Intel did it again!

Not so much time ago Intel seriously cut prices on its processors. And now Intel repeat its move. Great price cut on quad-core processors bring them much closer to the consumers.

Intel: We will produce foreign documents in AMD antitrust case

by Nate Anderson

Though not yet stretching to the epic lengths of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, the AMD v. Intel antitrust lawsuit has been going for well over a year and is still mired in arguments about what materials will be allowed in the discovery phase of the trial. One of those arguments has just been settled as Intel has bowed to the decision of the case's special master, Vince Poppiti, and agreed to release documents about its foreign business practices.

In a letter to Judge Joseph Farnan, Intel's law firm says that the company will not be filing any objections to the special master's report. "While Intel obviously had hoped for a different outcome regarding discovery, Intel of course will comply with the Special Master's decision and will respond to discovery as the Special Master directs," said the letter, though it also noted that Poppiti was not making any claims about the admissibility of any evidence uncovered during discovery.

AMD has accused Intel of violating antitrust law by giving out cash payments or using discriminatory pricing in order to keep AMD from making any gains in the CPU market. AMD filed its lawsuit last year in federal court, though it suffered a setback in early 2006 when the judge ruled that US courts have no jurisdiction over Intel's alleged anticompetitive actions outside the US.

Intel wanted the judge to rule that this meant AMD should only be restricted to US information during discovery. AMD argued that it should be allowed to look for evidence in any part of Intel's business so long as the alleged offenses took place in the US, and Poppiti agreed earlier this month.

(c) www.arstechnica.com

Intel Pentium 4 Prescott costs just $70 Or grab a Prescott Celeron for $47

 by Fuad Abazovic

US CPU prices today look realistic even compared to the mainland China consumer market.

The cheapest Core 2 Duo 6300 clocked at 1.86GHz LGA 775 Processor retail will cost only $183 retail. This boy can be heavily overclocked even with air cooling, some say to 2.6GHz or beyond.

But compared to other deals this is ultra expensive. You can get an Intel Celeron D 326 Prescott 2.53GHz LGA 775 for $47 only. This baby will be significantly slower but it is a quarter the price of a Core 2 Duo.

Intel's Pentium 4 511 2.8GHz LGA 775 RoHS version processor costs $70 retail. If you want a Pentium 4, a dual-core Intel Pentium D 805 Smithfield at 2.66GHz LGA 775 processor (Model HH80551PE0672MN OEM version) you will need to spend $89.

The Vista upgrade market can only be super-thrilled and happy as less than $100 bucks will get you a decent CPU.

All of these details are here so go and make your Yule. Newegg might even ship it to you before Yule Monday

(c) www.theinquirer.net

New Core 2 Processors Around the Corner

Intel's roadmap adds more quad-core and value dual-core in the pipeline

It’s been a while since Intel last made notable updates to its desktop processor roadmap. Last month DailyTech revealed Intel is expected to launch a variety of new Core 2 Duo and Pentium E 2100 processors including refreshed Conroe based products next year. Intel’s latest desktop roadmap reveals more new processors and removes some previously reported models.

 

Intel is expected to release its first mainstream quad-core Core 2 Quad Q6600 early next year. The processor is still on track for a Q1’2007 launch with an $851 per-unit in 1,000 unit quantities price tag. While this may seem a bit steep, Intel is expected to cut the price of the Core 2 Quad 6600 down to $530 per-unit in 1,000 unit quantities when Q2’2007 rolls around.

The Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 won’t be the only one in the Core 2 Quad family though. Somewhere between Q2’2007 to Q3’2007 Intel will add one more member to its Core 2 Quad family. This will arrive as the Core 2 Quad Q6400. The Core 2 Quad Q6400 will be clocked at 2.13 GHz and operate on a 1066 MHz front-side bus. It will have an 8MB L2 cache with support for Intel VT, Enhanced Intel Speedstep, Intel EM64T and NX bit technologies.

 

Moving onto the dual-core product roadmap Intel has made a few changes to its latest roadmap. Gone from the latest roadmap is the Core 2 Duo E6390 which was essentially a Core 2 Duo E6400 with Intel VT and vPro extensions disabled. The previously reported Intel Core 2 Duo E6650 has been renamed in the latest roadmap. The latest roadmap has renamed the Core 2 Duo E6650 to Core 2 Duo E6550. Aside from the naming changes it remains a 1333 MHz front-side bus processor clocked at 2.33 GHz.

Previous roadmaps have indicated that 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo processors will be available next year as well. Currently, this remains unchanged.

New to this roadmap are new Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 and E6320 processors. These processors are clocked at 2.13 GHz and 1.86 GHz like the Core 2 Duo E6400 and E6300. However, the Core 2 Duo E6420 and E6320 will have 4MB of L2 cache instead of the 2MB found on the Core 2 Duo E6400 and E6300. The two processors are expected to launch in Q2’2007. Pricing for the Core 2 Duo E6420 and E6320 will be $183 and $163 in 1,000 unit quantities respectively.

 

Since the Core 2 Duo E6420 and E6320 are endowed with 4MB of L2 cache this leaves room for the new Core 2 Duo E4x00 series processors. It was previously reported the Core 2 Duo E4x00 series was expected to have two models—the Core 2 Duo 4400 and 4200. However the roadmap has changed and the Core 2 Duo E4200 has been scrapped. Nevertheless in place of the Core 2 Duo E4200 is a new E4300. The Core 2 Duo E4300 is clocked at 1.8 GHz on an 800 MHz front-side bus. It’s expected to launch late January with pricing starting at $163 in 1,000 unit quantities. The Core 2 Duo E4300 is expected to have a one year life cycle with a product discontinuance notice expected in Q4’2007 and reach end-of-life in Q1’2008.

Joining the Core 2 Duo E4300 will be the Core 2 Duo E4400. The Core 2 Duo E4400 is expected to arrive in Q2’2007. It will be clocked at 2.0 GHz and priced at $133 in 1,000 unit quantities. With the launch of the Core 2 Duo E4300 in Q2’2007, Intel is expected to slash prices on the Core 2 Duo E4300 down to $113 in 1,000 unit quantities.

(c) www.dailytech.com

What's next for AMD?

by Jon Stokes

In a series of announcements and conference calls, culminating in a recent analyst meeting, AMD has been slowly revealing pieces of the big picture regarding where they plan to take their platforms in the coming years. I've been following the coverage, and I've put together a synthesis of it below.

Fusion and Torrenza: die-level vs. board-level

AMD's long-term plan appears to go as follows. First, they'll push Torrenza as a platform for doing board-level integration with specialized coprocessors. This way, system builders will have the option of tailoring systems to particular workloads by changing the mix of processors that inhabit the coherent HyperTranspoort sockets on a motherboard.

So for instance, for a four-socket motherboard, one customer may want two stream processors and two multicore general-purpose processors (i.e., Opteron or Athlon), while another may want one Java + XML coprocessor and three multicore general-purpose processors. Thus, system builders can mix and match to get the best performance per watt per dollar for the type of workload that their customers typically run.

Fusion and die-level integration

AMD also plans to do the same type of mix-and-match strategy at the level of the processor die by offering an array of heterogeneous multicore parts that fit different workloads. A "quad-core" processor from AMD might have two general-purpose cores and two specialized processor cores (e.g., a stream processor and a Java + XML coprocessor), one general-purpose core and three specialized cores, and so on. AMD refers to these specialized computing cores as application processing units (APUs), and they plan to develop an array of such application-specific, modularly designed cores that can be dropped onto a die and fabbed with minimal cost.

In addition to modular processor cores that can be mixed and matched to suit different application types, AMD also plans to make other parts of the processor modular, as well. Specifically, the processor will host one or more HyperTransport modules and other I/O interfaces, a memory controller, different levels and amounts of cache, and so on.

All of this die-level mixing and matching goes by the name of Fusion, with the result that Fusion and Torrenza are essentially the same idea, but at the die level and board level respectively.

AMD would like to use the Fusion/Torrenza combo to escape an n-core race with Intel. When you consider the fact that Intel's approach to the nascent n-core race, in which the company starts out with package-level integration before moving to die-level integration, leaves them perpetually ahead of AMD in terms of cores-per-socket, it's easy to see why AMD doesn't want an n-core race to replace the MHz race.

So will AMD's flexible, mix-and-match, Fusion/Torrenza approach beat Intel's brute-force multicore approach over the medium term? It's really hard to say at this point, but the question is worth thinking about from a historical perspective.

Integration and reincarnation

To understand the ebb and flow of the modern (post-integrated circuit) history of computing, you need to know three fundamental rules that govern the evolution of computing systems:

1. Moore's Law: die-level integration is cheaper than board-level integration, and it gets ever cheaper as transistors shrink.
   
2. The abstraction vs. specialization tradeoff: modularity and abstraction can be cheaper (depending on the amount of overhead involved), but specialization is almost always faster.
   
3. Sutherland's "wheel of reincarnation": generally speaking, it's cheaper to do things with a combination of software and general-purpose hardware than it is to do them with specialized hardware, but sometimes the market demands faster instead of cheaper (see Rule #2). So functionality will move from the processor die to a dedicated coprocessor for speed's sake, and then back on to the processor die when the coprocessor becomes bloated with features and too expensive.

Let me take these three rules one at a time, and discuss their implications for AMD's overall strategy.

Rule #1 above may not look like the traditional formulation of Moore's Law, but if you've read my article on Moore's Law then you know that the traditional formulation doesn't look much like what Moore actually said. In fact, I think that my formulation here actually captures Moore's larger point, which was a point about the economics of integration, than does the traditional "transistor densities double every 18 months" phrase.

At any rate, this rule is the number one factor working against AMD's QuadFX initiative, which is basically a pitch to sell board-level integration using coherent HyperTransport and PCIe. The overwhelming economic advantages of die-level integration will forever relegate platforms that rely on board-level integration to more specialized niches. These specialized niches are profitable, but the really huge money is in the mass market, and the mass market has an endless appetite for die-level integration.

So the result of rule #1 for AMD's grand strategy is that Torrenza is a niche server/workstation technology, while Fusion could be used in everything from the high end of the market all the way down to mobile devices. The economics of microprocessors dictate that this is and will always be the case.

Rule #2 may mean that Fusion-based parts are generally slower and cheaper than whatever kind of specialized hardware that Intel is producing at the moment. I say this, because Fusion's basic idea of a library of modular functional blocks that are mixed and matched for different implementations seems to imply the heavy use of automated layout tools, with less process- and clockspeed-friendly customization. So the question for Fusion is, how much performance- and profit-killing overhead is implied in the modular design, and is the tradeoff worth it in terms of cost?

My point here is that the main way that Fusion is interesting is as a way to do performance per dollar (and per watt), and not raw performance. Note that this characterization is as true for servers as it is for, say, mobile phones. Leaving coprocessors on the system board (i.e., Torrenza) will probably make for better raw performance in most cases.

The other, closely related issue with such modular designs (software or hardware) is that they're forward-looking, with the idea being that an up-front investment in modularity and flexiblity will pay off over a projected long term scenario in which flexibility is important. But what if flexibility turns out not to be very important? Specifically, what if there are really only two or three types of functionality that will ever be worth putting on a processor die?

Put differently, AMD has pitched this idea of an APU as a sort of placeholder, and invited all of us to imagine many different types of specialized coprocessors that people will want to put on the CPU die. To help jump-start our imaginations, they've offered up the GPU as an example of functionality that's headed for the processor die in the very near future. Then, they have a few more minor, "hey, someone might do this" examples, like Java + XML processors and physics processors. But what if it turns out to be the case that the GPU—or, rather, a generic stream processor—is really the only specialized kind of coprocessor that's worth putting on the CPU die for the forseeable future? What if it turns out that there's essentially no such thing as an "APU," because in the real world all "APUs" are just stream processors?

This last point brings me to rule #3, the wheel of reincarnation. Sutherland's original observation that functionality moves back and forth between the main microprocessor and specialized, off-die hardware was originally made with respect to graphics processing. And indeed, graphics processing is really the only domain I can think of where the observation has consistently held true. So it's not insane to think that GPU functionality is ultimately the only thing that will continue to make that transition.

But maybe I'm wrong, and there are other specialized coprocessors that could profitably make the jump onto the CPU die. (Notice the word "profitably," because I'm sure there are some that could do so unprofitably, where the market wouldn't reward the time spent developing and implementing it.) If you can think of some other examples, post them in the discussion thread.

(c) www.arstechnica.com

A peek at Intel's upcoming roadmap

by Jon Stokes

Two new rumors offer a peek at what's in the cards for Intel in 2007 and 2008. First up is a rumor from HKPEC that fleshes out the picture of the bottom end of Intel's lineup that has been emerging over the past few months. Specifically, we can now add more details of single-core Merom-based parts to what we've already heard about the single-core Conroe-L.

Previously, news had leaked out about a Merom-based Celeron M 520, which is supposed to be launched in January. (The brains of the rumored MacBook Thin, perhaps?) The new rumor brings news of a Celeron M 523 (933MHz) that will come out later in the year. This part, like the other Merom-based single core parts, is a 65nm Socket M part with a TDP of 5W.

Also fitting those same socket and TDP specs are two other Merom-based parts that will go under the "Core 2 Solo" moniker. These will sport higher clockspeeds and be sold under the U2100 (1.2GHz) and U2200 (1.06GHz) names. The Core 2 Solo parts are also due out in Q3 of 2007.

The news that these parts will be branded as "Core 2 Solo" makes me wonder if there's any truth to previously reported rumors that the single-core Conroe-L will be sold under the venerable Pentium brand name. Why would Intel revive the Pentium brand for single-core Conroe, while shipping single-core Meroms under the Core 2 Solo and Celeron brands?

In other Intel rumor news, VR-zone claims to have seen a roadmap that puts Intel past the 4GHz barrier in 2008. The chip that will break the barrier is allegedly the quad-core Bloomfield processor. Bloomfield has long been rumored to be a 45nm design that will use Intel's long-delayed common systems interconnect (CSI)—an answer to coherent HyperTransport that will also host the Itanium product family. Bloomfield is also a true quad-core part, in that all four cores sit on the same die and share an L2 cache.

I don't think that the 4GHz rumor sounds particularly implausible, given current clockspeeds on the 65nm process. However, I do wonder about part of the rumor that says they'll do it in the 130W power envelope.

(c) www.arstechnica.com