unlikely as they'd rather want to introduce new models based on the new chipsets.

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Bearlake

By Kougar on 5/14/2007 11:44:00 PM , Rating: 2

While information on Penryn is out there, I don't recall anything regarding timing for Bearlake...especially the X38 chipset.

While some online merchants already have begun offering the big name P35 boards for ASUS and Gigabyte and this indicates the launch is soon, what about X38? :)

RE: Bearlake

By Anh Huynh on 5/15/2007 12:48:08 AM , Rating: 2

You'll have to wait until Q3 or so.

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RE: Bearlake

By KristopherKubicki

(blog) on 5/15/2007 12:10:57 PM , Rating: 3

June 5 is the launch

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RE: Bearlake

By Kougar on 5/15/2007 2:44:39 PM , Rating: 2

Thanks guys/gals! I very much appreciate it :)

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odd numbers

By Screwballl on 5/16/2007 1:15:44 PM , Rating: 2

hopefully it is a typo but what I don't get... why does Yorkfield have 1066fsb with 12MB L2 cache versus Wolfdale with 1333fsb with 3-6MB L2 cache?? For the high end wouldn't you want 1333fsb + 12MB L2 cache? I suspect this is just the first gen chips though and all will start to be offered with 1333fsb before long... of course AMD has its L3 kicking into gear on its next gen so we will see how it all pans out.

RE: odd numbers

By Black69ta on 5/17/2007 12:45:32 AM , Rating: 2

Wolfdale is only dual core hence only 6Mb with a 3MB "budget" variant while the Yorkfield is a Quad Core (6MBX2) however the 1066FSB makes no sense to me either.

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