Quad-core: The Next AMD vs. Intel Battleground

Dual-core, we hardly knew ye?

Despite the fact that dual-core processors only hit the mainstream in 2005, AMDand Intelare already touting the next generation of "quad-core" processors for 2007.

"Multi-core is the new megahertz," said Insight64 analyst Nathan Brookwood, in an interview with internetnews.com. "If you want more performance rather than ramping up the megahertz, now it's all about ramping up the number of cores."

Multi-core, which includes several computer "cores," or processing engines, on one piece of silicon, improves performance by sharing workloads.

But multi-core doesn't come without its challenges. Software also has to be written or optimized to take advantage of multi-core processors. Moreover, some factors make multi-core systems less attractive than systems based on traditional single-core processors.

For example, Sun's recently introduced Ultrasparc T1 servers have eight cores but aren't necessarily the best choice for a PC, Brookwood said.

"The T1 is wonderful for Web serving and transaction processing," said Brookwood. "But it wouldn't do well in a desktop PC because its floating point performance is marginal and there are a lot of PC applications that depend on that."

Servers are expected to be the first market for quad-core processors just as they've been for dual-core.

Intel previewed some of its plans this month in a technology demonstration of "Clovertown," a quad-core microprocessor slated to appear in servers in the first quarter of 2007.

In a demo, two of the new quad-core processors ran inside Intel's forthcoming server platform, code-named Bensley, and ran commercial and experimental software using its eight full execution cores.

Intel CTO Justin Rattner outlined a long-term research program Intel has to develop scalable, energy-efficient computing platforms using as many as 10s to 100s of cores.

Intel said in a statement that the research effort, which covers circuits, software tools and high-bandwidth networking, will "fundamentally expand what future handheld, desktop, mobile and enterprise computing platforms are capable of doing."

But AMD has been gaining server share versus Intel, thanks to systems based on its Opteron processor. The No. 2 chipmaker fully intends to continue to compete in the multi-core arena with its own quad-core release in 2007.

"In 2007 we will introduce a true quad-core design with four cores on the die and all the benefits that come with that," Randy Allen, corporate vice president of AMD's server and workstation division, told internetnews.com.

"Current workloads will see an immediate benefit with quad-core and that will only improve as the software industry works on ways to further exploit it."

Allen's reference to a "true quad-core design" is a dig at Intel. Brookwood notes that Intel has been talking about joining what he says are two intelligently-designed dual-cores into a quad-core package.

The two dual-cores communicate via the front side bus: This is in contrast to AMD's architecture, in which the processor connects directly to memory.

"Intel's approach works and is valid. I'm not going to get into whether it's a true quad-core because I don't think that's important," said Brookwood.

"But Intel does put more of a load on the front side bus and that means the performance isn't going to be as strong as it could be otherwise."

Near term, both AMD and Intel say they expect 2006 will bring a rapid transition to dual-core chips for most systems.

Intel will be revealing more details pertaining to its processor roadmap at its developer's conference March 7-9 in San Francisco.

AMD said it plans to meet with press and analysts to respond to Intel's announcements as well as tout its own plans.

Quad-Core Upgradeability of Second-Generation

UPCOMING QUAD-CORE AMD OPTERON™ PROCESSORS:
REVOLUTIONARY PERFORMANCE WITH AN EVOLUTIONARY DESIGN
Extraordinary performance and efficiency in a consistent thermal envelope, thanks to a native core design like no other.

AMD introduced the first multi-core technology for x86-based servers and workstations with the Dual-Core AMD Opteron™ processor launch in April 2005. Second-Generation AMD Opteron processors add DDR2 memory and AMD Virtualization™ to further enhance AMD’s industry leading virtualization capabilities. Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, planned for 2007, represent the next milestone in our multi-core roadmap.

While the quad-core launch is still months away, platforms that will support quad-core processing are available today. Second-Generation AMD Opteron processors with DDR2 are designed to offer seamless upgradeability to Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors. This seamless transition to quad-core computing will maintain the existing thermal infrastructure, helping leverage existing investments, and providing improvements in application performance and system performance-per-watt.

The upgrade path built into Second-Generation AMD Opteron processors is enabled by AMD64 technology with Direct Connect Architecture. We designed the AMD64 computing platform from the ground up to be optimized for multiple cores. At the heart of AMD64 is our innovative Direct Connect Architecture, which helps eliminate the bottlenecks inherent in traditional front-side bus architecture by directly connecting the processors, the memory controller, and the I/O to the central processing unit (CPU).

AMD Consumer Electronics Event in NYC

There were a couple of other devices on display at the event as well that don't fall into typical 'PC' categories. One was the Hewlett Packard TouchSmart IQ 770 and the other the HTC Advantage 7501.

The Hewlett Packard TouchSmart IQ 770 is basically a custom PC that features mobile-oriented parts like an AMD Turion 64 X2 processor and GeForce Go graphics, and a high-resolution, wide aspect touch screen, wireless input devices, a TV tuner, a webcam, a flash media reader and a custom menu driven interface that runs atop Windows Vista. The HP TouchSmart shell is designed to make the system easy for anyone to use, with oversized icons and a simple horizontal scrolling menu. If you want to access the internet for example, all you have to do is touch the internet icon on the screen; the notes menu the notes icon, and so on. The system has the ability to record and watch television programming, video conference, manage a calendar and contacts, and other related functions. The notes menu in particular was pretty cool, as it has the ability to take video or audio notes, typed notes, or even hand written notes recorded right from the touch screen. And all of the notes are displayed as post-its that can moved anywhere on the screen with the touch of a finger.

The HTC Advantage 7501 is a little harder to characterize. It's essentially a cross between a UMPC, Phone, PDA, and portable GPS. The device features and AMD Imageon processor, 8GB of flash memory, a 5" touch screen, and a built in magnetic QWERTY keyboard, GPS navigator and 3MP camera. It runs Windows Mobile 6 with Windows Media Player and has integrated WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0. It's a little too big to carry in a pocket, but the HTC Advantage 7501 is designed to fill the void between underpowered PDAs and expensive UMPCs. It should be available sometime towards the end of the summer at around $900.

Perhaps the most interesting item on display - at least to us anyway - was AMD's Phenom powered demo system. We weren't able to ascertain the clock speed or run any benchmarks, but we were still able to glean some good information about the system and CPU. The Phenom processor in this rig is installed in an AMD reference RD790 chipset-based motherboard. This motherboard features an AM2+ socket (support for higher HT link speeds and split power planes) and true, dual PCI Express x16 graphics slots. Affixed to the processor was what looked like your standard AMD PIB heatsink with an 80mm lighted fan. Throughout the entire demo, we never heard the fan spin up and it remained very quiet throughout. It wasn't throwing off a lot of heat either, so whatever the clock speed this Phenom processor was running at, it couldn't have been running all that hot.

To showcase the machine, AMD was running a beta version of John Woo's Stranglehold game, featuring Chow Yun Fat; well his likeness anyway. The game uses a modified version of the Unreal 3.0 engine in coperation with the Havok physics system. The engine is multi-threaded and designed to take advantage of multiple processor cores. As you can see in one of the pics above, all four of the cores are being utilized while the game is running. During the demo, we noticed on average about 70% of the processor's resources were being utilized with higher (or lower) spikes depending on how many objects were on screen. We say objects because most of the items in the game world, like signs, widows, propane tanks, and almost everything else for that matter, can be manipulated or damaged. Shoot a propane tank, for example, and it'll explode causing a ton of damage and throwing debris in all directions. After watching the game for a while it looked like a cross between Kingpin and Max Payne, with much better graphics than either. It had plenty of blood and gore, like Kingpin, with the third-person perspective and slo-mo bullet-time of Max Payne. Although they call it 'Tequila Time' in this game.

Over the course of the demo, representatives from AMD said a top-to-bottom line-up of desktop Phenom processors, priced competitively in the marketplace, will be available in the fourth quarter of this year. Motherboards based on the RD790-chipset will arrive sooner, from AMD / ATI's traditional board partners. Although AMD was intentionally tight lipped and wouldn't disclose specific details regarding the processor and chipset just yet, reps seemed confident in Phenom and very excided about the RD790, especially in its overclocking capabilities. One AMD rep even went so far as to say the Phenom / RD790 platform is going to "change the game". We should know that means in the next few months, so stay tuned.

AMD quad-core appears in Sun servers

Sun has released eight servers powered by AMD's new quad-core Opteron processor, giving AMD's long-awaited Barcelona chip a stronger foothold in the quad-core market.

HP, Dell and IBM had already unveiled servers using the newest Opteron processors.

After several months of delays, AMD started shipping the quad-core chips to resellers in late March, joining the quad-core market dominated by Intel.

Sun's announcement includes three new servers and upgrades of five others with the quad-core chips. The various servers are optimised for virtualisation deployments, expandability and power efficiency, and blur the lines between servers optimised for storage and servers optimised for high computational performance, according to David Simmons, Sun senior product line director.

The new servers include the Sun Fire X4140, the X4240, and X4440, all x86 boxes. Four older Sun Fire servers as well as the Sun Blade X8440 servers are being upgraded with the new Opteron chips.

The Sun Fire X4140 and X4240 have eight and 16 disk drives, respectively, and can act as mini-storage systems for database, high-performance computing, business intelligence and data warehousing applications, according to Sun.

"With extremely high I/O throughput, they can also be used as storage servers in open storage infrastructures," Sun writes in a press release.

Sun claims to offer better density and high memory capacity than its rivals. The Sun Fire X4440 and X4600 M2 are half the size of rival systems yet have comparable amounts of memory, the vendor says. Because of high memory capacity, virtualisation is ideally suited to the Sun Fire X4600 M2 and the Sun blade servers, the vendor says.

All new Sun servers are available immediately, with the exception of the Sun Fire X4600 M2, which comes out at the end of this quarter. List prices for the quad-core servers range from $2,250 for the Sun Fire X4100 M2 to $14,126 for the Sun Blade X8440.

Sun is announcing its first AMD quad-core servers a bit later than its rivals, but Simmons notes that some competitor systems announced before Sun's didn't become available until this month.

HP, for example, announced an eight-socket x86 server using quad-core Opteron processors in March, but said it wouldn't ship the system until May. Dell was selling AMD quad-core servers by April.

The Core 2 Extreme was officially released on July 29, 2006. However some retailers appeared to have released it on July 13, 2006, though at a higher premium. The less powerful E6x00 models of Core 2 Duo were scheduled for simultaneous release with the X6800, which are both available at this time. It is powered by the Conroe XE core and replaces the dual-core Pentium Extreme Edition processors. Core 2 Extreme has a clock speed of 2.93 GHz and a 1066 MHz FSB, although it was initially expected to be released with a 3.33 GHz and 1333 MHz. The TDP for this family is 75–80 watts. With SpeedStep enabled, the average temperature of the CPU when idle is essentially that of the ambient atmosphere.^[13]

At launch time, Intel's price for the Core 2 Extreme X6800 was US$999 each in quantities of 1000. Like the desktop Core 2 Duo, it has 4 MiB of shared L2 cache available. This means that the only major difference between the regular Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme is the clock speed and unlocked multiplier, usual advantages of the "Extreme Edition." The unlocked upward multiplier is of use to enthusiasts as it allows the user to set the clockspeed higher than shipping frequency without modifying the FSB unlike mainstream Core 2 Duo models which are downward unlocked only.

Processor cores

Conroe

The first Intel Core 2 Duo branded processor cores, code-named Conroe (Intel product code 80557), were launched on July 27, 2006, at Fragapalooza, a yearly gaming event in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. These processors were fabricated on 300 mm wafers using a 65 nm manufacturing process, and intended for desktop computers, as a replacement for the Pentium 4 and Pentium D branded CPUs. Intel has claimed that Conroe provides 40% more performance at 40% less power compared to the Pentium D. All Conroe processors are manufactured with 4 MB L2 cache; however, due to manufacturing defects or possibly for marketing purposes, the E6300 and E6400 versions based on this core have half their cache disabled, leaving them with only 2 MB of usable L2 cache. These Conroe-based E6300 and E6400 CPUs have the B2 stepping.

The lower end E6300 (1.86 GHz) and E6400 (2.13 GHz), both with a 1066 MT/s FSB, were released on July 27, 2006. Traditionally, CPUs of the same family with less cache simply have the unavailable cache disabled, since this allows parts that fail quality control to be sold at a lower rating. When yields improve, they may be replaced with versions that only have the cache amount needed on the die, to bring down manufacturing cost. At launch time, Intel's prices for the Core 2 Duo E6300 and E6400 processors were US$183 and US$224 each in quantities of 1000. Conroe CPUs have improved capabilities over previous models with similar processor speeds. According to reviews, the larger 4 MB L2 cache vs. the smaller 2 MB L2 cache at the same frequency and FSB can provide a 0–9% performance gain with certain applications and 0–16% performance gain with certain games.^[9][10] The higher end Conroe processors are the E6600 (2.4 GHz) and E6700 (2.67 GHz) Core 2 Duo models. The family has a 1066 MT/s front side bus, 4 MB shared L2 cache, and 65 watts TDP. These processors have been tested against AMD's then-current top performing processors (Athlon 64 FX Series), which were, until this latest Intel release, the fastest CPUs available. Conroe chips also experience much lower heat output compared to their predecessors — a benefit of the new 65 nm technology and the much more efficient microarchitecture. At launch time, Intel's prices for the Core 2 Duo E6600 and E6700 processors were US$316 and US$530, respectively, each in quantities of 1000.

E6320 and E6420 Conroe CPUs at 1.86 and 2.13 GHz respectively were launched on April 22, 2007 featuring a full 4 MB of cache and are considered Conroes.

Intel released four additional Core 2 Duo Processors on July 22, 2007. The release coincided with that of the Intel Bearlake (x3x) chipsets. The new processors are named Core 2 Duo E6540, E6550, E6750, and E6850. Processors with a number ending in "50" have a 1333 MT/s FSB. The processors all have 4 MB of L2 cache. Their clock frequency is similar to that of the already released processors with the same first two digits (E6600, E6700, X6800).^[11] An additional model, the E6540, was launched with specifications similar to the E6550 but lacking Intel Trusted Execution Technology and vPro support. These processors are slated to compete with AMD's Stars processor line and are therefore priced below corresponding processors with a 1066 MT/s FSB.^[12]

Intel has stated that the E6300 and the E6400 are Conroe CPUs with the cache disabled. Allendale core CPUs are the E4XX0 series of CPUs.

Intel Core 2 processor

Intel Core 2 processor family Logo Desktop Laptop Code-named Core Date released Code-named Core Date released Conroe
Allendale
Wolfdale dual (65 nm)
dual (65 nm)
dual (45 nm) Aug 2006
Jan 2007
Jan 2008 Merom
Penryn dual (65 nm)
dual (45 nm) Jul 2006
Jan 2008 Kentsfield
Yorkfield quad (65 nm)
quad (45 nm) Jan 2007
Mar 2008 Penryn quad (45 nm) Aug 2008*

Conroe XE
Kentsfield XE
Yorkfield XE

dual (65 nm)
quad (65 nm)
quad (45 nm) Jul 2006
Nov 2006
Nov 2007 Merom XE
Penryn XE
Penryn XE dual (65 nm)
dual (45 nm)
quad (45 nm) Jul 2007
Jan 2008
May 2008* No desktop version available Merom
Penryn solo (65 nm)
solo (45 nm) Sep 2007
May 2008*