Intel Westmere: Six-Core in 32nm in 1H/2010

[suryad]

Thats a very good point actually, I hadn't considered that. I wonder how the L3 cache will work then?

Thiat actually makes me more interested in picking up an i7 now. Especially since they're unlikely to scale much, if any faster than 3.33Ghz this year.

Guess we will have to wait for the reviews when the chip gets released...but look on the bright side...the i7 chips, even the EE edition thats upcoming will be quite cheap by then!

 

[entity279]

I wonder, how would 6 core Westmere (2+2+2) fair against Nehalem's native 4 core design in apps that can't take advantage of >4 cores? I think early i7 adopters could be happy for a long time.

But do we know that 6 core Westmere is going to be approached in a "triple die" fashion?

 

[Bludd]

But do we know that 6 core Westmere is going to be approached in a "triple die" fashion?

Are you suggesting 4+2 or 3+3? 3+3 could be 2 Nehalems slapped together with 1 core each disabled, 4+2 could be a full Nehalem together with a purposely designed 2-core version.

My 3+3 sounds expensive.

 

[Blackraven]

I'm not sure.

I dunno really but I personally find it hard to see something that is like six cores (or like those three cores in the Xbox 360 and select AMD processors). Maybe it's just me I really dunno.

Must've gotten used to the Power of 2 thingy.

 

[homerdog]

But do we know that 6 core Westmere is going to be approached in a "triple die" fashion?

Damnit I know I read that somewhere. Trying to find linkage.

Huh I seem to remember it being a little more concrete than this. Maybe it is native 6 core.

A "little later," Intel will follow up with Gulftown, a high-end desktop processor with six cores and twelve threads. Since it'll be Westmere-based, this product may have three dual-core processor dice in the same package. Gulftown will team up with the same X58 chipset as today's Core i7 CPUs.

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/16399

 

[suryad]

I have a feeling that Intel will be trying...or has been trying to make octacore CPUs. I think the ones that are sort of defective, will be the hexacore versions. It is sort of like how AMD did their tricore CPUs. My 2 cents...and I think the reasoning behind it is sound...they want to make the most bang for their buck.

 

[entity279]

Quote:A "little later," Intel will follow up with Gulftown, a high-end desktop processor with six cores and twelve threads. Since it'll be Westmere-based, this product may have three dual-core processor dice in the same package. Gulftown will team up with the same X58 chipset as today's Core i7 CPUs.

And I thought that they had dual core Nehalems on the roadmap (maybe they did, but cancelled now since they would overlap with DC Westmeare?). Also in a nehalem review they were pointing out that the new processor is built in a more modular fashion, so Westmeare being almoust a shrink it would have been plausible to keep that, thus enabling (or making it easier for) Intel to build native dual/quad/hexa core processors.

But i guess it's not that cost effective for harvesting? And also native hex-core would imply that they would produce at least 2 different flavors of Westmeare..
Well nevermind, native or not, we'll wait and see if it's a good performer.

 

[homerdog]

And I thought that they had dual core Nehalems on the roadmap (maybe they did, but cancelled now since they would overlap with DC Westmeare?).

I thought the same, but there's nothing of the sort on their roadmap. Probly for the reason you mention, it would compete (poorly) with Westmere.

 

[Thorburn]

It'll be native, the dual-core die doesn't have an IMC, its on the IGP.

 

[suryad]

Well nevermind, native or not, we'll wait and see if it's a good performer.

Given the performance of the Nehalem, I am sure it wont disappoint

 

[fellix]

Gulftown under the scope

Rather poor CB10 performance scaling, but the new AES instruction set is virtually skewing the benchmark continuum.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Looks like quite a few of those tests aren't recognizing the last 2 cores. Were they do though the performance difference is pretty impressive. And its nice to see on a core for core basis its consistently faster, if only by a small amount.

 

[Blazkowicz]

so they put in that feature from VIA processors .
this is going to be a monstrous CPU. like 2x more powerful than a Q6600. stuff it with 12GB ram, and here's a 1000€ PC I'd run 30 thin clients from.