Intel Shows Off at Developer Forum - Quad Core Trade offs
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Intel seems particularly pleased that its quad core processors will be arriving on the market many months ahead of AMD's quad cores, which aren't due until the middle of next year. Whether it has a right to be pleased is another question. The two companies are taking very different approaches to getting four cores on one chip.
Intel is putting two dual-core chips together to produce its quad core processor. Kentsfield, the Core2 Extreme quad core processor, is made up of two Conroe chips, while Clovertown, the Xeon 5300, uses two Woodcrest chips. AMD, however, is going to put four processing cores on just one slice of silicon.
Intel's approach does have its advantages, and one of those is being first. Steve Smith, director of group operations in Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, pointed out that "We expect to ship very large volumes of quad-core in servers before we expect our competitors to ship any." Smith cited other advantages. Since the company can use the same chips for either dual core or quad core products, it's easier to match the product mix to the market. Its yields are also higher. "We have over a 20 percent increase in good quad cores per wafer by picking the two-die multichip package approach. That translates into cost savings for Intel of at least 10 percent in manufacturing cost," Smith explained.
AMD believes this is the wrong approach. It thinks Intel's chips will overheat too easily (Prescott, anyone?), cause computer communication bottlenecks, and force Intel's road maps to become overly complex. And it has a point, at least with the heat and power factor. For example, if you start with two Woodcrest chips that normally consume 65 watts, you end up with a Clovertown chip that consumes 80 watts. If your two Woodcrests consume 80 watts, the Clovertown they become will consume 120 watts.
Intel does plan to address the power issue, however. The Kentsfield chips, aka Core 2 Quad, will consume only 105 watts. (Check out our review of a four-core Kentsfield to see whether Intel really hit the mark). And 50 watt Clovertowns are supposed to come out sometime next year as well. But Intel's approach in general seems to be get out the powerful chips first, worry about efficiency and reducing the heat second. It makes one wonder what the Nehalem, due out in 2008 and based on the 45nm design, will be like as far as power consumption.
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