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Keith, clear enough. (eom)
Buggi, Yonah will be a very good data point as the same slides on Anandtech compare Banias, Dothan, Yonah, and Merom with each other with a similar SpecIntRate per watt. There are only a few differences between Merom and Conroe (same with Woodcrest), so Yonah provides a good data point to provide us with a ball park idea for the performance of all of Intels next generation processors concerning SpecIntRate (provided it simply measures SpecIntRate for a given TDP).
I kind of hope to receive a PM with the SpecIntRate of Yonah in it.
Regards,
Rink
Buggi, tx, for my edification, what kind of X2 do you think it will take for a SpecIntRate of 57 (frequency, L2, main memory)?
Regards,
Rink
Chipguy, Re: Market data I heard to date shows that the designated RISC replacement market (PA/Alpha/MIPS) represents less than half of IPF sales. IPF is taking about the same chunk of opposing RISC business as friendly RISC business with the remainder coming from x86.
I don't know the quality of your resources and still am slightly doubful half of IPF sales is from opposing RISC business. Overall picture I have in mind is this:
HP quarterly Enterprise and Storage revenue barely budged for more than a year all while the x86 server component of it was growing at nice rates. Going back as far as three years this picture remains more or less the same (with ups and downs).
SGI isn't as detailed in its reports from what I heard Itanium based systems are the biggest revenue driver for them and their revenue is declining slowly. For them their growth in high performance systems clearly does not make up for the decline in workstations. This is for the period of a year. If you compare 2004 and 2002 you'll see that high performance systems and workstations both declined drastically (although the decline in workstations is even more pronounced).
So in general terms my statement that PA-Risc/Alpha/Itanium/R16000 market is not growing is probably justified. Itanium has not proven strong enough to grow this market significantly. Keep in mind that I am trying to be conservative with both these last statements for the reason that I have not investigated it thoroughly - it's from memory mainly plus some quick checks.
re: Convergence of x86 and EPIC platforms / cpu architectures.
BTW, I don't think the cpu architectures will converge either, but was wondering if you did.
re: IPF's biggest advantage over x86 is microarchitectural implementations that favours memory over complex logic and transistors over interconnect, both of which grow more important over time.
I think that's exactly why EPIC will be more cache dependant than x86. More cache means larger dies.
re: To date x86's biggest advantage over IPF is its software base and lower platform cost both of which shrink over time.
x86's software base will remain an extremely valuable asset. You're right about platform costs difference is shrinking. You don't mention though that x86 server cpu's will remain cheaper when compared to hypothetical EPIC cpu's of exactly the same die size because of economy of scale (production costs, development costs, etc...). Same goes for software prices to some extent. Provided that EPIC will never effectively emmulate x86 at a significantly smaller die size it won't stand a chance to reach similar economy of scale (alternative significantly better x86 emulation performance at same die size would do the trick too). Significant is 50% for example (big WAG), considering the large differences in economy of scale as they are today. We might never see such a situation, and if ever it won't be in the next couple of years for sure.
Regards,
Rink
Darbes, hardly, you better check again (eom)
Chipguy, re: 1) I never predicted Merced's frequency.
Yes my statement was a bit too generic for Merced: You did think Merced would be introduced a heck of a lot earlier than it was. For the rest of the line (Mckinley, Madison, Montecito, and now probably Montvale) you overestimated the frequency. Just to be complete: I do take your estimates seriously as they provide me with some ball park max frequency. Your Opteron perfomance estimate before introduction was pretty good.
Re to my question "So why trust Tukwila?" you wrote: I don't believe I have said anything about the frequency or performance of Tukwila...
I was refering to performance in combination with its release schedule. In response to my question if you thought the lowering of the 2.1GHz introduction frequency for Montvale could be true you said that from Intels perspective it might be wise to spend more resources to get Tukwila EARLIER to the market than to spend those resources on getting Montvale to clock higher at introduction. That shows you trust Tukwilas release schedule to a great extent.
re: Keep in mind that Intel is losing market share in x86 servers and is rapidly gaining share with IPF in the high end
market. Which future products do you think Intel will want to emphasize most strongly in the press?
With regards to server market: Woodcrest/Cloverton and Harpertown. They are clearly emphasizing that right now. The reason must be that they need those products to counter Opteron.
re: [HP discontinued Itanium workstations] because the general purpose workstation is now for all intents and purposes a high end PC with a specialized graphics card.
Why didn't you ask why SGI introduced an IPF workstation?
HP discontinued them because they didn't sell nearly well enough for them. SGI introduced them subsequently because HP cancelled them and they thought that although maybe loss-making it was still an essential enough component to grow their piece of the Itanium market.
re: [Itanium engineers were recently moved over to x86 development because of] platform convergence. The best
people Intel has for this are the ex-ADTers who designed
the EV7 and EV8. They used to be entirely on the IPF side.
Reasonable explanation. I was thinking though that x86 and Itanium engineers have so far exactly the same access to CSI development, but this is actually only a guess. So although I'm not sure about myself I'm not sure yet about your explanation either.
re: [I think all is about right on target and getting better with Itanium] because IPF momentum continues to strongly grow even with Madison generation I2 processors in their final days. All the important OSes/features are on board, ISVs are on board (there are now over 5000 ISV apps for IPF just under HP-UX alone). The new Fujitsu system is very impressive and Fujitsu seems very serious about selling a shipload of them. All this with the introduction of Montecito just a few months away along with top to bottom chipset/system revamps of HP and SGI IPF products to match the new chip. What's not to like?
While all you say is quite true, it is also true that Itanium is currently almost only replacing older architectures whose funding was cut close to nill YEARS ago, and the PA-Risc/Alpha/Itanium/R16000(or whatever the cpu architecture was called that Itanium is replacing at SGI) market isn't growing at all for as far as I can check it (from income statements HP+SGI, and recent market share reports). The tier 1s that you mention to be on board almost all also shipping x86 and other architectures. Power is not about to be endangered by Montecito. SUN has a strong following because of their software and their recently more or less acceptable roadmap because of their collaboration with Fujitsu and AMD, and their customers are not expected to jump across to Itanium. Anyways, from my point of view Itanium hasn't been strong enough to grow the PA-Risc/Alpha/Itanium/R16000 market so far, and is not likely to significantly enlarge it in the near future, but as always I can be wrong.
You only talk about platform convergence. Does this mean you don't expect the cpu architectures will converge within the next four years? And if so which architecture do you think the convergence will be based on, x86/EPIC?
Regards,
Rink
Chipguy, from previous posts you overestimated introduction frequencies for Merced, Mckinley, Madison, Montecito, and now probably Montvale too. So why trust Tukwila? Isn't it starting to look like this redesigned Tukwila might be the last Itanium? I mean Intel did talk about converging Itanium and Pentium in the past. Isn't it more likely now that if the convergence does take place that the x86 line of cpu architectures is the one that will be continued? Much more capital is invested in the x86 architecture than in Itanium + PA RISC + Alpha architectures combined. The x86 architecture is moving upwards fast with virtualization and mainframe class chipset plans. Momentum of x86 has not slowed in all the years now that Itanium is on the market, as Itanium only replaces older architectures whose development funds were minimized years ago. SUN meanwhile is only likely to get more close to AMD (Galaxy, shared developments) up till at least their more general purpose Niagara derivative called Rock. HP is likely increasingly cursing its Itanium bed partner internally (as they were clearly expecting Montecito to clock between 2 and 2.5GHz, and Montvale between 2.5 and 3GHz - not unlike you). IBM is highly emphasizing Power over other architectures they ship such as Itanium and is set to continue doing that because they are not likely to be challenged sufficiently. And where is the Itanium buzz this IDF? Why did HP discontinue Itanium workstations a while back? Why are engineers recently reportedly taken off Itanium development in favor of x86 development? Also, why don't we have any Itanium code names for 45nm, while we do have at least some of them for x86?
So what exactly is it that makes you think all is about right on target and getting better with Itanium?
Regards,
Rink
Intel Montvale speeds reduced: http://67.19.9.2/?article=25591
So after Montecito wasn't going to get to 2.0GHz (1.8GHz at start) if this turns out to be true Montvale speed reduced from 3.0GHz to 2.1GHz???
Do you think this might actually be true?
Regards,
Rink
Intel might have completed high-k process for 45nm:
My reaction: http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=21615627
Regards,
Rink
Mmoy, There is no Pentium D notebook that I know of. The only dual core notebooks available are based on X2:
-Rockdirect: http://www.rockdirect.co.uk/consumer_notebooks.htm
-Voodoo: http://www.voodoopc.com/system/quotekitchen.aspx?productID=1083#
-MTECH: http://www.m-techlaptops.com/amd_dual_core_laptop.htm (November)
They're obviously all very expensive.
If he really needs a dual core 64b laptop based on a mobile processor he'll have to wait till around Q1 06 for DTR X2's, or till H2 06 for either Merom or DC Turion (Merom probably being earlier than DC Turion).
If he doesn't really need 64b then I guess Yonah will offer him by far the most choice.
If he doesn't really need dual core, but does need 64b I'd ask him if how important he thinks screen resolution is versus quality, as from my experience with a TFT screens contrast is quite important (bright screens are significantly nicer to look at as colors are much more vibrant). If he really does need such a high resolution chances that he'll find a Turion laptop are rather slim.
Just tried to think along with you without helping that much... FWIW,
Regards,
Rink
Wbmw, re: No, but are you claiming that Charlie and Mike have the ability and desire to quote their sources verbatim?
Ofcourse not. I have certain reservations with that article as well (like who says it won't use a 128b bus, or double 64b busses). Still I actually have some reason to be grateful that they do their jobs. Their information while not always correct is at least based on quite often reasonable sources, something neither of us has much access to. So yes I read between the lines too while at the same time I'm appreciating what info they got their hands on.
Regards,
Rink
Chipguy, Thanks. (eom)
Wbmw, you are not claiming to have anywhere near the amount and/or quality of sources that Charlie and Mike have, right?!
If so, I must have missed it in the posts I read from you over at SI a while back and here. In that case: Mea culpa.
Regards,
Rink
Wbmw, that's a quite a bit too easy to say. From my perspective it seems that Charlie (the author of that article) typically knows much more about this kind of thing than you do as he has much more and better sources for this type of information than you do, right?!
Regards,
Rink
Chipguy, Mas, re: I have always thought they would have trouble clocking it high with its short pipeline but now I am not so sure as the recent 3Ghz estimate for a 90nm Montvale is quite something and does imply that the x86 hardware it had may have been holding it back which is what Chipguy [..] has been consistently saying.
I thought Montecito was the first Itanium without x86 legacy. Mas seems to think otherwise. So which one is it?
Regards,
Rink
Yes I did, but 90nm Nocona derivative Paxville does not have nearly enough in common with 65nm Woodcrest derivative Cloverton to make that anywhere near a sure call. The Inquirer puts Cloverton early in Q4 06. I'd say that would be about right.
Regards,
Rink
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=21597272
Chris, sounds pretty relaxed. The thing I don't like about Florida summers is the humidity, and even though Wales is not exactly free of moist in the summer it would definitely be a nicer place to be for me too. We live close to Amsterdam (we're dutch), and lived in Brussels for a couple of years beforehand.
Regards,
Rink
Chris, just curious, where are you heading?
Regards,
Rink
FUD influencing oil prices; not exactly a new phenomenon.
I think the main reason that prices are going up is because of reasonable, long term concerns. A realization is setting in that the slightest problems, the ones that occur every quarter or so and that never before were cause for a concern now heavily influence oil prices. So why not invest in it? - It'll go up over longer term anyway since there's no direct alternative.
Regards,
Rink
Joe, That's only logical it was known already that TSMC would produce 110nm, and ORNAND will be released at 90nm.
Regards,
Rink
Keith, that's quite strong language for Supermicro and might bode well for more and newer products from that company.
Regards,
Rink
Keith, I posted the same article at SI, with a remark that Intel blades apparently sell better as starting option than AMD based blades.
The standard Grid and Grow configuration will include a single BladeCenter chassis with seven Intel-based blades, since this is the configuration IBM has seen most customers begin with, Bunshaft said.
So maybe customers are not as educated as you presume. Or maybe the price of the Intel based one is more attractive. Or maybe there are more blade products available based on Intel. Or maybe Intel based blades are selling better as IBM only very recently started to sell Opteron blades. I don't know what's happening here but if prices are reasonable, and customers are presented with enough information, I think it's a bit weird that customers continue to buy Intel over AMD (particularly in blades, and particularly this half year).
Regards,
Rink
KPF, your remark does not apply to mirrorbit, ornand (based on mirrorbit), and quadbit. Mirrorbit is about as cheap to make as NAND on the same node but seems to be always a full node behind cutting edge NAND. Quadbit will change the economics once more possibly (I'm careful here) at the cost of an even slightly longer process delay.
Regards,
Rink
Keith, re: Enthusiasts should love this, but it doesn´t make sense. Opteron as the cheaper A64 alternative?
Can't the reason be just as simple as price-demand?
BTW, are you sure the 939 socket 1xx Opterons are completely interchangeable with 939 socket A64's?
Regards,
Rink
Q2 chipset shipments for AMD platforms were 7.1M for K8 + 2.7M for K7 = 9.8M (or 10% more than cpu sales of 8.9M).
See ML's report that JJ posted.
Regards,
Rink
OT: JJ, Keith, exactly the same here. It's really easy to get parts of sentences wrong when you're not native. Anyways...
Regards,
Rink
wbmw, Intel will have multiple next-generation CPUs that will outperform the dismal expectations of the AMDroids. Can't wait to revisit this in another 5-6 months.
Yonah is the only next generation product 6 months from now. Paxville is 90nm. 65nm products in this timeframe are: Cedar Mill, a single core 65nm shrink of Prescott; Presler, dual core Cedar Mill (two dies in one package); Dempsey will not be in this timeframe but in order to make it complete Dempsey is Presler with bus arbitration making it suitable as Xeon MP. Presler and Dempsey will be 130+W. As Cedar Mill, Pressler, and Dempsey are derived directly from Prescott
Montecito will be the highest performing big tin processor at least for some time. But Montecito has little or no influence on Xeon/Opteron sales as it is only for the higher end big tin market (almost 600mm^2, EPIC software only, mainly so far as replacement for old big tin systems from HP). This is an AMD msg board so if your remark includes Montecito it is of little relevance.
Yonah will be the highest performing T&L processor for at least three quarters ('at least' as we don't have any performance info on Taylor). A lower power version of X2 however will be the highest performing DTR and the only 64b cpu in the mobile segment. Dual core Yonah though high performing in T&L is 32b only and because of it's performance and image it'll sell like hot cakes. Turion will continue to sell as well on price and 64b (only as small part of the T&L market).
All in all AMD will retain rather relevant power and performance advantages in the Opteron space. It's desktop processors will remain the best until Conroe at least (imo the advantage will stretch well beyond it though). That's two out of three major market segments.
Don't you think this is a bit more balanced than just using terms like 'AMDroids' and 'dismal'?
Regards,
Rink
Gateway intros AMD notebook.
AMD APPEARS to be back in Gateway's good books as the firm released the 8510GZ.
The machine, the 7510GX, uses an AMD 64 bit CPU, ATI Radeon X700 graphics and will sell at over 7,000 shops in North America. It will cost $799.
But that doesn't mean it's got the hump with Intel. Gateway will also intro a 17-inch Centrino model, the 8510GZ, which uses a Pentium M 740 with a 533MHz front side bus and 512MB of dual channel DDR2 memory. This machine comes with Radeon X700 graphics, a 100GB hard drive, 1GB of memory, and a double layer multi format optical drive.
This one will cost $1,449.99, or $1,500 as most people call it.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24770
Regards,
Rink
Chipguy, tx (eom)
Chipguy, OK, I admit it was a shot in the dark. If Intel would do an asymmetric core what combination do you think would be most likely?
Regards,
Rink
Tenchu, mind telling if Intel asymmetric cores would be a combination of Itanium + Merom or something totally different?
I freely admit I'm curious; I'd appreciate it if someone could be so gracious to share it with me too.
Regards,
Rink
Tenchu, re: Dan, Fin-Fets and Asymmetric cores.
Dan is right on both accounts.
You are wrong laughing about asymmetric cores. It has been discussed by AMD as one of the bigger opportunities on four seperate occasions I know of. Also from the article you mentioned: "Fred went on to say that for future microprocessors, he's not sure if the K8 core necessarily disappears and that in the long run, it could be that future microprocessors feature one or more K8 cores complemented by other cores." Fred is not cool to the idea; he is serious about it as a longer term opportunity.
AMD has more than 18 months ago I believe shown working fin-fet-like transistors (and fin-fets are only one of techniques AMD might use at 45nm). Intel though has something special up its sleave for 45nm, namely high-k. Hence 45nm is shaping up to be an important node in the industry because of these different tracks.
Regards,
Rink
b2l, what does Gartner say about Opteron and Turion growth this year and next?
Regards,
Rink
re: Earnings
UPDATE: Summary of new analyst price targets:
Done. List now includes all target prices provided by Jon / Keith / you: http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=21507872
Regards,
Rink
Chipguy, re: The longer this goes on the more the general business and public audience loses interest (presuming they were even aware of it or cares).
Even a very local dutch newspaper of the small town I live in had a third of a page on AMD's suit against Intel. I think that contrary to what you said that most people interested in the industry find this suit the most high profile suit since the antitrust case against Microsoft.
As for losing interest over time that: Is that part wish part reason?
re: AMD's suit has more to do with PR outside the court than action within it.
I don't agree. It's about freeing itself from Intel's restrictive actions, and with the intentional side result good PR. You can claim otherwise, but as you lack facts and related arguments, that claim is extremely weak.
Regards,
Rink
OT: b2l, re: Where did I recently read "we may get Keith on board"..
That was partially from me.
In response to this statement from someone else: AMD's CPG's are the story and it's a real good story so climb aboard.
I answered: afaik Keith is on board.
Here: http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=21498157
Please do note that in my use of words I sometimes miss some subtleties as I'm not native english speaking person. I meant nothing by it other than that I thought I had read he had reinvested in AMD.
Hope that's understandable.
Regards,
Rink
Chipguy, short term memory?
Re: Did you know that a 4 socket prototype Montecito box
running at 1.6 GHz gets 46 GFLOP/s on Linpack while a 4
socket dualie Opteron 875 system gets 14 GFLOP/s according
to Dongarra's latest list?
It's weird at least that you don't remember me asking you questions about these exact figures a while back: http://www.investorshub.com/boards/replies.asp?msg=6777810
I'd love to see some other benchmarks than linpack though, as they're known to tell little about Itanium's real world performance. If you've got SAP benchmarks for example I'd highly appreciate it if you could share them.
Nice to see btw that you agree that your information that Montecito would be released at 2.0GHz base frequency MIGHT actually turn out to be wrong.
Regards,
Rink
Mmm, on second thought maybe that info isn't correct as it refers to Montecito as Montecino.
Regards,
Rink
Chipguy, FYI: Montecito might well have a 1.8GHz top base frequency for a while (not 2.0GHz as you expected). At least that's according to this information that Aces received: http://www.aceshardware.com/forums/read_post.jsp?id=115135903&forumid=1
Regards,
Rink
b2l, german's and other europeans a bit more in general have much less loyalty to Intel as it's not their company, it's not their icon like it is somewhat for Americans, the brand is just not nearly as much part of their culture. They care about quality for money. Simple? No, not exactly as when Intel would have been a german company they'd definitely be more inclined to buy Intel products, because the germans (as well as a lot of other big european nations) like buying their 'own' products (just like Americans to some extent). So more completely German's buy quality for money as long as their loyalty is not skewed too much in favor of the company with the weaker product offering. Just my perception ofcourse.
As for marketing AMD has long, out of necessity, been loyal to the channel. And germans have bought from the channel based on quality for money. Considering everything it amounted to a bit of a grass roots approach for AMD.
So bit by bit the perception of AMD has become one of offering good quality for money. For me it feels like this perception is more widely spread here among the common folks than in the US.
AMD's presence in Dresden helps with this, but is of secundary importance if you ask me because AMD has for a longtime already - for years before Dresden was in the picture - been a lot more successful in Europe than in the US.
Lastly I have a feeling that Intel's strongarming tactics for as far as that concerns consumer products backfire more easily in Europe than in the US, maybe because Intel has been conditioning the market longer in the US (I don't really know this point), and probably also because perception of AMD and Intel might be different, and also because of a bigger percentage of the white box market.
Hope this resonates with some people here. If not pls shoot.
Regards,
Rink