When will consumer Nahalem chips be available?

[benskia]

Hey.

I've got a q6600 right here, that I installed on my p5e mobo and couldn't clock it well enough for my liking.

So, now I'm thinking its new mobo time (p5q).

But, is it worth it with Nahalem only a few months off?
How long do you reckon it will be until chips as affordable as the current Intels are now will be on the shelves?

I heard q3 2009. But is that just a guess or is it real?
And how come Nahalem is due q3 2008, but we wont see chips for another year for us punters?

 

[Pilky01]

The only chips coming out this year are going to be the extreme ones and cost £1000+ as far as i know.
The only nahalem motherboard this year is going to x58 and very expensive.
Going to be triple channel ddr3 as well.
So your probably going to be looking at about £1500+ for a nahalem setup.

That might be completely wrong but thats what ive been hearing recently.

Its going to be a long time until nahalem is going to be as affordable as core2

 

[moomoomoo]

would also like to add to this qestion, what kinda mobos will support the nahalem chips and what form will these mobos in. I am looking to buy a good case, i plan to upgrade my mobo and cpu when these new chips come out, so i would like a future proof case. I guess its too much to hope the mobos will be in atx form.

 

[Cob]

Yeah they'll be in ATX form.

 

[Talrinys]

would also like to add to this qestion, what kinda mobos will support the nahalem chips and what form will these mobos in. I am looking to buy a good case, i plan to upgrade my mobo and cpu when these new chips come out, so i would like a future proof case. I guess its too much to hope the mobos will be in atx form.

They will, current CPU coolers won't fit but that's about it

 

[MoRT489]

They will, current CPU coolers won't fit but that's about it

Cant things like tuniq tower just get a new backing plate?

 

[dntbloodshot]

Cant things like tuniq tower just get a new backing plate?

Pretty sure the surface of the chip is larger on Nehalems than on core architecture chips.

 

[Corasik]

The only chips coming out this year are going to be the extreme ones and cost £1000+ as far as i know.

No, the roadmaps indicate that Extreme AND Performance Mainstream should be released in Q4 2008. Performance Mainstream is where the Q9450 currently sits, the ~£200 price point. The Q9550 should replace the Q9450 at that price point very soon (Q3), and then the lowest of the Nehalems could be around that point too.

That said, all of these will be Bloomfield chips and require a LGA1333 socket motherboard, and yes, thats X58. Performance Mainstream parts can be paired up with either a Dual channel or Triple channel motherboard, and there is even rumors that DDR3, or DDR2 is up to the motherboard design rather than the processor. Its possible for the dual channel motherboards that different chipset will be needed. So it does seem possible that triple channel ddr3 will be the "first available" option.

The Quads (Even the Q6600 when it was first released) were all considered Performance Mainstream with the exception of the QX parts.

There is also likely to be several QX parts, with the highest part being around £1k inc vat, but there could well be lower parts comparible to the QX9650 which are still multi unlocked but lower priced than the very top model.

Nehalem isnt going to be an instant replacement for people buying low end dual cores (~£50), but for people buying a high end motherboard and a quadcore, it shouldnt be a huge leap to go Nehalem instead.

Of course Intel roadmaps are never 100% accurate, if there are yield issues, or a last minute "bug", then intel may only release the Extremes. And if yields are better than expected and Intel have a ton of chips to shift, they could lower the bar and release lower bin parts such as a 2.33ghz LGA1333 part.

As it stands, I would expect to see a 2.66Ghz, and 2.93Ghz "Q" part, and a ~3Ghz and ~3.2Ghz QX part released this year. Can I be wrong.. Of course, but I think there is a fairly good chance that the release will go "ok". Prices will still take some time to get to their proper levels though, The "£200" part might cost anywhere between £200 and £300 depending on yields.

 

[Corasik]

Pretty sure the surface of the chip is larger on Nehalems than on core architecture chips.

Yeah, the package appears to be about 30% larger looking at the pictures. Most LGA 775 coolers wouldnt work so well on the nehalem, even if you could modify the mounts to fit the larger spaceing.

The cases are ok though, BTX has pretty much been abandoned, and ATX continues to rule. The whole point of BTX was cooling tunnels to keep Netburst CPU's cool. But thats been largely made obsolete by the far greater power efficiency of the new CPU's.

Only reason I could see BTX coming back, is to improve cooling of the seriously power hungry GPU's we have at the high end these days. Hopefully Ati(amd), and Nvidia will work on improving this.

 

[PhoenixUK]

There will be extreme version, then there will be mid one which I guess will be just like any new good CPU coming out at about ~250-350 mark. Then there will be the cheap one for maybe 160-240.

 

[Corasik]

There will be extreme version, then there will be mid one which I guess will be just like any new good CPU coming out at about ~250-350 mark. Then there will be the cheap one for maybe 160-240.

I would expect the 1000 unit wholesale prices for the 2.66Ghz part to be $316, with the 2.93Ghz part at $530. The extremes will obviously be faster and more expensive.

If yields are good enough I could see a lower clocked part on the $266 pricepoint while still being packaged as a LGA1333 part. But below that and I would imagine intel will package them up as LGA1160 parts, which arn't scheduled for 08 release.

As the E6700 is currently $266, that would put the lowest "logical" price for a bloomfield at £140+vat. But to be honest, I suspect that yields will be ok, but not good enough on release day for intel to bother releasing anything lower than the $316 part, which based on the Q9450 would come in at around 180+vat.

Of course those prices are subject to UK retail adjustment for "new products", so for the first few weeks, £180 could easily be £250+vat.

That said, I think a lot of people are prepared to shell out ~£180-250 on a 2.66ghz Nehalem, and then another £150ish on a motherboard. As for ram... Hopefully there will be a DDR2 option, but DDR3's starting to drop in price now, so 6Gig of ram would be around £200 at todays prices.. hopefully it will drop further by Q4. So £600+vat as a minium for cpu/mb/ram assuming recycling an existing computers graphics, case, psu etc. Should be within the budget of many computer enthusiasts.

People wanting Nehalem for less money, will have to wait for Lynnfield systems. But there are still questionmarks over overclocking locks. Its been talked about before though, intel have the ability, but have never bothered. So I suspect Lynnfield will overclock just fine. But they will be limited as they wont have tri-channel DDR, and they will lack Quickpath, so will likely have greater limitations when it comes to PCI-Express lanes ETC. The Socket 1333 parts are the power parts.

** Clockrate's for Nehelem are purely an estimate from my part, based on numbers floating around the net. If they are released and turn out to be 2.6, 2.8, 3.0 etc so be it.