Intel to break the 4GHz barrier in 2008

dafloppyone · 22 Dec 2006 at 18:01

Despite being based on an architecture designed to hit high clock speeds, Pentium 4 and Pentium D processors never made it past the 4GHz barrier. However, Intel will finally go past the magic number in 2008. The report says Bloomfield, one of Intel's upcoming 45nm quad-core processors based on the Nehalem architecture, will be clocked at speeds exceeding 4GHz when it comes out in 2008. The chip will have 8MB of shared L2 cache, simultaneous multi-threading (the ability to execute two threads per core,) support for Intel's Common System Interface, and an integrated memory controller. Bloomfield will slip into new B sockets—land grid arrays with 1,366 pins instead of the 775 in Intel's current desktop LGA socket.

lay-z-boy · 22 Dec 2006 at 18:12

Socket B has been known about for some time, along with intels imc.
However what gets me is 'intel aims'
Intel has 'aimed' for quite a number of things then pulled a quick one.

'We can hit 15ghz with netburst'
'What about heat, etc?'
'ermm...........'
*runs away to p6 arcitechure*

Though i think that this one isn't out of the question.

NathanE · 22 Dec 2006 at 18:19

I hope they don't scrap it again. The Nehalem codename has been recycled about 4 times already.

The specification looks awesome... hyper-threading finally makes its return. Hope there's some logic tweaks in there too - I'm sure there are.

lay-z-boy · 22 Dec 2006 at 18:23

hyperthreading is bogus, imo, in multithreaded apps i got about 5-15% boost.
Turn it off and single core stuff runs better.

If it made a comeback it would have to be a damm good one.

NathanE · 22 Dec 2006 at 18:31

In 2008 very few programs will still be single threaded, lay-z-boy

Rroff · 22 Dec 2006 at 18:37

On my P4 the difference between HT on and off is quite a bit less than a 5% performance difference and having it on makes things a lot smoother when playing with lots of apps, etc.
Overall there isn't much of a performance boost, about the only place where HT actually shows any performance gains (and it can be around 50%) is doing folding, seti and other distributed computing grid projects when running multiple instances.

lay-z-boy · 22 Dec 2006 at 18:40

NathanE said:
In 2008 very few programs will still be single threaded, lay-z-boy

Better start whipping those programmers into action, or nothing will change

NathanE · 22 Dec 2006 at 18:45

For what it's worth, my team has not produced and is no longer maintaining any single threaded designs for a year

Probably doesn't help in the grand scheme of things though

Z3R0-CooL · 22 Dec 2006 at 21:36

what scares me is the amount of bugs and crashes we are going to be experiencing when multi threaded games/applications come into action...

cause synchronizing threads and handling them especially in such broad spectrum of computer hardware is really bloody difficult to say the least

lay-z-boy · 22 Dec 2006 at 23:26

Z3R0-CooL said:
what scares me is the amount of bugs and crashes we are going to be experiencing when multi threaded games/applications come into action...

cause synchronizing threads and handling them especially in such broad spectrum of computer hardware is really bloody difficult to say the least

Not really, quake 4 was one of the first im aware of to have multithreading and that had no problems at all.
New games that are multi threaded like alan wake will use a core for a task, 1 for ai, 1 for physics etc.
Although valve said they were going to do hybrid multithreading on the source engine, cant remember any more than that.

Starfall · 22 Dec 2006 at 23:59

Netburst was planned to reach 10GHz, i think the ALU made it that far in test at 130nm although an ALU isnt a CPU

If Intel wanted to they could put out Cedal Mill Celerons at 4GHz on 65nm process and standard heatsinks but i guess they want to reserve 4GHz for a special occasion. Didn't Dell release a special edition watercooled XPS running at over 4GHz?

You can't criticise HyperThreading, it's free gain, just tricking the software into running multiple threads to keep the pipeline more heavilly loaded. After all what was the competition, AthlonXP's...

this_is_gav · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:05

Starfall said:
You can't criticise HyperThreading, it's free gain, just tricking the software into running multiple threads to keep the pipeline more heavilly loaded. After all what was the competition, AthlonXP's...

Which to be fair were formidable competition, just not in all apps.

I loved Hyper Threading. It made things so much smoother in practise that benchmarks simply couldn't show, but in raw use (encoding and gaming, my 2 main uses at the time) it held little over non-Hyper Threaded CPUs.

Joe42 · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:39

Starfall said:
You can't criticise HyperThreading, it's free gain, just tricking the software into running multiple threads to keep the pipeline more heavilly loaded. After all what was the competition, AthlonXP's...

I think most of the criticism levelled at HT was really aimed at the architecture, HT was implemented to take advantage of an inefficient architecture, or at least that was one of the reasons for it i think.

If it gives a performance gain i'm all for it but with so few multi threaded apps i still wish that mystical reverse HT really existed.

snowdog · 23 Dec 2006 at 17:30

Single thread sucks in windows, ablsolutly rubbish, i tried my cpu with ht off for 3 days and already noticed huge performance decreases in normall usage, main reason i got a p4 instead of an a64 is ht, i would ever want to go back to single threaded even if i was payed for, so basicly im happy with HT and that its coming back, in windows the more threads the better, only in games it can be a prob but in windows...

Woundering why intel never released p4's running on 4 ghz and higher, pretty much all of them do 4.2 easeley and with luck upto 4.6/4.7ghz on air...

Locke · 23 Dec 2006 at 21:00

I should hide my C2D 6600 thats running at 4ghz on air then ?

~>Dg<~ · 23 Dec 2006 at 21:20

pls bring out some very fast single core cpus for us gamers because me personally am sick of this dual core sh1te they keep feeding us handful of games are x2 and often lot of issues with them single cores rule been telling us for four or five years dual core the way but where are the games dont believe the hype . yes someone pls tel me there gunna be all dualcore or quadcore in the future but by the time they are well be on quadcore at least standard i think like 5 years before its in everygame.

Margaret · 23 Dec 2006 at 22:14

dgmug said:
pls bring out some very fast single core cpus for us gamers because me personally am sick of this dual core sh1te they keep feeding us handful of games are x2 and often lot of issues with them single cores rule been telling us for four or five years dual core the way but where are the games dont believe the hype . yes someone pls tel me there gunna be all dualcore or quadcore in the future but by the time they are well be on quadcore at least standard i think like 5 years before its in everygame.

Haha what a silly post.

Joe42 · 23 Dec 2006 at 22:48

dgmug said:
pls bring out some very fast single core cpus for us gamers because me personally am sick of this dual core sh1te they keep feeding us handful of games are x2 and often lot of issues with them single cores rule been telling us for four or five years dual core the way but where are the games dont believe the hype . yes someone pls tel me there gunna be all dualcore or quadcore in the future but by the time they are well be on quadcore at least standard i think like 5 years before its in everygame.

The enter key. Its the biggest key on the keyboard. You should press it occasionally.

The problem is not the processors. Do you know why they are making processors with multiple cores rather than one fast core?
Because they can't make single cores any faster, basically.
They have no choice, the performance improvements we need and want and expect cannot be delivered if they keep developing single cores, so they have to use multiple cores instead.

The problem here is the games which are not multi-threaded. Thats a relatively easy problem to solve compared to trying to get decent performance improvements out of single cores, compared to the performance gains you can get out of multiple cores combined with multi threaded software.

~>Dg<~ · 23 Dec 2006 at 23:20

intel break the 4ghz barier cnt go no faster believe what u may do u believe they cant make any faster cpus say no more can go to mars cant make a cpu go past 4 ghz lol your already brainwashed

p4radox · 23 Dec 2006 at 23:26

dgmug said:
intel break the 4ghz barier cnt go no faster believe what u may do u believe they cant make any faster cpus say no more can go to mars cant make a cpu go past 4 ghz lol your already brainwashed

What? Who's brainwashed?

Multi core and multi threaded applications are the future. That and more efficient, smaller architechtures that run at lower voltages - thus enabling more cores to be fitted on one die.