Intel Nehalem CPU running at 3.20GHz, right now

[HEXUS]

Eight-thread monster promises impressive benchmarks

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[drunkenmaster]

Just can't see it offering much performance. The memory controller is replacing, not adding to, the existing on die logic that reduces latency and most of that prefetching will go as there isn't cache to use it. Unlike the jump from low cache, highish latency Athlon XP's to a low latency ATh 64 with onboard mem controller directly responsible.

High latency P4 to massively reduced latency Core 2 Duo has already happened. Infact, DDR3's higher latency with massive bandwidth is perfect for a latency hidden accurate predicting prefetch large cache setup. Low speed high latency DDR3, or high speed very high latency DDR3 with large bandwidth strikes me as worse for a chip that will lose a lot of its latency hiding ability and rely directy on quick memory access. Especially with triple channel, theres going to be massively more expensive to buy bandwidth than we remotely need. DDR2 would actually work better, lower latency, triple channel, new bus, you'd be talking about a fairly easy 30gb/s anyway and the system will never ever use that. But it would be quite a bit lower latency than a DDR3 setup.

THe only place Nehalem will be gaining in performance will be in the all 4 cores 100% loaded area. But even now the Kentsfield/Yorkfield, despite the lack of bandwidth is actually very good, scaling from 1-3 cores is almost perfect, the 4th core in many applications scales very well and only in a few area's is there a significant drop, and thats where the 30% performance will come in, a very few select apps.

Its a necessary move, but nothing thats going to provide useful benefits for now. Its the stepping stone to on die intergrated gpu, and intergrated PCI-E control and possibly some better sli/crossfire scaling in the future on a whole better faster system architechture. But none of thats now, this is just whats needed to enable that in the future.

[kalniel]

I disagree - we never thought we'd talk about low latency at the same time as DDR2 once upon a time, but now you are throwing it about. Why won't the same thing happen with DDR3 eventually?

Prefetching and the other improvements in Core 2 only mask the higher latency of off-die memory controllers, not eliminate it, and they don't do so in every scenario. The onboard controller done right should still enable a further reduction in latency, and have much better behaviour where the Core 2 was previously weak.

Lets not forget that QPI and the onboard controller have another important effect - reduction in complexity of the motherboard. How much that directly affects performance I'm not sure.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

looks impressive but will cost an arm and a leg when it first releases and like someone already said, is it needed? todays quad core are already an overkill for many of us

[kalniel]

Originally Posted by j.o.s.h.1408

and like someone already said, is it needed?

Hehe the technology world wouldn't exist if we were concerned about that question.

Some people will always want the latest. Others will be upgrading from an older generation and so will see a significant performance increase. I'll be getting a nahalem system I'm sure. Do I need it? Of course not, but it'll still be a noticeable upgrade from my 939 based system.

[DeSean]

We must have progress for the sake of progress in the tech world. Even if few people use (or have the need for) Nehalem, at least Intel can learn from it and it will keep AMD on its toes. The same principle applies to the graphics card market. Nvidia is currently playing marketing games, making small advances in technology compared to Core2 -> Nehalem, and slapping new model numbers on them, but even small steps are better than stagnation. Even if a handful of techies buy the 9800GX2, at least it drives the market forward a little.

[badass]

Firstly, I think Intel know a bit more about how to design a faster CPU than you.

Originally Posted by drunkenmaster

Just can't see it offering much performance. The memory controller is replacing, not adding to, the existing on die logic that reduces latency and most of that prefetching will go as there isn't cache to use it. Unlike the jump from low cache, highish latency Athlon XP's to a low latency ATh 64 with onboard mem controller directly responsible.

Any links to support that? I know the cache is reduced on Nehalem, but I'm pretty sure they have "improved" the prefetchers. With an on die memory controller, I suspect that any losses through reduced cache will be more than masked by the lower latency access to main memory.

High latency P4 to massively reduced latency Core 2 Duo has already happened. Infact, DDR3's higher latency with massive bandwidth is perfect for a latency hidden accurate predicting prefetch large cache setup. Low speed high latency DDR3, or high speed very high latency DDR3 with large bandwidth strikes me as worse for a chip that will lose a lot of its latency hiding ability and rely directy on quick memory access. Especially with triple channel, theres going to be massively more expensive to buy bandwidth than we remotely need. DDR2 would actually work better, lower latency, triple channel, new bus, you'd be talking about a fairly easy 30gb/s anyway and the system will never ever use that. But it would be quite a bit lower latency than a DDR3 setup.

This is a common perception, yet it is totally wrong.
DDR 3 is not higher latency than DDR 2
Here are 2 examples DDR-2 1066 5-5-5-15
DDR-3 1600 7-7-7-18
The DDR 2 Looks lower latency because it takes less cycles to do XYZ than the DDR 3, however you have to take into account that the DDR-2 only runs at 1066 MHZ rather than the 1600 MHZ of the DDR-3.
The DDR-3's CAS latency is 4.4 ns whilst the DDR-2's is 4.7 ns
The CPU will be waiting longer in actual time for the memory to respond with DDR-2, and when it does respond, it will with a fraction of the bandwidth.
DDR-3 is faster, end of.
No amount of trying toexplain in terms of cycles etc will change that, and trying to do so will show another lack of understanding about how things work.

THe only place Nehalem will be gaining in performance will be in the all 4 cores 100% loaded area. But even now the Kentsfield/Yorkfield, despite the lack of bandwidth is actually very good, scaling from 1-3 cores is almost perfect, the 4th core in many applications scales very well and only in a few area's is there a significant drop, and thats where the 30% performance will come in, a very few select apps.

Intel disagree with you. Yes, it may be their product, but I'll take their word over yours.

Its a necessary move, but nothing thats going to provide useful benefits for now. Its the stepping stone to on die intergrated gpu, and intergrated PCI-E control and possibly some better sli/crossfire scaling in the future on a whole better faster system architechture. But none of thats now, this is just whats needed to enable that in the future.

It might be a stepping stone, but its one thats undoutably going to be faster than its predecessor.

[Azza]

*starts hyperventilating*


Can you get Nick to do one of his sneeky slide the side panel jobbies off again please and get some shots of the inards pretty please.

[stevie lee]

what i noticed in the article was the mention of tri-channel ram.

will the ram makers start producing sets of 3 sticks of ram?

how many ram slots will there be on motherboards? 3 or 6?

say we own a dual set of ram now, upgrade to nehalem and a new mobo, if we buy a single stick of ram to make it up to 3 total ram sticks, will tri-channel work? or do we need special memory coded tri-channel ram?


and will a skulltrail 16 core nehalem run crysis? (only joking but needed asking)

[SiM]

I guess tri-channel memory is only for DDR3. So you don't need to worry about getting another matched stick, Stevie. Expect them to start selling DDR3 in threes

[kalniel]

Originally Posted by stevie lee

and will a skulltrail 16 core nehalem run crysis? (only joking but needed asking)

Not if you use an Intel gfx card which they want you to

[THEODOROS]

Hi there,

Finally the Intel moves to point-to-point links after 7 years from the production of AMD Athlon processors, and one another thing is that, DDR2 there exist Patriot memory modules at 1066 MHz CL-4-4-4-10-1T, or if you want more MHz there exist DDR2 1333 MHz Transcend at CL-5-5-5-15-1T, Thanks!

[baius]

Originally Posted by stevie lee

will the ram makers start producing sets of 3 sticks of ram?

say we own a dual set of ram now, upgrade to nehalem and a new mobo, if we buy a single stick of ram to make it up to 3 total ram sticks, will tri-channel work? or do we need special memory coded tri-channel ram?

Any official news/details from Intel about this that anyone can share?

and will a skulltrail 16 core nehalem run crysis? (only joking but needed asking)

Put it this way - it had better do.

Originally Posted by SiM

I guess tri-channel memory is only for DDR3. So you don't need to worry about getting another matched stick, Stevie. Expect them to start selling DDR3 in threes

Bit "odd", wouldn't you say?

[badass]

Apparently the Nehalems were only running at 2.13 Ghz according to the inquirer Nehalems appear everywhere at IDF - The INQUIRER

[j.o.s.h.1408]

doesnt matter what ghz its running at. you must know that ghz dont determine how fast a cpu is, its the architecture. if nehalem is THAT good, a 1ghz nehalem would probably be the same speed has a core 2 e6550

[TooNice]

It's the clockspeed and architecture. It's pretty safe to assume that all else being equal a 3.2Ghz Nehalem will be faster than a 2.13Ghz Nehalem. Has it been suggested anywhere that the Nehalem is over 2x faster clock for clock than the Core2?