Is Intel too far ahead of its time?

[JAYDEEJOHN]

OK, most here have seen this http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http://diy.pconline.com.cn/cpu/reviews/0810/1438115.html

Now, as these numbers indicate, i7 seems focused on a few things thats currently in low demand. Multi threaded apps are the future right? i7 kills in MT, no doubt about it. It does nicely in server as well, with its memory enhancements. But heres the problem. Just as we saw AMD come out with their 64 bit instruction/capability on their cpus, to this day, we see little use from it. Just like 64 bit OS's, theyre just not common place. To me, with 64 bit, its all or nothing, as 64 bit can be construed as being slower unless fully implemented. We have seen a very slow migration of apps moving towards MT, and tho theres a few bright spots, like Valve for gaming and others, for the most part, its been dismal.

Some will say, but thats eventually going to happen. While this may be true, theres always some apps thats best run at single thread, and the only thing thatll make this happen is 2 things, competition and the economy. If the SW companies dont find the need to convert their products to MT, they wont, unless their respective competitors do so and become a threat. Companies dont just spend money for the heck of it. If a company feels itll greatly impact their bottom line, you can bet they will, but that again depends on the economy.

Most companies only make a yearly revamp of their SW, and then again, the amount of change, and how its done is determined by both the economy and competition. So, these SW companies will move as the market moves, with some areas adopting MT quicker than others.

Now, alot of the most popular apps being run on DT today have a video companent to them, such as encoding, and that brings us around to the GPU. As the GPU abilities are being used more and more in these areas, the competition between cpu and gpu isnt heating up, as one would think. The GPU is just superior to these types of apps, and thus we will eventually have Larrabee, but this is one area where Intel is actually behind, so the traditional gpu makers, nVidia and ATI currently have a huge advantage, and time to establish themselves in this paricular market, and that leaves the cpu really out in the cold there. With the likes of DX11 coming, and a few possible enhancements seen from it, itll only push the gpu higher in this regard.

So, what do you make of these numbers from my link? Currently it looks as tho i7 is so so in gaming, and only slightly faster at ST. And what do people think about my market analysist? Will we actually start to see an increase in the volume of MT apps sooner, or faster than we currently do?

 

[stridervm]

Well, basically it could happen if the iCore7 would become the standard in servers, which I doubt, because of transition time and the simple fact that they can't just abandon their old servers.

The main reason for people not accepting the new is because they don't want to abandon their old habits. Like the habit with single threaded applications.

Too far ahead? Nah, more like they're trying to create their own standards, because if that happens there's even less chance of AMD fighting back, unless they start copying Intel again, and then the lawsuits again, etc.

 

[zenmaster]

Does not look too far ahead by any means.

I can browse the web and do most of my daily tasks just fine on a 3-4 year old computer. However, I have some tasks that don't go so fine.

So folks will buy the i7 not becaues it makes EVERYTHING alot faster.
They will buy it because it maskes SOME things ALOT faster.

Now that new hardware is being released new software will be created to utilize that power.

What Intel does is push New Advances from the Top down.
Not everyone will need to power but those who do will pay the premium to get it.
As they convert their factories over and supply increases for the new and decreases for the old they will adjust prices so the hardware is more mainstream based on price. By this point, more software will exist for it.

 

[rodney_ws]

Isn't this the Pentium Pro all over again?

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Sorta my thoughts as well. It really doesnt matter what Intel does, as I tried to lay out the software scenario. Im not saying Im right on how fast this transition will go, but itll be at least a year before we see alot of improvements in this direction, as software makers just wont/dont change their apps on a whim, but more in a yearly cycle, if that. I know they CAN do it, but the heart of it is, WILL they? The economy and competition limits this growth, or more importantly, controls it. Making it available doesnt mean the SW makers are going to jump on it.

 

[pasoleatis]

In the research world there would be many applications. For small groups of researcher it might be useful to have a powerful server for runnning calculations. Even if they are not multihreaded, people could run many copies in the same times. It is not all about playing games or doing some encoding of the party movies.

PL

 

[skywalker9952]

Simply put Intel is finally catching up in the server market. They are integrating AMD features into their new lineup with old pentium features to make a chip that will destroy AMD in the x86 server and supercomputing markets. If you look now AMD is still competitive with core 2 architecture in many server and supercomputing benchmarks. i7 is Intel's move to push AMD out of that market as well and start regaining its x86 monopoly.

 

[enigma067]

Well, basically it could happen if the iCore7 would become the standard in servers, which I doubt, because of transition time and the simple fact that they can't just abandon their old servers.

The main reason for people not accepting the new is because they don't want to abandon their old habits. Like the habit with single threaded applications.

Too far ahead? Nah, more like they're trying to create their own standards, because if that happens there's even less chance of AMD fighting back, unless they start copying Intel again, and then the lawsuits again, etc.

Intel's only standard is to regurgitate the x86 architecture. They've been doing it for 40 years now.



We need a change!

"This week Intel will release more details on its Nehalem architecture, the first iteration of which is now known as Core i7. Randy Allen, the senior vice president of AMD’s computing division, said many innovations in Core i7 are really imitations of features such as the integrated memory controller and HyperTransport already in AMD processors.

“I guess on one level it is sort of gratifying. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Allen said. “But on another level it is somewhat annoying . . . [Nehalem is] not rewriting the book, but rather imitating or photocopying our innovations.”

http://blogs.zdnet.com/processors/?p=192&tag=rbxccnbzd1

 

[brendano257]

What Intel does is push New Advances from the Top down.
Not everyone will need to power but those who do will pay the premium to get it.

Seems like the premiums are what every company wants off of us <_<

 

[epsilon84]

Is Nehalem too far ahead of its time? No, not really, since there are many current programs that will already benefit greatly.

Let me put it this way:

Apart from gaming (which is more GPU limited anyway), what 'killer' single-threaded app actually runs too slow on current CPUs?

Now compare that to how many MT apps that could potentially benefit from Nehalem. I think the answer is clear.

 

[DXRick]

I don't know what people are fantasizing about when it come to multi-threading. It is already being used in professional applications that benefit from it, like Adobe apps, Maya, office apps, video encoding, etc. For example, Photoshop has already been modified to use up to 8 cores.

Multi-cores (4+) will mostly benefit users that run more than one application at a time or need to run the same application for more than one user at a time, like in a server.

Using it in games is limited, and I don't see game developers going too wild with MT since the vast majority of its customers have a dual core CPU and it adds to the complexity of debugging (ie costs).

Other apps, like Quicken, sure don't need it, as they just take input from the user and then perform a small calculation to update your balance.

There just aren't that many apps that need to perform multiple concurrent long processing tasks, and those that do are already taking advantage of multi-core CPUs.

 

[spongebob]

Intel's only standard is to regurgitate the x86 architecture. They've been doing it for 40 years now.

And have made buckets of money in the process.

We need a change!

Why?

 

[Wisecracker]

I don't know what people are fantasizing about when it come to multi-threading. It is already being used in professional applications that benefit from it, like Adobe apps, Maya, office apps, video encoding, etc. For example, Photoshop has already been modified to use up to 8 cores.

Multi-cores (4+) will mostly benefit users that run more than one application at a time or need to run the same application for more than one user at a time, like in a server.

Using it in games is limited, and I don't see game developers going too wild with MT since the vast majority of its customers have a dual core CPU and it adds to the complexity of debugging (ie costs).

Other apps, like Quicken, sure don't need it, as they just take input from the user and then perform a small calculation to update your balance.

There just aren't that many apps that need to perform multiple concurrent long processing tasks, and those that do are already taking advantage of multi-core CPUs.

News to me. Got any linkage with that?


Intel's not ahead of their time. They are just trying to drive the market.

 

[gamerk316]

My workplace still uses a DOS programs from the 80's, and have to keep 10 or so computers on Windows 98 at all times to run the programs. Companies do no revamp software "once a year", closer to once a decade. Heck, the majority of the stuff I use at work were coded by the comapny interns over the course of a decade! (Funny thing is, these programs are generally more stable than the host OS...go figure).

Hardware only gets attention under two conditions: that they are accepted as standard, and their extra functions are needed. Vista 64 is doing well, because 4GB+ of RAM is now accepted as a necessity for some home users, and is now getting the extra support it needs. Programs are beng written for two cores, because two core systems are commonplace. The issue is, the majority of PC's are still single core, and until that changes, dont expect propriatary software to catch up.

 

[hannibal]

It's the common way of the things to happen. We get new hardware. We get some professional programs to use that hardware. It will take 10 years or more to change all those older computers to new technology. Other programers start using well stablished hardware solutions. (There have to be demand big enough to make the leap...)

But no... Computer technology is newer too much ahead of it's time. It's only ahead of general smallest limiting thing factor...

 

[sonoran]

Intel's only standard is to regurgitate the x86 architecture. They've been doing it for 40 years now.



We need a change!

You mean like a completely new architecture, totally unencumbered by the legacy of x86? Sounds like a great idea! Oh wait - Intel already did that...

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/itanium/index.htm?iid=servproc+body_itanium2subtitle

I guess you just forgot.

 

[JDocs]

Not an Intel fanboy just making an observation

Why is it that people are so quick to forget when AMD copies Intel but never seem to forget it Intel repeats the favour?

Sure Intel is the big bad company and AMD the smaller underdog but that doesn't excuse either their behaviour and some of the stuff Intel is "copying" AMD on is more natural evolution were as AMD has been caught directly ripping people's designs off.

Anyone remember how AMD's best chips(aka K8) are actually heavily modified Pentium 3s... Intel did the heavy lifting and AMD just modified it... Sure they did a great job but at the end of the day its still an Intel design (at least partially) and as much a victory of theirs as AMD's.

Perhaps we should cut back on the fanboyism and look at it. AMD does a amazing job modifying chips(however K9 and K10 proves they still need a bit of practice at designing a new chip ) while Intel does a great job designing new ones. The 2 will always feed off each other. If they stopped doing things because AMD or Intel has already done it it'd be one dead market and we'd suffer.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Intel's only standard is to regurgitate the x86 architecture. They've been doing it for 40 years now.



We need a change!

"This week Intel will release more details on its Nehalem architecture, the first iteration of which is now known as Core i7. Randy Allen, the senior vice president of AMD’s computing division, said many innovations in Core i7 are really imitations of features such as the integrated memory controller and HyperTransport already in AMD processors.

“I guess on one level it is sort of gratifying. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Allen said. “But on another level it is somewhat annoying . . . [Nehalem is] not rewriting the book, but rather imitating or photocopying our innovations.”

http://blogs.zdnet.com/processors/?p=192&tag=rbxccnbzd1

Yea people like you tend to try to forget Intels try to move everyone to a true 64bit CPU, IA64 aka Itanium.

If anyone is to blame for us still being stuck on x86 its AMD with their x86-64. Yep. Good ol AMD threw that out, it beat IA64 which is great for 64 but not as good with 32bit. So now we wait for something else.

Not an Intel fanboy just making an observation

Why is it that people are so quick to forget when AMD copies Intel but never seem to forget it Intel repeats the favour?

Sure Intel is the big bad company and AMD the smaller underdog but that doesn't excuse either their behaviour and some of the stuff Intel is "copying" AMD on is more natural evolution were as AMD has been caught directly ripping people's designs off.

Anyone remember how AMD's best chips(aka K8) are actually heavily modified Pentium 3s... Intel did the heavy lifting and AMD just modified it... Sure they did a great job but at the end of the day its still an Intel design (at least partially) and as much a victory of theirs as AMD's.

Perhaps we should cut back on the fanboyism and look at it. AMD does a amazing job modifying chips(however K9 and K10 proves they still need a bit of practice at designing a new chip ) while Intel does a great job designing new ones. The 2 will always feed off each other. If they stopped doing things because AMD or Intel has already done it it'd be one dead market and we'd suffer.

I agree 100%. I kinda get sick of that current "Intel is copying AMD with Nehalem" crap thats going around recently. The fact is that Intel has been working on and has had various IMCs throught the years. This is just the one that works the best. Sure AMD had theirs in mass production first but what does that mattter. What matters most if how this benefits us since we will now have the same design concept for both chips and apps and games should start to take advantage of this giving us better apps and games to use.

 

[MarkG]

Using it in games is limited, and I don't see game developers going too wild with MT since the vast majority of its customers have a dual core CPU and it adds to the complexity of debugging (ie costs).

Once you decide to invest the effort to make the game multi-threaded, the number of threads doesn't much matter; if you have one AI thread, you can have a dozen if the CPU supports that many, if you have one physics thread, you can have a dozen.

Sure, if you write sucky code that requires every thread to keep locking the data it's using, then your performance won't improve much. But the solution to that is to design the game engine properly so you don't need many locks; once that's done, the number of threads can be set based on the capabilities of the CPU, with CPUs with more cores getting better AI, better physics, etc.

 

[eklipz330]

maybe they are... but i think that can only be a good thing
the further we move with technology, the better things can get i guess...

 

[exit2dos]

I think everybody forgets that thie intial Nehalems are designed for servers, period.

More cores and Hyperthreading allow more/better virtualization. Meaning one Nehalem-based server can do the job of several older ones.

CSI allows them to compete with AMD's HT in the 4 socket and up server market. Granted, this is a smaller market, but one where AMD dominates.

The initial Nehalem platform is not optimized for games or other home software, so I don't really understand why so many home users are planning to pay the premium price to upgrade to a server platform. The initial advantages to the home market seems to be very negligable.

I'm not going to consider Nehalem for the home, until the socket 1160 variants (The one designed for home use) are released in H1/09.

 

[MarkG]

I think everybody forgets that thie intial Nehalems are designed for servers, period.

Maybe you should tell that to Intel, because they're not advertising Nehalem as 'designed for servers, period'. Quite the opposite, in fact, Bloomfield is supposed to be for desktop users.

 

[stridervm]

Anyone remember how AMD's best chips(aka K8) are actually heavily modified Pentium 3s... Intel did the heavy lifting and AMD just modified it... Sure they did a great job but at the end of the day its still an Intel design (at least partially) and as much a victory of theirs as AMD's.

The K8 design (Athlon64) was a copy from the Pentium 3? Do you have any basis for these claims? I thought they were improved K7 designs.... Hmm.....

If you are referring to their K7 design, I thought those was a combination in the K5, K6 and DEC microprocessors design?

 

[rickzor]

I think that pentiums III 450 overclocked to 566mhz with 570mb sdram 133mhz like this one im using to post right now should be plenty enough for everyone!
Seriously, Actually it does pretty well for normal web browsing and youtube and word processing, but obviously its a dinossaur.
Gaming is the most demanding sector when it comes to the most common average domestic pc user! For those tasks i mentioned above, even something with 10 years old like this example of pc i gave is enough, if you dont dump plenty of viruses and trojans inside of it.

But the future if forward and not backwards, of course if you dont have a pc you should go for the latest possible your wallet can handle, aside that, many people are misleaded by shoppers into buying a new machine because their actual one is like what, 3 years old?

Bah, waste.

 

[exit2dos]

Maybe you should tell that to Intel, because they're not advertising Nehalem as 'designed for servers, period'. Quite the opposite, in fact, Bloomfield is supposed to be for desktop users.

You are quite right. Intel itself is overmarketing.

My point is that from the home user standpoint, the whole Bloomfield platform is just like any other "Extreme" CPU. ie - premium pricing for a questionable (home) performance gain.