Intel Clovertown: Quad Core for the Masses
by Jason Clark & Ross Whitehead on March 30, 2007 12:15 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Conclusion
As we stated earlier on, it was difficult to review Clovertown without having K10 (Barcelona) or other competing quad core technology. Intel was first to market with quad core in a single package, and with very solid performance and power consumption figures. The purists were skeptical about Intel taking their approach to quad core, and we believe Intel has proved them wrong. In a recent article over at The Register, an AMD Executive VP apparently said, "If I could do something different, I wish we would have immediately done an MCM - two dual cores and call it a quad core - because, I guess, the market sucks it up."
The next 6-9 months are going to be very interesting with the arrival of Barcelona and Penryn. It looks like K10 will be first to market and we already know it will be delivered with maximum clocks in the 2.1 GHz - 2.3 GHz range. Intel just announced price cuts and availability of 3.0 GHz Clovertown CPUs. As for Penryn, how much of a clock bump, extra cache, and power savings is Intel going to be able to recognize from the shrink to 45nm? If nothing else, it should allow Intel to be able to deliver its higher clock CPUs in lower TDP envelopes with more cache than the existing 120W for the 2.66 GHz Clovertown.
As we said earlier this week in our Penryn coverage, it's too early to say for sure which parts will come out on top. AMD is stating that their native quad core solution will be faster clock for clock than anything Intel has at the same time. That's a great marketing statement, but with clock estimates of 2.30GHz for Barcelona and 3.20GHz for Penryn, such statements don't really tell us much. In order to remain at parity when comparing the top performing parts, AMD will apparently need to be about 40% faster clock for clock, and they haven't put forth that claim yet. Needless to say, we will be eagerly awaiting actual hardware for testing from both companies, and very likely we will end up with a situation where each platform will have certain applications where it excels.
As we stated earlier on, it was difficult to review Clovertown without having K10 (Barcelona) or other competing quad core technology. Intel was first to market with quad core in a single package, and with very solid performance and power consumption figures. The purists were skeptical about Intel taking their approach to quad core, and we believe Intel has proved them wrong. In a recent article over at The Register, an AMD Executive VP apparently said, "If I could do something different, I wish we would have immediately done an MCM - two dual cores and call it a quad core - because, I guess, the market sucks it up."
The next 6-9 months are going to be very interesting with the arrival of Barcelona and Penryn. It looks like K10 will be first to market and we already know it will be delivered with maximum clocks in the 2.1 GHz - 2.3 GHz range. Intel just announced price cuts and availability of 3.0 GHz Clovertown CPUs. As for Penryn, how much of a clock bump, extra cache, and power savings is Intel going to be able to recognize from the shrink to 45nm? If nothing else, it should allow Intel to be able to deliver its higher clock CPUs in lower TDP envelopes with more cache than the existing 120W for the 2.66 GHz Clovertown.
As we said earlier this week in our Penryn coverage, it's too early to say for sure which parts will come out on top. AMD is stating that their native quad core solution will be faster clock for clock than anything Intel has at the same time. That's a great marketing statement, but with clock estimates of 2.30GHz for Barcelona and 3.20GHz for Penryn, such statements don't really tell us much. In order to remain at parity when comparing the top performing parts, AMD will apparently need to be about 40% faster clock for clock, and they haven't put forth that claim yet. Needless to say, we will be eagerly awaiting actual hardware for testing from both companies, and very likely we will end up with a situation where each platform will have certain applications where it excels.
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yyrkoon - Monday, April 2, 2007 - link
You can not read, and understand what I am writting, and I am the dolt or moron . . .Interresting that . . . interresting indeed. I think what I will do, is just ignore whatever else you have to say, just like the majority of other readers seemingly have done.
archcommus - Friday, March 30, 2007 - link
However if Barcelona comes out and then Penryn smashes it just a few months later, yeah, then I'm gonna be worried about them. :(Griswold - Saturday, March 31, 2007 - link
Say no to drugs.anony - Friday, March 30, 2007 - link
This is for the authors. Sorry if I missed it, but do the power measurementsinclude chipset power? AMD processors include the memory controller as well,
right? Do the performance/watt take this into account?
Ross Whitehead - Friday, March 30, 2007 - link
We measured power at the wall, but we do not include the power for the disk chassis.Thus, performance/watt takes all of your mentioned items into account.
blckgrffn - Friday, March 30, 2007 - link
I am guessing Pernyn will be different enough from Clovertown to make using vmotion (and many other enterprise features) impossible. It sucks enough that we already have two processor families in our Dell 2950's, and here comes one more.I am all for progress, it just looks like this might be something VMware has to address at some point.
Nat
Beenthere - Friday, March 30, 2007 - link
...the industry. As usual Intel's "glueblob" is another rushed-out-the-door, knee-jerk reaction to AMD supplying superior CPU products. AMD is really gonna hurt Intel with Barcelona and friends.johnsonx - Friday, March 30, 2007 - link
Beenthere + Cornfedone = CramitpalGriswold - Saturday, March 31, 2007 - link
You forgot to add some "fine-ass".Phynaz - Friday, March 30, 2007 - link
Wow, you really are a moron.