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Intel promises 45nm server processors this year

Earlier today, Intel revealed to DailyTech more details regarding 45nm server products, including launch windows and compatibility.

Kirk Skaugen, general manager of Intel's Server Platform Group, opened his statements with "We were originally in the Q1'08 timeframe. Today I'm happy to announce to report for the first time that our server 45nm Xeon products based on the Penryn core will be available into production for the second half of 2007."

Intel's latest desktop guidance claims 45nm desktop SKUs will also launch in late 2007, with volume shipments occurring in 2008.  As it stands right now, only the mobile 45nm SKUs are expected to launch in 2008.

Skaugen also confirmed that Penryn-based Xeon processors will utilize the same server platform as Xeon 5000, 5100 and 5300.  Nehalem, Intel's next-generation micro architecture on the 45nm node slated for 2008, will require new platform technology and is not compatible with the Penryn platform. 

45nm quad-core Harpertown and dual-core Wolfdale were originally slated to spearhead the next-generation Xeon launch in Q1 2008.  The existing Bensley platform, Intel 5000P chipset, will still provide the heavy lifting for volume dual-socket on 45nm Xeon.  A new platform, Cranberry Lake, will replace Bensley-VS for value dual-socket Intel platforms, and will support Harpertown and Wolfdale. 

Intel hinted earlier this year it might pull some of its launches in after the Penryn tape-out proved slightly more successful than anticipated.

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WOW
By berat556 on 2/21/2007 6:41:31 PM , Rating: 2
This means that AMD is in big trouble as they thought they would have a 1 year performance window till the next-generation micro architecture Nehalen would come out but this totally ruins their plans. Hopefully this means that AMD will not be able to charge $320 for their next gen x2-3800 like they did for their last and we will see some great performance at low prices. GO COMPETITION.




RE: WOW
By chedrz on 2/21/2007 7:20:22 PM , Rating: 3
Why is everyone making a big deal out of lousy clock speeds and overclocking on AMD's 65nm procs? As the process matures, clock speeds will increase...however, that's all anyone seems to care about.

I guess everyone forgot one tiny little fact: 65nm is still based on K8. K8=OLD. Right now, AMD's in the same place Intel was with Net-burst-into-flames. When K8 hit the market, Intel didn't have anything that could compete because the Netburst architecture was OLD. You can't make an old architecture do something new. It's not possible, unless you rebuild it and retool it. And that's when you get a NEW architecture, like Core 2. Until Core 2 came out, Intel was ramping clock speeds and cutting prices. When K8L comes out, it will probably beat the pants off Core 2, and Intel will be ramping up clock speeds and slashing prices again to compensate, much like they did before, and much like AMD is attempting to do now. And when Intel's next architecture is done, and it beats the pants off K8L, AMD will be right back where they are now, slashing prices and ramping clock speeds.

So seriously, everyone stop complaining about AMD's 65nm. You can't make an old dog do new tricks (even if it is smaller than it used to be).


RE: WOW
By ElJefe69 on 2/21/07, Rating: -1
RE: WOW
By Roy2001 on 2/22/07, Rating: -1
RE: WOW
By Dactyl on 2/21/07, Rating: -1
RE: WOW
By chedrz on 2/21/2007 9:42:12 PM , Rating: 2
I think K8 has been great. K8 convinced me to use AMD for my first build, and I'll probably stick with AMD until they come out with something that isn't drop-in compatible with socket AM2. But, it's had its run, and it's time for something new.


RE: WOW
By StevoLincolnite on 2/22/2007 12:49:02 AM , Rating: 2
The K8 isn't old at all, Well not compared to Intels architecture, Fred Weber led the project to revise the K7 into a 64-bit core, Which turned out to be K8.
The first implementation of the P6 core was the Pentium Pro CPU in 1995, Which was then Used in the Pentium 2, Pentium 3, Pentium M, And the Core series of processors.
The K8 on the other hand has only been in the Athlon 64, FX, Opteron, Sempron "2" line of processors. But if you count the fact that the K8 Is a modified K7 then that includes the Entire Athlon line, Such as the XP, Duron, Sempron, And all the Thunderbird variants that came before it, (Even though that weren't Thunderbird's per-say).
The K7 or Athlon Classic was released in 1999. So four years after Intels initial P6 launch.
So really its not all that old, Its either time for a completely new architecture or another series of re-tune's and optimization of the core.

And the K8, P6, And Netburst are all completely different, For instance here in South Australia Pentium 4/D Are still being sold, And of course the Athlon 64 still wipes the floor with the Netburst processors, And the Athlon 64 still provides GOOD performance, Just because the Core 2 has been released that suddenly all Athlon 64's are now obsolete and suck, Thats just not true.

And Just for clarification the Core 2 is not a NEW architecture, Its based upon the Dual Core Yonah Processors, Which in Turn is based upon the Dothan, Which is based on Banias, Which is based on the Pentium 3 Tualatin and so on and so on.

quote:
When K8L comes out, it will probably beat the pants off Core 2


I'm tired of these comments, Now there is NO current benchmarks to prove this, So why bother? Wait till you have the product under your nose then make your decision, You would be greatly heart broken if it didn't turn out to be true.
And you can make an old Dog do new tricks, Especially when it comes to Microprocessors, For Instance with the Pentium 3 coppermine, And later on the Athlons ended up moving the L2 Cache to full speed on die, AMD later with the advent of the Palomino core (Athlon XP) added 3D Now! Professional and SSE to its processors, The Pentium 4 Gained the EMT64 64bit instructions. And not to mention that Intel added a Pentium 4 bus, Branch Tree Predictor, and Pentium 4 Cache (Which was modified again) To the Pentium 3 Tualatin and renamed it as a Pentium M, And increased the Pipeline to increase clock speeds, Also Intel Added Hyper Threading to the Pentium 4, So really Since when cant you teach an old dog New tricks?


RE: WOW
By CollegeTechGuy on 2/22/2007 1:16:53 AM , Rating: 1
Well I posted and it said their was a problem, so i'm just going to shorten it up some.

Like he said, since when can't you teach an old dog new tricks. Seeing how Intel, and AMD, base their CPUs off of the old 8086. 8088 was a 8 bit instead of 16 bit, cheaper version of the 8086. Then the 186 came out, then 286, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium 4, Pentium 4 HT, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo...guess what all based off the same architecture as the 8086.


RE: WOW
By mino on 2/22/2007 6:40:23 AM , Rating: 2
Well, not so much the same architecture.
All x86 CPU are based on the same ISA, NOT architecture.
Some more common architectures for x86 ISA include:
intel:
8086-80486 series
Pentium-PentiumMMX series (P5)
PentiumPro-Core2Duo series (P6)
P4 series (Netburst)

AMD:
K5 series
K6 series
Athlon series (K7,K8)


RE: WOW
By mino on 2/22/2007 6:47:34 AM , Rating: 2
Also to say K8 is bad because it is "old" is pretty short-sighted.
K8 iteration of the Athlon family is old compared the Conroe iteration of the P6 family.
However both the architectures are pretty competitive to each other.
Also X2 vs. C2D should not be compared to A64 vs. P4 scenario as up to the E6400 perfromance X2's are competitive performance, power and price wise.
P4's were competitive only performance-wise. Power was out of the window as well as wattage.


RE: WOW
By zsdersw on 2/22/2007 7:24:55 AM , Rating: 2
Not quite. Netburst chips were price-competitive as well for at least some of their life in the spotlight.


RE: WOW
By JeffDM on 2/24/2007 2:29:25 AM , Rating: 2
I'd argue that the K6, K7 & K8 cores share an architectural heritage with NexGen's 5x86 chip. That's not a bad thing. It would be bad to dump a design for a clean-sheet if there's nothing fundementally wrong with the existing design and that improvements can still be made. AMD made the right choice, Intel did not when they made Netburst.

I think AMD's problems are more of getting newer fabs into production than anything else.


RE: WOW
By CollegeTechGuy on 3/6/2007 10:37:18 AM , Rating: 2
lol, you mean Intel was dumb with Netburst in the fact that all they ever did was just keeping cranking out the Mhz...hmm


RE: WOW
By SquidianLoveGod on 2/22/2007 7:07:37 AM , Rating: 2
I thought that was pretty spot on, Why did he get voted down for it?


RE: WOW
By TechLuster on 2/22/2007 5:11:32 AM , Rating: 1
chedrz, you need to get your facts straight.

quote:
When K8 hit the market, Intel didn't have anything that could compete because the Netburst architecture was OLD.


Actually, just a few months after K8 came out, Intel answered with their "Prescott" revision to Netburst. This architecture revision was nearly as sweeping as the K7->K8 and Core->Core 2 changes. In fact, people speculated at the time that the only reason Intel didn't call it the "Pentium 5" was that it turned out to be such a dog. So all during 2004-2006 when K8 was running circles around Netburst, Intel was using a newer architecture.

Hence newer architectures do not always bring massive speedups on the order of the Netburst->Core 2 transition. In particular, while I believe the K8L/Stars cores will bring higher IPC on a maturing (and hence cooling) 65nm process, it's highly unlikely that not only will K8L overcome Core 2's 20-25% IPC advantage but will also "beat the pants off Core 2." (Of course, for the sake of healthy competition in the x86 market, we should all hope it does!)


RE: WOW
By mino on 2/22/2007 7:03:57 AM , Rating: 2
Correct,
on IPC front for INT DC K8L parts should end up on par with Conroe
for FP code DC K8L should be 20%+ faster (even K8 is pretty close to C2D)

However on QC front K8L should have better IPC on both INT and FP.

As for real performance comparison everything depends on real clocks AMD is able to pull out at reasonable power budgets.


RE: WOW
By Lazarus Dark on 2/22/2007 7:32:19 AM , Rating: 2
huh?... uh...wha? Damn, I need to go back to school. Was that englais?


RE: WOW
By floering on 2/22/2007 2:17:39 PM , Rating: 2
For the noobs, here is your magic decoder ring:

IPC=Instructions Per Cycle
INT=Integer (usually referring to Integer performance)
DC=Dual Core
K8L="New" AMD architecture whose QC part is code named DeerHound, should compete with C2D for a while until Penryn
FP=Floating Point (or FP performance)
C2D=Core 2 Duo, Intel's current line
QC=Quad Core


RE: WOW
By Viditor on 2/22/2007 7:55:43 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
K8L="New" AMD architecture whose QC part is code named DeerHound, should compete with C2D for a while until Penryn


Correction, there is no K8L, it's K10.
The code name for the quad core has been Barcelona. (DeerHound was a rumour HKEPC that didn't pan out)
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37...

The only 2 advantages from Penryn will be slightly more headroom in clockspeed and a much larger cache. The larger cache will mostly just help to make up for AMD's ODMC (On Die Mem Controller) advantage, except for the rare programs on servers (a very small percentage of apps can actually fully utilize a large cache).


RE: WOW
By nah on 2/22/2007 7:37:54 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
You can't make an old dog do new tricks (even if it is smaller than it used to be).


Actually that's not true--Intel's original Willamette cores were horrendous--even AT estimated that the difference between Willamette and Northwood3 ( 800 FSB)was at least 33 %---read Jarred's article on CPUs ( Aug 2004).The original cores ran very hot at 180 nm--the Northwoods at 130 nm were cooler--then came Prescott