“Intel, which next week is expected to announce plans to move to a new processor architecture, is switching to a new yardstick to measure processor performance: performance per watt,” John G. Spooner reports for eWeek. “Intel Corp. is expected to detail next week at its IDF (Intel Developer Forum) a plan to begin building multicore chips with the architecture, a modified version of the circuitry behind its Pentium M notebook processor, during 2006.”
“Intel’s announcement will publicly signal an internal shift that’s already taken place. After years of promoting clock speed, it’s now emphasizing overall performance and power-efficiency,” Spooner reports. :”Intel’s shift to processor numbers and its wholesale move to multicore processors—a multicore chip includes pack two or more processor cores in one package—sealed the deal for the architectural change, as power can be a limiting factor in fitting two or more processor cores together into a single chip.”
“Chips with multiple processor cores boost PC performance versus single-core chips by splitting up jobs. ‘It’s not even so much even performance per watt as it is fitting higher performance computing into more constrained environments, either constrained by power, by [heat] or by noise or size,’ said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research Inc. Particularly for desktop PCs, ‘It’s all about attaining the maximum performance you can in an environment that, unlike in desktops of the past, now has some constraints on it. As you move to multiple-core devices, scaling the frequency higher isn’t as important as the ability to put multiple cores on a chip, anyway.’ Thus the performance-per-watt plan was born and Intel’s Israel-based processor design team, which created the Pentium M, using Intel’s P6 architecture a base, appears to have gotten the job,” Spooner reports.
Much more in the full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Intel to deliver dual-core, hyper-threaded processors ahead of schedule – August 15, 2005
Intel to announce shift to new microprocessor technology – August 12, 2005
Report: Mac OS X for Intel hacked to run on non-apple x86 PCs – August 11, 2005
DRM chip in Intel-based developer Macs prevents Mac OS X from running on non-Apple PCs – August 05, 2005
Arizona wins $3 billion Intel plant – July 27, 2005
Apple joins Intel at Carnegie Mellon – July 26, 2005
Intel to renovate desktop processor line in 2006 with transition from 90 nm to 65 nm – July 15, 2005
Apple to use Intel microprocessors beginning in 2006, all Macs to be Intel-based by end of 2007 – June 06, 2005
Looks like Apple was Intel’s dream come true. Apple knows how to design around a chip, and now Intel has a partner that won’t hold them back in chip design. Steve probably told them to go for the gold standard. We can rest assured that the cutting edge chips won’t be residing in any dull boxes for $499.
Now, this is what Intel showed Steve Jobs that made him take the final decision of migrating to Intel’s processors.
I don’t know about you, but the little fear/shame/dissapointment/left-in-the-dark/I-don’t-know-what sensation I felt in my heart with the Intel migration announcement at the WWDC’05 has dissapeared entirely.
Citing an ’80s song by Timbuktu:
“the future’s so bright… I got to wear shades”
fef – Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
So, the Megahertz Myth is dead?? Woo hoo!
Btw, that eweek page took ages to load up… too many crap ads I think (despite the command-. to stop them!). Looks like they might have been Java based too. Yea, yea, maybe i should get a 3rd party ad blocker… but still… it’s ridiculous it takes so long with fast net connection and computer.
“performance per watt” Where have I heard that before? Hmm…I can think of at least one OS/hardware maker that will be using these chips within a year….
So, the Megahertz Myth is dead?? Woo hoo
—
Not in the hearts and minds of ignorant PC users .. but at least Intel’s got their shit in order
I wonder if their chips are kosher.
Nice enough, but how is Intel going to measure the “performance” part? Thruput/bits-per-second? Instructions per second? Windows spyware load capacity?
<<So, the Megahertz Myth is dead?? Woo hoo
—
Not in the hearts and minds of ignorant PC users .. but at least Intel’s got their shit in order>>
Intel created the clock speed measurement standard. Now, because their chips will be installed in nearly 95% of CPUs, their Performance Per Watt (PPW) measurement will become the new standard.
All they have to do is not release the clock speed of their new chips and focus on the PPW. It won’t take long, even for the technically ignorant, to adopt it.
Intel is being unshackled from the limitations set by MSFT, and me thinks they are loving it. I am too.
how about “performance per $$$ spent”.
what´s 99% of the people going to do with better performance?
download their porn faster? hmmmm….that would just take a faster internet connection….
what´s 99% of the people going to do with better performance?
download their porn faster? hmmmm….that would just take a faster internet connection….
Because no one will ever need more than 640 kb of memory, right?
From Apples’ security page..
>The Mac OS X default configuration, in contrast, guards against shady characters who can so easily taking control of your system.>
Where are they having their documentation written? China?
I always cross the street when an umlaut approaches… and always make sure to lock my doors whenever the accent graves are roaming the streets.
What’s this about splitting up Jobs?
I’m waiting for an apology from all those bloggers/analysts/pundits who accused Apple of lying about the reasons for the switch. Or blamed Apple’s misbehavior for turning off IBM.
Apple gave it to you straight but you couldn’t believe it.
Come on now, you know who you are… Come on say it, repeat after me: performance per watt. performance per watt.
The megahertz myth died a long time ago. AMD killed it off when their procs started beating Intels. AMD can run at half the gigs of an Intel and still beat Intels best by a significant percentage. But what do you guys know of x86 architecture? You’ve put it down and ignored it for years until Jobs says, “Hey, lets go to Intel!”. Now that you’re done peeing yer pants over the switch, you think you know x86. Intel is just copying what AMD did years ago!
I wonder if their chips are kosher.
I don’t know if I’d feel good about CPUs that were blessed by rabbis…
My how things change quickly.
everyone one of you clowns was calling Intel chips the devil’s sperm just a few months ago.
now everybody LOVES intel. woohoo.
gerbils… lol.
“I’m waiting for an apology from all those bloggers/analysts/pundits who accused Apple of lying about the reasons for the switch. Or blamed Apple’s misbehavior for turning off IBM. “
I’m Sorry
©
inaminit: I still think the PowerPC architecture is better than the x86 architecture.
Intel, however, has proven how good they are by managing to maintain comparable performance despite the architectural disadvantages. (And AMD is even better at it.) From the Mac side looking over, it was disheartening to see Intel and AMD pull it off time and again.
Both Motorola/Freescale and IBM have been disappointing in improving PowerPC CPU chips. The G5 was a ray of hope but both companies have squandered the initial power consumption/dissipation advantage of the PowerPC by not doing anything to maintain it as CPU speeds increased.
And now, given the importance of mobility (portables are the growth sector) and the improvements wrought by the Pentium M (and Intel’s Israel team) in performance per watt, Intel looks to have broken through while IBM and Freescale stagnate.
Strategy:
Agree with a lot of what you’re saying. Performance per watt is the reason I’ve used AMD chips in the last three computers I’ve built.
I remember when I first started studing CPU archatecture back in the ’80’s, Motorola had a good lead over Intel when it came to building a better chip. I don’t know where or when they lost it, if they ever really did, but AMD proved some years ago that merely measuring megahertz didn’t prove a better chip. Just look at the Opteron compared to Intel’s dual core offering to see what I mean.
RePlay says: “Looks like Apple was Intel’s dream come true. Apple knows how to design around a chip, and now Intel has a partner that won’t hold them back in chip design. Steve probably told them to go for the gold standard. We can rest assured that the cutting edge chips won’t be residing in any dull boxes for $499.”
This is just so much drivel. How many times does it need to be said? THESE ‘RECENT REPORTS’ ABOUT INTEL’S IMPENDING ARCHITECTURE SHIFT IS OLD NEWS. BASING THEIR ENTIRE CPU LINE ON THEIR ISRAELI LAB’S WORK WITH PIII HAS BEEN IN THE PIPELINE FOR YEARS – AS LONG AS AMD HAS BEEN KICKING THEIR ASSES VS. NETBURST IN EVERY PERFORMANCE MEASURE THAT MATTERS – AND APPLE JUMPING ON BOARD HAS ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING ON THE MATTER.
Strategy says: “Both Motorola/Freescale and IBM have been disappointing in improving PowerPC CPU chips. The G5 was a ray of hope but both companies have squandered the initial power consumption/dissipation advantage of the PowerPC by not doing anything to maintain it as CPU speeds increased.”
Utter bull. Freescale AND IBM recently announced the availability of both dual core AND (in the case of G5/970FX) low power versions of the PPC CPUs they make. This announcement came right after Apple claimed both companies were dissing them, and that was why there was ‘no choice’ but to move to Intel (not better performing AMD, but Intel). Now, I’m sure the IBM/Freescale announcement was made primarily to prove that Apple’s protests were, in fact, not credible. However, none of the serious tech sites that I’ve been reading have said that either company is full of hot air, so I have to believe that these CPU upgrades are ready and willing to be used. And if past performace is any indicator, I also have to believe that they will at least be the equal of Intel’s offerings on the x86 side.
The reason Apple went to Intel x86 is because of DRM, pure and simple. Jobs couldn’t get the media companies to loosen their grip on video content, for future Apple video focused devices and software, until he agreed to tie everything the company made to Intel based DRM chips (the preferred technology of these companies). It was a play for Jobs to dominate of a new video market, in the same way Apple dominates audio, and has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH MAKING BETTER, HIGHER PERFORMING COMPUTERS.
Anyone who belives that x86 somehow, magically became the future of computing now that Intel is going (BACK, for chrissakes) to PIII technology is smoking kool-aid powder in a pipe. This is all about money – in this case, in the hope of making a shitload at the expense of making better computers, not in the ineterest of making better computers. Soon, PPC based OSX machines will be the collectors items of choice on eBay, simply because they will still be the best Macs anyone can buy for the next few years (until Macintel, finally, catches up).
Now HERE’s a real look at a CPU roadmap worth talking about:
http://news.com.com/Cell+companion+chip+gets+hot+demo/2100-1006_3-5833453.html
If you are a real fan of the Mac platform, and not just a Mac Fanboy, you can only read something like this with a tear in your eye. Jobs sold us all down the river, for a hellish DRM dominated future. So no more of this self delusional talk about how great Macintel is going to be. It’s gonna suck. We’ll have marginally better laptops for about a year. Then AMD will pull ahead in the ‘Performance Per Watt’ measure, as they are in all the others. That, plus the ever more obvious advantages of the PPC based Cell, and we’ll all be wondering what made so many of us stupid to believe that Intel x86 was ever a good idea … and why Job’s tied us all to such a turkey.
Performance per What?
Sorry could not resist.
Does an editor at this site actually READ the copy presented here? Perhaps its just getting a feed from another web site, but come on. How many extra words and and typos can you find in the following sentence alone? I found two, but its early and I’ve not had any coffee yet so I could be low.
“:”Intel’s shift to processor numbers and its wholesale move to multicore processors—a multicore chip includes pack two or more processor cores in one package—sealed the deal for the architectural change, as power can be a limiting factor in fitting two or more processor cores together into a single chip.””
It doesn’t make macdailynews.com look too sharp…