The Nehalem Preview: Intel ROCKS the arena again !!!

[rockthegod]

Just recently, Anandtech managed to get its hands on an engineering sample of the Nehalem chip [based on a completely new micro-architecture @ 45 nm/4 Cores/8 Threads and slated to release in Q4 2008] from Intel and do some thorough benchmarking tests. The tests revealed the chip to be 20-50% faster when compared on a clock-to-clock performance with Intel's latest generation of 45 nm quad-core chips.

Due to some PCI-E performance/instability issues, gaming benchmark couldn't be done now.. but I am more than eager to find out how this thing handles Crysis when paired with the new supposed-to-be king in the graphics arena: HD 4870...

The performance exhibited by this baby is simply terrific when you take into account that these are the early builds of the chip and Intel intentionally locked the chip to a mere 2.66 GHz clock speed. As stated by Anandtech, what AMD was doing to Intel during the P4 Prescott dayz, Intel is doing the same thing to itself. Amazing what a little competition results in.... AMD must get their a$$es back on track to make this thing down....

READ THE AWESOME ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE... A MUST READ

Final Words Quote from the Article:

First keep in mind that these performance numbers are early, and they were run on a partly crippled, very early platform. With that preface, the fact that Nehalem is still able to post these 20 - 50% performance gains says only one thing about Intel's tick-tock cadence: they did it.

We've been told to expect a 20 - 30% overall advantage over Penryn and it looks like Intel is on track to delivering just that in Q4. At 2.66GHz, Nehalem is already faster than the fastest 3.2GHz Penryns on the market today. At 3.2GHz, I'd feel comfortable calling it baby Skulltrail in all but the most heavily threaded benchmarks. This thing is fast and this is on a very early platform, keep in mind that Nehalem doesn't launch until Q4 of this year.

Over six years ago I had dinner with Intel's Pat Gelsinger (back when he was Intel's CTO), and I asked him the same question I always do: "what are you excited about?" Back then his response was "threading", Intel was about to launch Hyper Threading and Pat was convinced that it was absolutely necessary for the future of microprocessors.

It was at the same dinner that Pat mentioned Intel may do a chip with an integrated memory controller much like AMD, but that an IMC wouldn't solve the problem of idle execution units - only indirectly mitigate it. With Nehalem, Intel managed to combine both - and it only took 6 years to pull it off.

Pat also brought up another very good point at that dinner. He turned to me and said that you can only integrate a memory controller once, what do you do next to improve performance? Intel has managed to keep increasing performance, but what I really want to see is what happens at the next tock. Intel proved its ability with Conroe and with Nehalem it shows that the tick-tock model can work, but more than anything looking at Nehalem today makes me excited at what Sandy Bridge will bring.

The fact that we're able to see these sorts of performance improvements despite being faced with a dormant AMD says a lot. In many ways Intel is doing more to improve performance today than when AMD was on top during the Pentium 4 days.

AMD never really caught up to the performance of Conroe, through some aggressive pricing we got competition in the low end but it could never touch the upper echelon of Core 2 performance. With Penryn, Intel widened the gap. And now with Nehalem it's going to be even tougher to envision a competitive high-end AMD CPU at the end of this year. 2009 should hold a new architecture for AMD, which is the only thing that could possibly come close to achieving competition here. It's months before Nehalem's launch and there's already no equal in sight, it will take far more than Phenom to make this thing sweat.

[hellgate]

cost wat it may i'm gonna get one of these babies as soon as they hit the shelves.

[MetalheadGautham]

AWSSSOME!

I hope for AMD's sake that it catches up, else AMD is going to get its butt kicked real hard.

[desiibond]

First thought that came to my mind is : What's gonna happen to AMD

Nehalem:

731M transistors, four cores, eight threads
integrated memory controller
New Socket 1366-pin LGA interface which means none of the current mobos will work
three 64-bit DDR3 memory channels
incompatible with LGA-775 heatsinks
Return of Hyper Threading
256kb per core L2 cache
8MB fully shared L3 cache
2 times memory read/write/copy performance.
only 10% increase in power consumption

[a_k_s_h_a_y]

Nothing big.
Only 20-40% Increase in overall performance.
Or may be 100% increase with higher ones.

But only something huge as 1000%-5000% Increase can be counted as a TRUE Break Through in Science And Technology of Computer Architecture.

[mastermunj]

now that's gonna make desktop computing a fun!!!

[desiibond]

^^ Dude. It's an early model (something like a beta release in s/w). Lot of work to be done by Intel here. Finally, when launched, it's gonna be the new performance king and beat conroe the way conroe destroyed X2.

The spec itself says it all. integrated mem contol, huge L3 cache, HT

[preshit.net]

Pretty impressive. The desktop enthusiasts have a big show for them when this comes out.

[Pathik]

It has a bit low L2 cache thoguh. But Intel knows chip-making better than us.

[azaad_shri75]

Originally Posted by Pathik

It has a bit low L2 cache thoguh. But Intel knows chip-making better than us.

dear Pathik, could you tell me the name of the book or books of Warren Buffet, I thought of pming you , as you are on line so went ahead asking here.

[dheeraj_kumar]

Awesome. Intel does it again! and again!

[dOm1naTOr]

Originally Posted by Pathik

It has a bit low L2 cache thoguh. But Intel knows chip-making better than us.

true, but nowhere near Lays nd Bingo!

[Hitboxx]

Sheesh! They raise the bar again and again, I just hope the future doesn't get monopolized for the consumer, good going Intel.

[ratedrsuperstar]

don't think any breakthrough's gonna happen till we reach 16 cores.

AMD keep making cheaper proccys than intel

[fun2sh]

holy ****!! intel FTW!!!

[x3060]

i will only buy it when it becomes cheap, too much money spend unnecessarily over computers .learned the lesson :buy cheap and save,since whatever you buy anyways get outdated in the blink of the eye.

[rockthegod]

And don't forget that it has a new socket LGA 1366.. so if you plan to upgrade to Nehalem (I'm not expecting the retail versions for performance desktops any earlier than Q1 2009), you must upgrade the motherboard too.... that will add to the cost ....

[Pathik]

Azad, get The makings of an American Capitalist - Warren Buffet.
Domi, Yea Bingo Chatkila nimbu Aachar chips ftw! Who(tf) is Intel ?

[goobimama]

I always thought AMD will get there with true native 4-core processors. Those guys had their chance. I guess its going to be only Intel from now on....

[QwertyManiac]

Originally Posted by a_k_s_h_a_y

Nothing big.
Only 20-40% Increase in overall performance.
Or may be 100% increase with higher ones.

But only something huge as 1000%-5000% Increase can be counted as a TRUE Break Through in Science And Technology of Computer Architecture.

Heh ~30% increase itself is a huge breakthrough!

Your desired statistics would only be termed extra terrestrial than a breakthrough in science

[azaad_shri75]

Originally Posted by Pathik

Azad, get The makings of an American Capitalist - Warren Buffet.

thanks Pathik, could you let me know the publisher and price of the book.