Northwood: the T-Bird of Intel processors?

[AMD_Man]

First of all, I'd like to congratulate Intel for successfully releasing the Northwood with highly competitive performance. Now, is it just me or is the position Intel in now similar to the position AMD was in after they released the T-Bird?

Ok, look back in time, March 2000, the two 1GHz processors have been released! The 1GHz Coppermine P3 and the 1GHz Athlon K75. The Coppermine included 256KB of full speed cache while the 1GHz K75 had 512KB of 2/5 speed cache (I believe that was the divider). The P3 was slightly ahead of the Athlon, as the Athlon XP was ahead of the P4 before the Northwood. But then, a while later, I believe in June 2000, AMD released the T-Bird! Finally, the 1GHz Athlon T-BIrd was eekking out a win. But in SSE enabled apps it lacked.

Now if history repeats itself once again, I expect AMD to come back with an ever faster processor that's just slightly ahead of Intel's top-of-the-line.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

 

[QuantumPhysics]

IMO AMD has Intel's Nuts in their hands. The claw hammer will be the CPU that splatters them against the wall.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

possibly... but that is then.
we are talking about now.


- Know thyself
- Seek
- Love
- Cherish Life
- And do not Yield!

 

[lhgpoobaa]

couple of points about the new northie:

im still a little dissapointed to see that FPU performance is still weak. a while back there were rumors that it would be improved. this, sadly, is not the case.

i like the energy consumption figures, as well as the overclocking potential as shown by anandtech and hardocp. typically up to 50%! just have to keep the ram/pci/agp under control.

also think that the P4 could have done with more L1 cache. i believe that would have given a greater performance boost than doubling the L2.

and finally, despite the dieshrink, move to 300mm wafers and corresponding decrease in cost to produce the chips, the price remains uncompeditive (atm) compared to the athlon XP.


- Know thyself
- Seek
- Love
- Cherish Life
- And do not Yield!

 

[TheAntipop]

i think that is a very fitting analogy. in some areas there were major performance improvements, but overall it was only around 5% clock-per-clock... exactly the same as the tbird to the athlon classic

eh, i'll procrastinate later...

 

[girish]

what is clock for clock?

in the P3 times it was okay, but now with P4 it isnt really clock for clock.

Again, the famous quote:
<font color=green>With the P4, Intel has shown that it is not necessary to improve the performance with increase in the MHz.</font color=green>

<font color=red>Now they will also prove that it is also possible to screw the performance <i>even after</i> increasing the MHz, got a clue? Its the integrated display (thank them it wont run with SDRAM) for P4!</font color=red>

girish

<font color=red>Nothing is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[74merc]

ya lost me dude...
the Northwood is a hair faster than the Williamette.
its no worse, but unless you actually run numbers, its no better.

----------------------
Independant thought is good.
It won't hurt for long.

 

[LoveGuRu]

your too hard on intel, i as others was disapointed about the performance gain that was achived with the new core, but there is no reson to trash them.

<font color=green>
*******
*K.I.S.S*
*(k)eep (I)t (S)imple (S)tupid*
*******
</font color=green>

 

[TheAntipop]

i meant that the northwood is 5-9% faster than the williamette "clock-per-clock", meaning at the same speed northwood and wiliamette.

eh, i'll procrastinate later...

 

[somerandomguy]

An i845 chipset with intergrated graphics...the very idea makes my skin crawl.
I'll bet Intel makes a pile of money with it too.

"Ignorance is bliss, but I tend to get screwed over."

 

[jiffy]

Three things you can count on, taxes, death and AMD coming back. I'm not worried.

Complicated Nit Picker