Intel Details Nehalem, Dunnington, Tukwila & Larrabee

[sbrehm72255]

It just seems like everyone is swapping out sockets alot these days, maybe it's just me, but in the past 5 years or so before my C2D, I only had my AMD socket 462 (Athlon XP) and 939 (A64). Now they are starting to jump all over the place, sure would be nice to keep things the same for a little while and not have to switch out adapter plates on my water blocks all the time.

 

[Rob Williams]

Do the socket differences really make that much of a difference? If a CPU upgrade is in someones plans, it would be nice to have a new motherboard... instead of using a two-year-old offering that includes an old chipset.

 

[Kougar]

Well don't forget AMD jumped from Socket A to Socket 754. Then they wanted dual-channel memory, so along came socket 939.

There was briefly some odd problem and they released Athlon(s) for their 940 Opteron socket too, but that passed quickly. Athlon64 FX-51 was a 940 chip, I don't remember anything else about it though.

Now there is socket AM2, AM2+, and will soon be AM3. I guess I am saying that sockets always are jumping all over the place.

With Nehalem, Intel has some extremely good reasons to be needing a new socket. 32nm "Westmere" is almost guaranteed to use the same socket unless voltage regulator changes are a problem again. Past that, I'm sure they'll be some new sockets again...

Rob, that's a good point. New chipsets usually use a smaller fab process, at least Intel's always have done so... often with tangible benefits too.

 

[sbrehm72255]

Yup AMD did the socket dance there for a while (and is back at it again it seems). But back in the day I was smart enough not to get sucked into the 754/940 thing as AMD said well in advance that it was going to happen and that the 754 would be short lived.

I'm one of those that doesn't jump right into the latest and greatest (although I'd like to at times) until its proven its self for a while and the bugs are worked out a little.

Cash is just a little tight now and then, I have to try and plan things out as best I can and save when and where I can. Like my HD that's going bad, I've had it for what seems like forever and the 80 that Ubuntu is installed on is even older................

 

[Rob Williams]

Yes, AMD's socket jump was kind of ridiculous. To be honest, I didn't really get into hardware until I began the site (I've always been more of a software guy), so I skipped over the 754 era entirely. I went from Socket A straight to Socket 939, so I'm kind of a poser if I voice opinions on this.

At least Intel is sticking to 775 for a while... Nehalem is the first processor to require a new socket since that one, so it's not so bad.

 

[Kougar]

Dunno about being a poser, so voice away.

The last AMD platform I owned was a Slot A 500Mhz Compaq, which got hard modded into a 948MHz Compaq by a techie. Darn thing still works even... AMD's K8 chips came out just after I built my first rig, so never did use a K8 system. Horrible thought, I know...

 

[sbrehm72255]

I ran only AMD's from the old slot A up until S939 X2 and loved every minute of cheap OC'ing fun.......... The C2 family is my first of Intel builds, as long as they hold the performance lead, I'll stick by the. Whichever company performs the best get the cash.

 

[Rob Williams]

Hah, you two are old-school. I've owned pretty much every generation, but I've never cared much for hardware back then so I didn't pay much attention.

My Socket A was a -horrible- OC'er, so I thought AMD sucked with that machine. I was obviously quite wrong though, and realized this when I had the S939. My 3200+ Venice 2.0GHz remained stable at 2.7GHz for the entire entire time I had it (almost three years).

 

[sbrehm72255]

My old XP (Abit NF7-S + 2500 Barton, unlocked) and S939 (DFI NF4 Ultra-D) did rather well and as far as I know they are still going strong (sold to friends).

 

[CoolZone]

we are going to have CPUs with 100 cores and the applications will run only in the first 2 or 4 cores,because of the lack of support.
Not even 4 cores now are supported properly by applications,only some encoding ones.Seems hardware goes to the ceiling and the software remains the cow's tail

 

[gml_josea]

we are going to have CPUs with 100 cores and the applications will run only in the first 2 or 4 cores,because of the lack of support.
Not even 4 cores now are supported properly by applications,only some encoding ones.Seems hardware goes to the ceiling and the software remains the cow's tail

Definitely. Processors technology is advancing too fast for software to catch on.

 

[Rob Williams]

Definitely. Processors technology is advancing too fast for software to catch on.

You said it. It takes a fair amount of effort to re-write applications to support multi-threading. That... and the fact of the matter is, we could have have applications that COULD use 100 cores, but it would then be the rest of our system to hold it back, I'm sure.

 

[sbrehm72255]

I would be nice if at least a few more apps supported multi cores, right now its so limited, it really isn't worth going with a Quad (even though I'd still love to have one).

 

[Kougar]

Well, the flipside is we are talking about desktop use. Servers can easily take all the cores you can throw at them...

I've thought about it, and really it hasn't even been two years since Quads were introduced to the desktop. Quad users just make such a small percentage of users companies don't see a need to invest in making their apps QC capable yet. I think a large percentage do make use of dual cores now.

 

[Rob Williams]

That's a good point, but even with that in mind, there should not be such a lack of multi-threaded applications right now. Sure, Quad-Cores haven't been around that long, but multi-cores IS the future, so why don't these developers get a head-start on things for when they ARE more prevalent?

But like you said, servers is one system-type that benefits most from this. And to be fair, MOST hardcore applications (video encoding, 3d rendering, etc) are already multi-threaded, so it's primarily the regular desktop apps that could use some attention. Those who NEED Quad-Cores usually have the applications to exploit them.

 

[sbrehm72255]

The "NEED" is where I'm having my problems.............

But I do like to edit movies from time to time, so who knows, if the timing and cash come together at the same time, I'll just have to get a quad.

 

[Merlin]

The "NEED" is where I'm having my problems.............

But I do like to edit movies from time to time, so who knows, if the timing and cash come together at the same time, I'll just have to get a quad.

Lets just start a Quad Club

:techgage:Merlin:techgage:

 

[sbrehm72255]

Sounds like a idea.............:techgage::techgage:

 

[Merlin]

The "NEED" is where I'm having my problems.............

But I do like to edit movies from time to time, so who knows, if the timing and cash come together at the same time, I'll just have to get a quad.

I hear Quads are great for that......

:techgage::techgage: Merlin :techgage::techgage:

 

[Unregistered]

hardware isn't the issue..

it's the programmers who don't know how to write for multiple core systems. As is totally evidenced by lack of 4-core software today. Braaaaahhhhhooooey! I'll just stick with my 6502-based apple. It functions as a good word processor. No need for a quad for that!! blechhhh..