Intel's 32nm Update: The Follow-on to Core i7 and More
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 11, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Westmere’s New Instructions
Much like Penryn and its new SSE4.1 instructions, Westmere comes with 7 new instructions added to those already in Core i7. These instructions are specifically focused on accelerating encryption/decryption algorithms. There’s a single carryless multiply instruction (PCLMULQDQ...I love typing that) and 6 instructions of AES.
Intel gives the example of hardware accelerated full disk encryption as a need for these instructions. With the new instructions being driven into the mainstream first, we’ll probably see quicker than usual software adoption.
Final Words
What is there to say other than: it’s a healthy roadmap. The only casualty I’ve seen is Havendale but I’d gladly trade Havendale for a 32nm version. But let’s get down to what this means for what you should buy and when.
At the very high end, Core i7 users have little reason to worry. While Intel is expected to bump i7 up to 3.33GHz in the near future, nothing below i7 looks threatening in 2009. Moving into 2010, the 6-core 32nm i7 successor should be extremely powerful. Intel’s strategy with LGA-1366 makes a lot of sense: if you want more cores, this is the platform you’re going to have to be on.
Now although I said that nothing will threaten Core i7 this year, you may be able to get i7-like performance out of Lynnfield in the second half. A quad-core Lynnfield running near 3GHz, should offer much of the performance of an i7 with a lower platform cost. Remember back to our original i7 review; we didn’t find a big performance benefit from three channels of DDR3 versus two.
Lynnfield is on track for a 2H 2009 introduction and if you’re unable to make the jump to i7 now, you’ll probably be able to get i7-like performance out of Lynnfield in about 6 months. Intel did mention that the most overclockable processors would go into the LGA-1366 socket. Combine better overclockability with the promise of 6 cores in the future and it seems like LGA-1366 is shaping up to be a platform that’s going to stick around despite cheaper alternatives.
The 32nm Clarkdale/Arrandale parts arriving by the end of this year really means one very important thing: the time to buy a new notebook will be either in Q4 2009 or Q1 2010. A 2-core, 4-thread 32nm Westmere derivative is not only going to put current Penryn cores to shame, it’s going to be extremely power efficient. In its briefing yesterday, Intel mentioned that while Clarkdale/Arrandale clock speeds and TDPs would be similar to what we have today, you’ll be getting much more performance. Seeing what we’ve seen thus far with Nehalem, I’d say a 2-core, 32nm version in a notebook is going to be reason enough for you to want to upgrade.
If I had to build a new desktop today I’d go Core i7 and think about upgrading to a 6-core version sometime next year. If I couldn’t or didn’t need to build today, then the thing to wait for is Lynnfield. Four cores that should deliver i7-like performance just can’t be beat, and platform costs will be much cheaper by then (expect ~$100 motherboards and near price parity between DDR3 and DDR2).
On the mainstream quad-core side, it may not make sense to try to upgrade to 32nm quad-core until Sandy Bridge at the end of 2010. If you buy Lynnfield this year, chances are that you won’t feel a need to upgrade until late 2010/2011.
On the notebook side, if I needed one today I’d buy whatever I could keeping in mind that within a year I’m going to want to upgrade. I mentioned this in much of my recent Mac coverage; if you bought a new MacBook, it looks great, but the one you’re going to really want will be here in about a year.
We owe Intel a huge thanks for being so forthcoming with its roadmaps. It’s going to be a good couple of years for performance.
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Targon - Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - link
For the CPU market, the problem is the ever growing amount of cache memory. Intel processors are designed with the large cache being their solution to improvements that AMD brings to the table.I suspect that Intel will have more trouble after this move to the new fab process because the difficulty in moving to a new process node grows at an exponential rate. We saw Intel hit a wall with the Pentium 3 line because they were not ready for a new process shrink at that point, so the P4 came out. When Intel got their process technology on track, the people at Intel could go back to the Pentium 3 design(with improvements) to release the Core and Core 2 Duo.
There will come a time when an all new design will be needed in order to hold on to their lead, and that is when AMD will probably catch back up, if AMD can survive until then.
BSMonitor - Thursday, February 12, 2009 - link
What an utter load of BS. Thanks fanboy.You get all that from wiki?
PrinceGaz - Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - link
Even though my last three CPUs were all from AMD (they made sense at the time- K6-III/400, Athlon XP 1700+, Athlon 64 X2 4400+), I have to disagree with your comment about the improvements (presumably the integrated memory controller) which AMD brings to the table.With Core i7, Intel has effectively removed the one last technological advantage AMD had- faster memory access. The fact that Intel chips still tend to have larger L3 caches is quite simply because they can afford to give it to them, as they are ahead of AMD on the fab-process. For a high-end desktop chip where there is die-space to spare, you could add some more cores which will probably sit idle (keeping four busy is hard enough, especially with HT), but adding more L3 cache (so long as the latency of it is not adversely affected) is a very cheap and easy way to use up the space and provide a bit of a speedup in almost everything.
AMD is currently fighting a losing game. The Phenom II (bug-fixed Phenom) cannot compete with Core i7 with AMDs current fabs, and unlike Intel who have the tick-tock steady new-process, then new-design with large teams working on each step; AMD seem to have one team working on a new design, which has to be made to work with whichever process looks like the best option at the time.
We need AMD to survive for the x86 (or x64, who came up with that :p ) CPU market to be competitive, but I think the head of AMD is going to have to get into bed with the head of IBM, else they are doomed to fall ever further behind Intel in chip-design. The K10 is promising, but a long way off still, and AMD hasn't exactly been raking in the billions of dollars of profits recently to do that R&D. VIA have found an x86 CPU niche they can compete in, I fear that unless AMD pull an elephant out the hat with the K10, they'll have to slot in between VIA and Intel in providing CPUs specialising in a particular performance-sector, with Intel being the undisputed leader.
JonnyDough - Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - link
Well said. I concur.