X-bit labs

Intel Kentsfield Preview

Category: CPU

by Anna Filatova

[ 09/28/2006 | 12:00 PM ]

During the IDF this time Intel revealed a lot of exciting details about the new quad-core processor aka Kentsfield. Today we would like to offer you a preview of this new exciting processor and share some of the first benchmark results.

Table of contents:

• Kentsfield: First Look
  
• Test Platform
  
• Performance
  
• Conclusion
  

I believe that no one doubts that further development of computer platforms will take the way of increased parallelism. The dual-core processors that used to be something outstanding a while ago have taken a very steady position in the market these days. And by the end of this year hardware enthusiasts have every chance to become happy owners of quad-core systems already.

At the Intel Developer Forum Fall 2006 that is finishing today in San Francisco, Intel paid special attention to the quad-core desktop processors that will be coming out in Q4 this year known as Kentsfield. Therefore, we decided to devote the whole separate article to this product, where we will proudly share all the details with you.

Kentsfield: First Look

However, you shouldn’t think that AMD will have nothing to respond to Intel’s quad-core design. Inside AMD labs the engineers are working hard on the 4x4 project that should also be announced before the end of the year. However, unlike Intel, AMD is going to offer the gaming enthusiasts not a single quad-core CPU, but a dual-processor system built on dual-core processors. Time will show which approach becomes more successful, and in the meanwhile let’s return to our today’s hero – Intel Kentsfield CPU.

Intel’s plans are truly tremendous. With the first quad-core processors they intend to deliver the 10x performance improvement by 2008 compared with the regular Intel Pentium 4. Over the last couple of years they made changes to focus on the multi-core.

Now the expected performance processor is a dual-core one. In early November Kentsfield will come out and it will be a quad-core solution. Each one of these cores will be the most power-efficient thing that can be developed. Here I would like to point out that the upcoming launch of the quad-core Kentsfield processor that will be one more great offering for the desktop platforms, does not mean that dual-core Core 2 Extreme CPUs got to be discontinued. At first Intel will only be offering Kentsfield as a premium solution in the same market segment as Conroe. And it will remain this way until the existing software infrastructure learns to take real advantage of all multi-core processor design benefits.