Core i9 Engineering Sample Shows 6-Core Power

[topgear]

Early Gulftown engineering sample previewed.

Polish computer site PCLab managed to secure an engineering sample of an Intel chip manufactured on the Westmere 32nm process, containing six-cores and 12MB of L3. Yes, it certainly looks like Gulftown – the codename for what likely will end up being marketed as Core i9.

Despite Gulftown not being officially supported yet the testers managed to get Gulftown to work on three boards: Gigabyte EX58-Extreme, ASUS Rampage II Gene and ASUS P6T SE, thanks to the chip using LGA 1366 socket. Of course, the BIOSes for the motherboards weren't optimized for Gulftown just yet, so there were some performance issues – particularly in the memory department.

Overall, test results showed that Gulftown performs as many would hope it would with an extra two Hyperthreaded cores. Multithreaded applications saw impressive gains thanks to the bump in 50 percent greater number of cores.

The early benchmarks show a very impressive chip from the Westmere family that we'll be seeing in 2010. Check out PCLab for the full preview.







http://pclab.pl/art39718.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/gul...ests,9152.html

[desiibond]

goddamn it. three times the power of Phenom II at only 15W extra load. Insanely cool

[tarzan007]

damn awesome, cant wait to get my hands on it

[asingh]

And now the i7 - 1366 is OLD.
Heck.......!

[desiibond]

how many pins will i9 have? My wild guess is "2012"

if I am right this core i9 should work with X58 and LGA1366

[asingh]

Well I guess this is a good summary. Yes the i9, will be the 1366 socket/X58 chipset. (Hopefully). Great upgrade path for the i7.

Interestingly look at the 32nm process, with a whooping 12MB cache.


*Image courtesy Overclock.net


*Image courtesy Overclock.net

6x2 threads can go in at the same time for processing. Is that hyper threading or crazy threading....!!!!

Hope the 2xQPI does not start to bottleneck.

[topgear]

Intel is going to stay as the performance monster .....

I think core i5 will obsolete pretty soon if intel is going to cut down the prices of core i7 after the release of core i9.

[tkin]

Originally Posted by topgear

Intel is going to stay as the performance monster .....

I think core i5 will obsolete pretty soon if intel is going to cut down the prices of core i7 after the release of core i9.

The review is removed from the source site, apparently intel wants to hold the reviews back, the retail CPU may provide even better results.

[asingh]

^^ The 32nm wafers should OC like crazy.

Yea...!

[tkin]

Originally Posted by asigh

^^ The 32nm wafers should OC like crazy.

Yea...!

Where's the world at?? nVidia and AMD struggling to get by 40nm(with less than 50% yields fro TSMC, and Global foundries doing 65nm or stuff) and Intel has working 32nm ready, if I was AMD then instead of getting the 1b dollar from Intel I would get their 45nm/32nm process tech.

[asingh]

^^ Intel can really push it. Seriously. No matter how much we rant and criticize the marketing practices of Intel. Hats off to them, for bringing better and newer technology to our door steps so quickly.

How has Intel managed to get good yields, and not the GPU companies. Of course the chip design is different. But I still wonder...

[tkin]

Originally Posted by asigh

^^ Intel can really push it. Seriously. No matter how much we rant and criticize the marketing practices of Intel. Hats off to them, for bringing better and newer technology to our door steps so quickly.

How has Intel managed to get good yields, and not the GPU companies. Of course the chip design is different. But I still wonder...

Well the reason is surely the intel Fabs, currently the only two Fabs that nVidia/AMD can use is TSMC and GF, GF is stuck @ 65nm till 2012 when they jump to 32nm instead, and TSMC's whole 40nm node is POS, yields are less that 50%, thanks to them 5970,5870 and even 5850 has turned into a paper launch in US where the demand is high, if intel bought nVidia then no doubt Fermi would hit the shelves Q1 2009, and prototype boards would have come to attention as early as 2008, just like Gulftown.

[asingh]

^^
You mean Intel has it owns plants to diffuse the cores..?

[tkin]

Originally Posted by asigh

^^
You mean Intel has it owns plants to diffuse the cores..?

Of coarse, they produce their own cores, while AMD, nVidia is fabless and relies on TSMC or other fabs.
From Intel:

How many factories do you have worldwide, where are they located and what percentage of your workforce do they employ?
Intel has 15 wafer fabs in production worldwide at nine locations. Fab production sites within the United States are located in Chandler, Ariz.; Santa Clara, Calif.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Hudson, Mass.; Rio Rancho, N.M.; and Hillsboro, Ore.; and outside the United States in Leixlip, Ireland; Jerusalem, Israel; and Kiryal Gat, Israel. Two new fabs are under construction at existing sites in Arizona and Israel.

The company has six assembly and test sites worldwide and is building a seventh, all of them outside the U.S. Assembly and test sites outside the United States are located in Shanghai, China; Chengdu, China; San Jose, Costa Rica; Kulim, Malaysia; Penang, Malaysia; and Cavite, Philippines. An assembly and testing site in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is under construction. There is one testing facility and one assembly development facility inside the U.S.

About half of Intel’s total workforce is involved in production or production services.


What is the difference between a fabrication facility (fab) and an assembly and test facility?
Intel produces the silicon for its high-performance microprocessors, chipsets and flash memory components in fabs. After the silicon-based products are created, they are sent to Intel's assembly and test facilities where each wafer is cut into individual silicon dies, placed within external packages, and tested for functionality.

[asingh]

^^
Gosh. Never knew this. Wow. Thanks Tkin.
This clearly shows the advantage Intel has over other SC companies. Shoot....!

[tkin]

Originally Posted by asigh

^^
Gosh. Never knew this. Wow. Thanks Tkin.
This clearly shows the advantage Intel has over other SC companies. Shoot....!

Not really, except nVidia and AMD all most all have fabs, Toshiba and samsung trail intel closely behind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicon...eaders_by_year

[ssk_the_gr8]

Originally Posted by tkin

, GF is stuck @ 65nm till 2012 when they jump to 32nm instead,

ok how are u sayin this?
give me a source... cuz the last time i checked GF is doing 45 nm( heard of Phenom II CPU's) & they plan to do mass production of 32/28 nm in 2010.. go check out there website

dude just dont say whatever that comes to your mind

[tkin]

Originally Posted by ssk_the_gr8

ok how are u sayin this?
give me a source... cuz the last time i checked GF is doing 45 nm( heard of Phenom II CPU's) & they plan to do mass production of 32/28 nm in 2010.. go check out there website

dude just dont say whatever that comes to your mind

I always check my sources:

Fabrication facilities
Fab 1

Fab 1, located in Dresden, Germany is a 364,512 m² plant. When transferred to Globalfoundries in its inception, Fab 36 and Fab 38 were renamed Module 1 and Module 2, respectively. Each module can produce 25,000 wafers per month. [2]

Module 1 is a 300-mm wafer production facility. It is capable of manufacturing wafers at 65 nm and 45 nm for use in AMD CPUs, APUs, and future 32-nm SOI silicon.

Module 2 is in a transition period, converting from 200-mm to 300-mm wafer production for 55 nm and 40 nm for use in chipsets, GPUs, and future 32-nm bulk silicon.
Fab 2

Fab 2, located in Luther Forest Technology Campus, Saratoga County, New York is a new 300 mm Fab. This fabrication plant was previously named Fab 4x when it was still part of AMD. It is going to be a new 28 nm wafer plant. The plant's construction is set to begin sometime in 2009 and the company expects to start mass production in 2012. [3]

The fab 1, as currently operating has two modules, one is in transition phase and the other in production of 65 and 45nm parts, according to some reports the working module produces the large amount of 45nm parts(aka Phenom) but bear in mind amd still produces chipsets and they are 65nm nodes. Although some chipset production(790G) is done on TSMC rather than glofo.

That last post was a typo, I admit but the point I was trying to make was in terms of process tech, intel is one gen ahead of amd(glofo).

[ssk_the_gr8]

790fx.... and all the 7 series chipsets are 55nm.... i guess the 600 series must be 65nm
anyway glofo plan to do 32 nm in 2010 in dresden itself..not in 2012

and where's the link to the source?

[topgear]

Originally Posted by tkin

The review is removed from the source site, apparently intel wants to hold the reviews back, the retail CPU may provide even better results.

Yup, I know that the review was removed from the source site - actually got to know before posting in here while I was checking every link

I second your prediction - the retail cpu will provide better results and I think intel will introduce a new chipset along with their 32nm performance monster say x68 - anyone ?

[tkin]

Originally Posted by ssk_the_gr8

790fx.... and all the 7 series chipsets are 55nm.... i guess the 600 series must be 65nm
anyway glofo plan to do 32 nm in 2010 in dresden itself..not in 2012

and where's the link to the source?

Wikipaedia, look up global foundries, and amd 790 chipsets.

And yes, partly, 790FX, 790X, are 65nm, others from 790 and 785, 780 are 55nm all made in TSMC, I think some older 600 series is made in glofo.