Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[The Duke of URL]

I suppose you will object to this post in that it contains facts and sources rather than just rants and insults:

It's simply easier to increase performance by adding cache memory to a processor, says Bill Kirby, director of platform marketing at Intel. Cache memory stores frequently accessed data close to the processor where it can be retrieved more quickly than data stored in the main memory.

Industry-wide concerns about the amount of power required to keep highly clocked processors running has caused most chip companies to move away from high clock speed designs. Intel is now focusing on the "platformization" of its chips, a concept that Otellini touched on during his keynote address at the Fall Intel Developer Forum last month, Kircos says.


Practical Limitations

There were no technical or thermal limitations that prevented Intel from releasing a 4-GHz product, Kirby says. But there were practical limitations, so that to release such a product Intel would have to devote time and energy to tweaking circuit designs and testing those chips, he says. That always takes place when a chip maker validates a higher speed grade, but at a certain point it's no longer worth the effort, he says.

"Performance still matters, and performance on multiple vectors still matters," Kirby says. "The fundamental decision was whether to chase megahertz ... or to bring in other features like cache and multicore."

Those additional vectors include features such as hyperthreading, the software-based technology that Intel has used in its Pentium 4 chips for more than a year to fool a PC's operating system into believing the PC has two processors.

During its usual second-quarter chipset introduction in 2005, Intel will introduce the other platform technologies it has spoken about during the last several IDFs, Kirby says. These include: VT, or Vanderpool Technology, a virtualization feature; LT, or LaGrande Technology, hardware-based security features; EM64T, Intel's name for its 64-bit extensions to the x86 instruction set; and AMT, or Active Management Technology, a new feature aimed at making PCs easier to manage.

After that chip set launch, Intel will be ready to introduce its first dual-core desktop chips. Those chips will keep the Netburst architecture in at least the first generation of dual-core products, and probably into the second, Kirby says.

He declined to offer further details about Intel's dual-core desktop chips, but Intel's customers will receive details on the new chips over the next week or so, Kirby says.


http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118165,00.asp