Intel Core 2 Quadro

[keithwalton]

Kentsfield aka Core 2 Quadro isnt far away now! Engineering samples have been floating around for some time, and a new batch has recently been doing the rounds. It seems this chip is ready to go as the mid-october time frame has been mooted as a release date. Now this is really dragging the chip kicking and screaming into life.
It was originally slated for Q1 2007 and it was only a few weeks ago that this became Q4 2006 and now it would appear that its early Q4 2006 at that!

I do wonder if Intel's launch will coincide with amds ramp to 65nM ? do amd have there quad core waiting in the wings as a suprise counter measure or are intel just getting ready and putting more pressure on there rival.

As intel are being far from quiet about there cpu releases these days.

The kentsfield chip isnt all that revolutionairy after all its two conroe's packaged together on one substrate. Intel of course have plenty of experience in doing this before with the presler 'double core' cpu.

Early benchmarks suggest it is indeed quick but not without its faults. Mainly due to the fact its 4 cpus but two, 4 meg l2 caches. Where the conroe chips can share its cache with the other cpu it seems in quad core windows can get confused and assign cores 1 and 3 to work together.

This is lower performance than if it was the cores 1 and 2 which are both part of the same silicon.

This is goes back to the old 840EE chip which had two real chips and two virtual hyperthreading chips.

Back then windows was easily confused and would assign tasks to sub optimal cpus.

Other details of the chip are that it should be a direct swap in for c2d chips on intel 965 and 975x chipset based boards and that the TDP is around 130w. Exactly double that of the E6700.

The engineering samples so far have been stock clocked to 2.66GHz the same as an E6700. Most have been able to overclock them to around 3.33GHz however, at which speed they smash all speed records going. Scoring some 5000 marks on the cpu test of 3d mark 06

Edit - It was 3dmark 06.

Comparison table here, http://images.tomshardware.com/2006/.../3dm06-cpu.png

The following link shows just what the 'core' cpu can do in terms of sse instructions
http://images.tomshardware.com/2006/...ia_integer.png

[cloasters]

Ai yai yai, more to keep me confused. Perhaps these quad core CPU's will bring the price of the Core Duos down a bit?

[Gizmo]

http://www.aoaforums.com/forum/images/frontpage.gif

[Áedán]

What happens when all four cores need to use the memory bus?

[cloasters]

They wait at the stop for the next available bus, like disciplined commuters.

[z3speed4me]

what the heck are we expecting these things to cost???

[keithwalton]

The top of the line extreme edition is set to be a direct replacement for the current x6800. I think there aim is for it to clock at the same 2.93GHz and cost the same $999 but just be twice the cpu for the money.

They may clock it a little slower but the current test chips are at 2.66GHz which is the same as the early conroe samples that then became the 2nd highest chip in the line the e6700

[cloasters]

$999. Pshaw, a mere bagatelle.

[cloasters]

Actually, I was toying with $333 for a E6600. Seems like enough money and processor, at least for me.

[bradmax57]

Originally Posted by cloasters

Actually, I was toying with $333 for a E6600. Seems like enough money and processor, at least for me.

for $333 id say its a bargain the performance it gives is outstanding

[cloasters]

It truly bites that Brits have to pay more for the same components we get for less. Is it because the UK is a smaller market? Naah, I bet it's greed.

[keithwalton]

Nope its EU / UK import taxes and general shipping everything from the far east to the USA then back to the uk. For a while as well the $ was treated the same as the £ in terms of price equality, though its $1.87 to £1 today.

for $333 that is a bargain, its ~£215 here and is also a bargain!