If that is true, then
K9 is released next year.

K9 runs on the same platform as K8.
I don’t know how it perform but the design is done.
If K8 keep up, there is no need to release it thought...

I read Intel Sossaman Slower than current Xeon Chips.

Did you read something else?

Also you think is good bring old tech? I think you are one of those that think intel should release some processor with 64 - 386 cores.

Kaz,

The article was, as usual, mistitled.

If you read closely, the new processor will have better integer performance. Mind you, this is not even the Merom. This is dual Yonah.

For most people, integer is more important and always has been. If it isn't, an Itanium 2 makes any x86 look kind of silly, and probably would make a better choice for many people needing floating point.

Well Itanium doesn’t run the same application that a Xeon, Opteron runs... so what you say is point less.

You have some processor that as more than 10X the processing power of the best x86 processor. But it doesn’t do (run) anything.

You also have a good example of the GPU, they say is much faster doing this and that but I don’t see a thing.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20050811145511.h tml

Kaz,

There is some truth to that, but for a lot of places doing engineering, they do a lot of that code themselves.

For example, when I worked at Pratt & Whitney (they design jet engines), they had several platforms and would simply recompile the code (a lot of which was Fortran, and this was not that long ago) and run it on the new platform.

Also, since the Itanium has been moved upstream (meaning, it has failed absymally as mainstream), those type of applications are not that uncommon.

But, the main reason I did not say all people would want the Itanium for floating point is exactly what you stated. If the application you need isn't on the platform, you don't buy the platform. However, if the application you want isn't on the platform you want, you sometimes switch applications if the advantages of the new platform are overwhelming. A lot depends on specific situations.

Killer,

Your just a school kid that doesn't know anything about computers.

Pentium III-S are still very useful parts, especially in dual processor platforms. They are very power efficient and most servers do not need the processing power of the newest processors. File servers almost never do.

But again, you are just an internet dork that doesn't know a damn thing about real life uses. I have more servers than you have brain cells, and believe it or not some are still using Slot 1 Coppermines and do their job more than adequately. Why would I want something using 80 watts when I don't tax the processor of my 30 watt processor? Typical idiot with no real life experience.

I hate to admit it but he is right.

I have P3 550, P3 800 and P3 1.4 GHz and all run fine, even today.
My last P4 820 server however: lots of noise, power consuming and heat (very bad). Only because of 64 bit (I don’t use yet), and more than 4GB ram (I don’t need yet), is not worth it, I would go for Opteron, but where is it (at least in my country)?

For a 24/7 server nothing like the P3, unless you need super performance for intensive aplications....

Kaz,

You know Pentium Pro servers are still very popular, particularly among the Linux folks. I have only one Pentium Pro (dual) server running, but it runs great and uses very little power. It never has problems. These things are so popular that about a month ago I had to pay almost $50 for a Pentium II Overdrive processor. These processors are kind of neat in that they are better than both the Pentium II and Pentium Pro. They have the best of both, the full speed cache of the Pentium Pro and the architectural enhancements of the Pentium II.

Most of my servers are actually Coppermines, and use Rambus memory :P. I was able to find a guy that sells OR840 motherboards, and the good ones that support dual 1 GHz processors, for only $25. These things are rock solid, but Rambus is still very expensive so you lose some of the savings. The dual Tualatin server motherboards are so expensive though, especially new, that these OR840s make very good alternatives in some cases and are not that much slower.

If you are interested, go to eBay and check out the seller Adeal.com. He sells one a week and starts it at $24.99. No one ever bids on them so you can get them for that price almost every auction. There is another guy that sells new ones too, but his are the inferior version that can't use two 1G processors (and he wants $50), so stick with Adeal. Also, don't bid high because even if someone outbids you this week (which hasn't happened to me yet, but can), next week you can get it for $25 in all probability.

You can get 1 GB PC800 memory for under $200 (Elpida tends to be the cheapest) and the processors are pretty cheap now too. Probably can get them for $60 a pair of 1Gs. So, for around $300 (including shipping) you are set. Compared to a P3TDE6 MB with dual 1.4Gs and 1 GB, (roughly $825 to $875), it is a lot less expensive and not that much slower.

bfs,

You're a liar, because I look for those motherboards all the time. How about this link - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6813 971341&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1 .

If they are used and properly listed, they still go for around $200. Look at this link - http://www.streetprices.com/Electronics/Computer_Hardware_ PC/Motherboards/SP714635.html . $522.

OK, so we've established you're a moron and a liar pretty easily. Next time do better.

Now to points. The Pentium III Tualatins were artificially given high prices and underclocked so they wouldn't interfere with Pentium 4 sales. The Pentium Ms have always shown much greater efficiency and for the majority of applications are clearly superior to the Pentium 4. So, for quite some time they have better technology available. Obviously, selling Pentium 4s didn't work too well despite the clock speed, since they keep losing market share because they have a non-competitive product. The Pentium M is a very competitive product, by contrast. Even Intel knows the Pentium 4 is a dog that has to be killed, it just took them too long to realize it.

Your remark about them getting what they had to out of R & D ignores a couple of important aspects. The specific product you do R & D for isn't always that important, since you can apply the research to other products as well. Do you think when they retire the Pentium 4 all the technology used in it will never be reused? Well, if you do you're wrong since Intel already said they'll be using technology from it in the Merom. Also, Intel can afford it, and it would represent no difference in terms of spending since they already had better products in the Pentium M line and the research was already done there. What difference would it make to their bottom line. Except the Pentium M is much smaller and thus easier to make. So, companies do like to recover R & D, as a broad statement, but in this specific instance your remark is irrelevant.

Your remarks about leakage miss the entire point, and are again just blabbing. They could have gone with the Pentium M. When you compare the Athlon 64 with the Pentium M, you consistently fail to acknowledge that a desktop Pentium M would be faster since the power ceiling would be higher. So, it would perform better than the mobile version, and if it didn't, it would use much less power than the Athlon 64. The Pentium M is a more efficient chip.

With regards to the Athlon 64 being vulnerable, you show your typical lack of intelligence. It will not be competing against the Yonah, it will be competing against the Merom. Already the Pentium M is a better CPU for most people, being much more efficient in terms of processing power per watt. It is also smaller, and therefore cheaper to make. On top of this, and even someone with your low IQ should have understood this from my first remark, Intel will always win with equal products. They have much better manufacturing, much better marketing, and much greater scale which helps with efficiency. On top of this, they are selling a smaller processor that performs more or less equally. AMD has to have a better processor, or they've got big problems. The Athlon 64 already isn't clearly better than the Pentium M, in fact, it is arguably worse considering everything (but could be better as well depending on the intended use). So, assuming one is a little better at this, and the other a little better at that, AMD has huge problems. Intel has every other advantage.

Also, this is comparing the Athlon 64 to the Yonah. The Merom is what it will be competing against in the relatively near future.

So, there is nothing to what you say. It is typical nonsense from someone that has no understanding of the market. But then, your idiotic comments about P3TDE6 motherboards revealed that. Why didn't you at least do some research before saying something so easily proven wrong? You must feel like a real moron, huh?

I take it you don't like the P7 arhcitecture much, however what else could Intel have done in the ~ 9 months wait before the 0.13 micron process was ready, when they were stuck at 1.0GHZ on the Pentium 3 Coppermine, if it had no been for the Pentium 4?, as the Athlon Thunderbird continued to scale in clock frequency during this period of time.

ColdPower,

I'm not sure about your number of months, I thought it was more like six since the failed 1.13 Coppermine until the successful Tualatin.

However, either way, I don't think it changes that much.

First, I am not a fan of the K7 because I can not stand computers with them in it. It is not just a technical dislike, I can not stand the heat they generate or the noise. Needless to say, the Pentium 4 is awful beyond words.

Also, the K7 is, if you give it some thought, a really bad implementation of the P6. Considering the Coppermine generally outperformend it and was released 4 years earlier (meaning the P6 core) and was MUCH smaller and used MUCH less power, the K7 to me is failed technology that had some usefulness. Luckily, Intel failed worse with the P7. Compare, for example, the K7 with the Pentium M. It is larger, uses more power and is considerably slower. The K8 has a hard time competing with it, and this is comparing a mobile to a desktop processor. The Pentium M eats up the Turion. Also, the Pentium M is nearing end of life, and will be replaced by the Merom, so this puts the K7 and K8 (more like K7+) in an unflattering perspective. I do have to say though, the improvements they made with the Athlon 64 were all the right kinds even though they were relatively minor. The processor is improved with regards to processing power for the watt, is not much bigger, and has a pretty impressive IPC compared to the K7. Still, compared to Intel's mobile processors, it is less efficient and will be facing much stronger competition next year while it gets very little improvement by comparison. Also consider that AMD put the memory controller on the processor for performance, and still can't beat the Pentium M without it, despite being larger and using a lot more power. So, how good is it really?

Now, with regards to your question about the Pentium III and the Athlon, you make a good point that can not be completely invalidated. It would have been an imperfect solution, but I think when it is put into perspective, it is far better than what Intel actually went through. For example, the Pentium 4 has been getting outperformed for much longer than nine months (even using your number) and on top of this uses massive amounts of power and is huge compared to the Athlon 64. So, it kind of has three strikes on it. Now, compare a Pentium III to an Athlon, and you get the Athlon outperforming it by virtue of it's higher clock speed, but it uses much more power and is much larger and more expensive to make.

Also, the actual sales of the highest performing processors are quite low, and I remember when they announced these beasts, not many people felt like they needed anything nearly so powerful. Intel was paper releasing a lot back then, you probably remember them releasing the 800, then going straight to 1 GHz, and later filling in 866 and 933. I worked at Pratt & Whitney back then, and I would talk to Intel constantly, and we had a very close relationship with them (because we were a huge account) and were very high priority. We could not even touch a 1 GHz, not even get a sample, for a very long time after it was announced. Even the 800s were in very, very short supply at the time the 1Gs were announced.

At the time, I actually was talking to AMD and trying to get them into our company because I felt they had the better product for what we were doing (computational fluid dynamics, which is very floating point intensive), but Intel had come out with the Pentium III and AMD had no big company selling their machines in the business line, so Intel won. SSE made up for the slower x87, and AMD never adequately supported 3D Now! so it was not even relevant.

Also, if Intel had to, they could have gotten the Coppermine to 1.13, in fact they did get it to 1.1 with a Celeron. The reason it had so many problems was not the core, but the magnificent L2 cache. They could have relaxed the timings and gotten it to 1.13, but they didn't have to. They also could have improved the P6 in other ways (besides clock speed) like increasing the FSB bandwidth or simply adding more cache. Both would have made sense since memory bandwidth was the Achille's heel of the P III, and also since the die was so small 512K would not have made it too expensive, even on .18.

I think any of these products would have been more competitive in most markets than the ridiculous P7 which has to be considered a mainly marketing processor. There were so many compromises for clock speed that make the processor unattractive, it is hard to believe it was made for anything but boasting a high number to customers. And, yes, I agree with you that Intel would not have been in perfect shape for periods along the way, and specifically what you mention is a very good example, but I do think it would be better than the non-competitive situation Intel has put themselves in by going with that vile pig known as the Pentium 4. This processor is contemptible it sucks so bad. But, gladly, they are losing market share and will realize they can't pull their nonsense on people without consequences (remember the Rambus fiasco?).

I think an irony of the Pentium 4 will be, that as dreadful a processor as it is and was, a lot of the technology in it will be used successful in other projects. I could be wrong though.

"(c) The AMD K9 will NOT be coming next year. Why? 2006 is when AMD switches formats for all their CPUs (Socket M2, F, etc). Its a transition period. Why would AMD make it more problematic for themselves by introducing a new line of CPUs?"

You are right.... But why wouldn’t AMD release a socket change with a new core, it has always been like this.

Also I see K9 documented on the AMD chipset partners.
AMD in 2003 said, K9 end of 2005, beginning of 2006.

If it isn’t released it's because they don’t need to do it (K8 is fine/Intel still bad).

Also AMD with socket 940(939) as already changed it 2 times, now as we all know will do the same one more time (because of DDR2).

Pacifica, new bus, new core, new memory? Maybe calling it K9 is exaggerated.
But didn’t Intel call the Pentium2; pentium3 when in fact was a Pentium2 with minor core changes (and SSE)?

DDR2 was part of the original K9 design, and not only that…

Lazy,

AMD cancelled the K9 from what I read a few months ago. I guess it did not offer too much bang for the buck. Pity Intel did not show similar wisdom with the P7. I doubt very much it is because they don't need it, if it were better and they invested a lot so far, any advantage would be of benefit. Plus, you can not predict your opponent so easily, and Intel is capable of great technology (and awful too :P), so I find it very doubtful they would punt a better CPU because they do not need it right now.

On top of this, AMD needs every advantage in processor design they can get since Intel is always ahead of them in manufacturing and of course has more money to do marketing.

With regards to naming, you are confusing code names with names they use officially. The Pentium II was still the P6, so was the Pentium III. Changing names official names within cores is very common, for example K6-2, K6-2+, K6-III, K6-III+, Pentium MMX, Pentium II, Pentium III, and Athlon XP. Granted, going from Pentium II to Pentium III (going from Pentium to Pentium II made sense to me, it is a different generation. The Pentium Pro should have been named that, but Intel did not intend this to be a mainstream processor and named it to show where it fit into the marketplace) does feel like a generation change more than the others because the primary number is incremented, but it is nonetheless just an official name.