Intel Corp.'s upcoming Banias processor will use a "performance rating" system similar to that used by rival Advanced Micro Devices, Intel president Paul Otellini said in a roundtable discussion with journalists Monday.
Intel faces a knotty marketing problem with Banias: since the upcoming mobile microprocessor runs at a slower clock rate than Intel's current Pentium 4, how to sell it to speed-obsessed consumers? The answer: a ratings system, although not the one AMD uses, Otellini said.
Instead of pure gigahertz, Intel will choose to highlight the Banias' battery life, which Intel officials have said runs "all day". Otellini highlighted Bapco's MobileMark benchmark as one the chip maker would highlight prominently. Intel belongs to the Bapco organization, as does AMD; however, AMD has also claimed certain Bapco tests unfairly favor Intel's chips.
"The difference will be that we will be up front on what the actual performance is, and what benchmarks we're using," Otellini said. "We'll always be up front on what the clock speed actually is. And we won't use products that are based on the competition."
Intel will not use AMD's "performance rating" scheme, Otellini said, which is based upon a formula that compares its cores against prior generations.
A year ago, Otellini began saying that "gigahertz didn't matter," Otellini said.
Banias will also be marketed as a "platform brand", Otellini said, probably similar in design to the Celeron brand Intel gave its processors for low-cost PCs, or the Xeon line designed for servers and workstations. Although a Xeon may be designed upon the same architecture as the Celeron, the two chips can be clocked at different speeds and feature different amounts of cache to ratchet performance up or down for the target market.
Banias will also include an integrated form of wireless networking. At this point, Intel favors hybrid 802.11a/802.11b chipsets and access points, Otellini said, who agreed that Intel was currently ambivalent to the 802.11g specification.
Intel may also develop special benchmarks to evaluate the effect of hyperthreading, which will first appear in Intel's desktop 3-GHz desktop processors during the fourth quarter of this year.
"I don't know whether SPECmarks cover hyperthreading or not," Otellini said.
Source: <A HREF="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,524192,00.asp" target="_new">http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,524192,00.asp</A>
Intel faces a knotty marketing problem with Banias: since the upcoming mobile microprocessor runs at a slower clock rate than Intel's current Pentium 4, how to sell it to speed-obsessed consumers? The answer: a ratings system, although not the one AMD uses, Otellini said.
Instead of pure gigahertz, Intel will choose to highlight the Banias' battery life, which Intel officials have said runs "all day". Otellini highlighted Bapco's MobileMark benchmark as one the chip maker would highlight prominently. Intel belongs to the Bapco organization, as does AMD; however, AMD has also claimed certain Bapco tests unfairly favor Intel's chips.
"The difference will be that we will be up front on what the actual performance is, and what benchmarks we're using," Otellini said. "We'll always be up front on what the clock speed actually is. And we won't use products that are based on the competition."
Intel will not use AMD's "performance rating" scheme, Otellini said, which is based upon a formula that compares its cores against prior generations.
A year ago, Otellini began saying that "gigahertz didn't matter," Otellini said.
Banias will also be marketed as a "platform brand", Otellini said, probably similar in design to the Celeron brand Intel gave its processors for low-cost PCs, or the Xeon line designed for servers and workstations. Although a Xeon may be designed upon the same architecture as the Celeron, the two chips can be clocked at different speeds and feature different amounts of cache to ratchet performance up or down for the target market.
Banias will also include an integrated form of wireless networking. At this point, Intel favors hybrid 802.11a/802.11b chipsets and access points, Otellini said, who agreed that Intel was currently ambivalent to the 802.11g specification.
Intel may also develop special benchmarks to evaluate the effect of hyperthreading, which will first appear in Intel's desktop 3-GHz desktop processors during the fourth quarter of this year.
"I don't know whether SPECmarks cover hyperthreading or not," Otellini said.
Source: <A HREF="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,524192,00.asp" target="_new">http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,524192,00.asp</A>