Northwood.. your opinions.

[Guest]

I like to keep up on new technology and from what Ive read so far about Northwood it looks very promising. Im not too thrilled right now about the whole P4 platform but when Northwood is released I may change my mind.
Intel claims that the die shrink to .13 will allow the P4 core to scale up to 6Ghz without any further modifications to the chip(aside from voltage adjustments). If its true (which i belive it is) that information is significant enough to safely assume that the Northwood platform will be around for quite awhile thus maximizing your investment. Possibly with a good motherboard which has alot of multipliers and voltage adjustments you could buy a 2GHz Northwood P4 and continue to upgrade your cpu's all the way up to 6Ghz without spending another dime on new motherboards or memory. Lets see an AMD platform do that. and just imagine the overclocking possiblities the 2GHz P4 will have when it has a core capable of 6GHz. It'll be an overclockers wet dream.

 

[Bankboy]

Yeah, it all sounds just great in theory, but be realistic.
What is the probability that you're really going to be able to get a board that will handle all the way from 2-6GHz. And lets stop bashing AMD when we're talking about something that isn't even a realistic possibility. I am not pro Intel and neither a pro AMD individual, but to bash one or the other over a theory is a little rediculous.

 

[Raystonn]

Northwood sounds great actually. We may be able to use the same motherboard for most of the transistion from 2GHz through 6GHz with only flash BIOS updates.

-Raystonn


-- The center of your digital world --

 

[Guest]

I think the probability of a motherboard supporting 2-6ghz is very feasible.. Look at the Abit BH6 it may well be the most successful overclocking motherboard ever. I bought one back when the celeron 300A was all the rage (actually I was one of the first to buy a 300A and was the first to post my successful overclocking results here on Tom's hardware forum back when it was running on delphi) Anyway back to the issue at hand, with continued bios updates from abit the BH6 is still a damn good board which now supports 1GHz PIII and could possibly support higher speed PIII's if the PIII core hadnt capped out.
And about the AMD "bashing" lol.. I apologize if i hurt your feelings, how inconsiderate of me.

 

[Bankboy]

It would be great if it would really go all the way from 2-6GHz. But do you honestly think Intel and friends would let you get away with that? If they're not changing the design and you're not having to upgrade except for new CPU's, they're not making much money. Do you think that makes Intel bean counters happy? You use your Abit board as a reference and I agree you have got some great mileage out of it, but you're talking about 4GHz... not 800MHz. The "bashing" was a bit harsh I agree, but to challenge AMD against a non-existent product is well... a little silly.

 

[Raystonn]

You must think in terms of percentage increases, not linear increases. 2GHz to 6GHz is much the same as 200MHz to 600MHz as far as performance increases and motherboards go. New CPU clockings will no longer be in 20MHz increases, but in 200MHz increases (note the jump from 1.5GHz to 1.7GHz.) Everything has been multiplied by 10.

Moving from 2GHz to 6GHz is absolutely no problem.

-Raystonn

-- The center of your digital world --

 

[Guest]

Thanks Raystonn, i was just about to post a similiar response but yours is perfect. Isnt it funny that when people see the letters GHz they seem to loose all rational thought and just go ooohhh and ahhhh. and say things like, A motherboard that can support cpu's all the way to 6GHz. OMG!!! No freakin way!!!
Well duh, i just explained how my BH6 board supports CPU's from 300mhz to 1GHz thats over a 150% increase. Going from 2-6Hz is nearly the same percentage gain. Some people just dont get it theyre still stuck in the Mhz line of thinking they believe that going from 1GHz to 2GHz is nothing short of astounding, when in reality its no different then going from 300mhz to 600mhz the same percentage/performance gain is achieved.

 

[Guest]

<<<It would be great if it [motherboard] would really go all the way from 2-6GHz. But do you honestly think Intel and friends would let you get away with that?>>>

Get away with what? Your comment seems to have a healthy dose of paranoia….
The way I see it is that Intel is in the business of designing and manufacturing CPU’s (ok they do make other products chipsets, nic’s.. etc) but Intel’s bread and butter is CPU’s, everyone knows that. And as long as Intel is selling lots of CPU’s they’re happy. I think Intel could care less if I have motherboard that can handle processors from 2-6GHz. When I upgrade my processor I still have to buy it from Intel, right. I think your whole post is a little overboard.

 

[dhlucke]

I realize that you haven't seen a roadmap lately. 2 Ghz is by the end of the year. I think 2.4 is on the map a year from then. So 6 Ghz is right around 2004-2005. WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD A MANUFACTURER SELL A MOTHERBOARD THAT WOULD LAST THAT LONG????? Maybe there is some upgraded info I don't know about? Are 6 Ghz around the corner?

It would put them out of business. Do you think they'll just sit on their thumbs for all those years? Even if they could, they wouldn't. IT MAKES NO BUSINESS SENSE!!!

You also forget that even if you are right, and the voltages and multipliers all match up for all those years, what about USB, AGP, MEMORY, PCI, etc etc advancements? You would surely NEED or WANT to upgrade so that you didn't slow your brand new 6Ghz processor down to old 2Ghz speeds that the motherboard was originally designed for.

<font color=red>Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.</font color=red>
Pablo Picasso<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by dhlucke on 04/25/01 06:07 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Raystonn]

"I think 2.4 is on the map a year from then. So 6 Ghz is right around 2004-2005"

Where did you ever get that? That's quite incorrect. Expect to see speeds well over 3GHz by the end of 2002. We should be at 6GHz at the end of 2003. That's a bit over 2 years away. Always remember Moore's law.

-Raystonn

-- The center of your digital world --

 

[Guest]

I totally agree with dhlucke and he stated the point better than Bankboy did. Yeah you could do it, but would you really want to? I mean, it's like using your mobo with the latest and greatest PIII and having an ISA SCSI, NIC, and other cards on your 5/6 yr old board. Are you really doing yourself any favors? Intel won't let it go on forever and you wouldn't want it to. "IT DOESN'T make good business sense."
It doesn't do any business man any good to build a product that never needs replaced, or needs replaced after he goes out of business due to lack of income.

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction "
---> sooner or later you'll hit the wall on your mobo. (But isn't it great that it goes up to 6Ghz???)

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by kej12804 on 04/25/01 09:48 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

Yourself and dchuckle would have a good point if your numbers were correct. However, as Raystonn already mentioned Moore's law tells us that we should see 6GHz cpu's in just over 2 yrs from the time Northwood is released not 5 or 6 yrs.
There is one feature that the first motherboards may lack which could be important, and that is support for serial ATA. But if Serial ATA arrives before 2003 i would almost bet there will be add-on controller cards available such as there is now for ATA 66 and 100 devices.

 

[JoeHead]

Exactly!!! There would be plenty of other changes: New PCI bus, AGP, Memory and Memory bus, hell new type slots . . .

And what about new cores or the Itanium for that matter. The 87 should start fading away in a couple of years.

And I still don't beleive it will hit 6 GHz. By the way hasn't the bus of Intel migrated from 66 to 133 in the 300's lifetime? The jump from 100 to 133 recently is a nice improvement.


Hey how about that Palamino?

BTW I'm looking forward to both the Palamino and Northwood. Who will earn my respect and cash? I'll even buy Rambus if it's worth it. Sorry all don't hate me!!!

<b><A HREF="http://www.seti.tomshardware.com/" target="_new">How fast is your PC</A></b>

 

[Guest]

Were talking about a motheboard life span of just over 2yrs here folks. Do you honestly believe the face computing is going to change that drastically in 2yrs. Cmon, the computer industry moves fast but hell if it moves THAT fast. LOL. It takes time for things to change. There are commitee's and research and marketing that have to take place. For example, look at USB 2.0, the go ahead was started over a year ago and were just now seeing the first USB 2.0 controllers and I have yet to see an actual USB 2.0 device for sale on the market.
Northwood will be new platform with all the newest features and memory and quad-pumped memory bus. I personally dont see any drastic changes coming down the pipeline that is going to make the Northwood platform obsolete in less then 2yrs from its launch.
Do you really think Intel is just going to decide one day to pull all the PCI slots off there motherboards in favor of a newer faster type? No. they would be committing business suicide if they did that. Intel needs the support from the rest of the computer industry, after all Intel doesn’t make all the peripherals that go into those mobo slots. Any proposed drastic changes like that causes a stir in the computer industry and we all would of heard of such things. Well, at least the tech savvy among us would.

 

[Guest]

Its the same old story from Intel. The P3 Xeon was suposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, according to Intell. So they raked consumers over the coals charging up to $2000 more for the Xeon then the same clock speed P3 and as it turned out the Xeon wasnt an improvmentat all just mor expensive. Now we get the P4 and Nothwood diferent names but same game. Fancy marketing over substance to line intel pockets. It seems with the increased competition Intell would loose some arrogance, but as we are seeing the contrary is proving true. Intel is more about averice than good products.

Anim88tor

 

[Guest]

Oh boy. Now were really getting off topic. Its the big bad Intel spill, Arrogance and marketing. Well, as you may already know the Xeon line of processors was made for the server market were its 1, 2, or 4 MB of L2 cache can really benefit client/server performance. Of course the Xeon is going to suck as an average home system.. it wasn’t made for that. Since we didn’t and still don’t see AMD or any other direct competitor to Intel offering a realistic server platform Intel had the luxury of charging a premium for its Xeon line. Any business will do the same thing. By nature the server market is high-priced. Look at how expensive a decent SCSI RAID controller can cost, upwards of $2000. Do you really think a RAID controller is anymore complicated then a CPU with 30 million transistors.. I think not. Up to this point Intel has had it made in the server market, brand name recognition and market dominance its common business tactic to make a profit from that. Do you think AMD would do any different if they were in the same position.. lol… somehow I don’t think they would.
I do agree with you somewhat on some of Intel’s marketing strategy/gimmicks, such as pimping the P4 as being able to provide better internet experience.. lol had to laugh the first time I saw that one. But in reality all the companies do it. I think most computers companies at one time or another have hyped there products more then they should have. AMD certainly has fell victim to such practices in the past. nVidia, 3dfx (may they rest in peace) and countless other companies have done the same thing. It’s the way the game is played. You can bitch all you want about it, but everyone does it and its not about to change.

 

[Ncogneto]

Well, to get back on topic here I think you are overlooking a couple of things. For a motherboard to be able to ramp all the way to 6 gig it will have to keep pace with the speed steppings of the processor. The p4 currently runs a quad pumped 100 mhz bus. As long as intel keeps it at 100 then in theory you are correct the board could last that long. However, I just don't see this a feasable, or even benificial. You are most likely to see the core bus ( in this case 100) being ramped up as well. The chances of the motherbords chipsets handling this are very very slim. athlon users recently are going thru the same thing. The introduction of the "c" athlons and there now dual pumped 133 mhz bus as compared to the old "B" with there dual pumped 100 mhz bus, required a simular motherboard upgrade. Also, I am sure there will be increases in the (memory) RDRAM bus as well that will need to be addressed as well. Admittably, the northwood does look promising, but I wold not hold your breath on a motherbard lasting its life cycle.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[Guest]

Well at least Intel can do it right in two tries. Athlon A B C Palomino and thoroughbred. OMG that's sure a lot of chips to milk customers on cause you think here for a sec (I know its hard for you AMD guys but try) Say you buy a Athlon classic your all happy then the Athlon B or C comes along your like cool I get that now another 200 gone then the palomino comes maybe good option for the Athlon A or B guys boom another 200 then thoroughbred comes and everyone wants on the bandwagon boom another 200. So in theory you AMD monkeys actually will spend 600+ (cost of ram has to be added) to stay up to date while Intel has good old boy the p4 for . Well if the math is right then its more cost effective to just buy the p4 and sit back till 6 ghz comes along . Hmm that's something for your monkey brains to think on. Don't think to hard I don't want your brains to fry.

SPUDMUFFIN

<font color=blue>Just some advice from your friendly neighborhood blue man </font color=blue>

 

[Guest]

heheh.. you have a good point. When it comes to good investment and longevity AMD and Intel are total opposites. It seems like every time you turn around AMD or VIA is releasing a new core stepping or motherboard chipset which forces users (i could call them monkey's but i wont) to cough up more cash to stay current. On the other hand Intel can design a single motherboard chipset which supports four different CPU cores and speeds from 266 mhz up to 1Ghz. All of this from a single motherboard. Hmmm.. it sure doesn’t look good for AMD or VIA's engineering abilities.

 

[Ncogneto]

That has got to be the stupidist defense of the p4 I have heard yet?

p2, celerona (no cache) celeron b ( by george maybe we ought to stick a little l2 on this dam thing) p2 katmai, p3 katmai, p3 coppermine, celeron coppermine,p3 tulatin, p4 williamette, p4 northwood, on and on and on. What the hell is your point here? Gimme a break. Yeah go tell the users of the I810-I84o motherboards how cheap it will be to upgrade to the p4, tell the user of the I815 how cheap it will be to upgrade to the tulatin core p3, or the p4, tell the user of the p4 now they got to get a new board for the northwood as well! Who's got monkey brains? Jesus you going to make a point for the p4 at least make a good one, that certainly is not it.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[Raystonn]

If I recall correctly, all of the processors you listed worked on the same BH6 motherboard, requiring only flash BIOS updates. Did I miss the point of your post?

-Raystonn

-- The center of your digital world --

 

[Ncogneto]

no the p4 willaimette the p4 northwood the p3 tualatin none of will work in a bh. And while yes the bx was a great chipset that does not seem to be the trend of intel of late now does it? Meaning motherbord longetivety. Furthermore, while the bh6 had an intel chipset, how many intel motherboards ( made by intel) had the same bios upgrades made available to them to go from the p2 to p3?

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[Ncogneto]

Furthermore, was it I that missed the point or Spudmuffin? I merely pointed out that chances were very slim for a motherboard to be able to ramp from 2 gig to 6 gig. It wouldn't matter if it was Intel or AMD for that matter. Why did that have to turn into an Intel vs. AMD issue. Doesn't he have anything better to do? While yes, the bx was a great chipset, Amd extended the life of the socket 7 format when intel gave up on it. The slot a went from 550 to 1 gig, the socket a gos form 600 to 1.3 ( maybe higher). The simple fact of the matter is that unlike with the bx, speed changes are occuring over a much shorter time frame. To try to make an intel vs AMD issue out of the fact that users need to upgrade there motherboards is rather ludicrous, both AMD and Intel are equally as guilty in this reagard. As a matter of fact Intel may be even a bit more so with the willaimette.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Ncogneto on 04/26/01 05:07 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[leonov]

Where did you hear the projected frequency figures for Northwood?

As for features I have heard that it will have more L2 cache and an on-die memory controller. Both of these features will reduce memory latency which is probably what is really killing the P4 at the moment.

It will be VERY interesting to see performance with DDR and Northwood, it should truly shine. Intel then just have to work on an even better branch predictor and scale up the Gigahertz to deliver on the potential this core has.

 

[Ncogneto]

Are you actully telling me you think the motherboards that come out to support the p4 northwood will ramp to 6 gig ( assuming the northwood itself does)? And I wasn't even slamming the northwood I actually think it has great promise. but I wouldn't bank on the fact that you will be able to get one motherboard that will support it all the way to 6 gig

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!