IDF Spring 2005 - New Pentium D, No More 4
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 1, 2005 6:55 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
In the spirit of multi-core at IDF, Intel has officially named the dual core Smithfield based Pentium 4 processors - by ditching the number 4.
The desktop dual core processor is called the Pentium D, and here's its logo:
The 90nm Pentium D will debut at the following speeds:
| Intel Dual Core Performance Desktop Lineup LGA775 | ||||
| Processor | Speed | L2 Cache | FSB | Launch |
| Pentium D 840 | 3.20GHz | 2x1MB | 800MHz | Q2'05 |
| Pentium D 830 | 3.00GHz | 2x1MB | 800MHz | Q2'05 |
| Pentium D 820 | 2.80GHz | 2x1MB | 800MHz | Q2'05 |
Next up we have the Pentium Extreme Edition, also missing the number 4:
The Pentium Extreme Edition will only be launched at 3.2GHz and feature a 1066MHz FSB as well as Hyper Threading (2 threads per core, 4 threads total). The rest of the features remain identical to the Pentium D.
We can't help but think that the Pentium D logo looks a little too much like the Celeron D logo, but Intel has definitely made the Pentium Extreme Edition look somewhat more worth its price tag.
As we alluded to earlier, there is a bit of an issue with the way the Smithfield die is laid out in that it is a single piece of silicon consisting of two Prescott 1M cores. Although one of the cores can be cut away or disabled if it is useless, the problem is that we're now dealing with one very large core at 206 mm^2 and 230M transistors. Remember that chip defects increase by surface area, so manufacturing one very long piece of silicon lends itself to higher defects than two smaller pieces of silicon. Presler, the 65nm chip we talked about earlier today, gets around this by actually using two separate pieces of silicon for the two 65nm cores - Presler also uses the 65nm process to enable a full 2MB of cache per CPU, that's 4MB of total cache on a desktop processor.
More info as we get it...for those that are wondering, Gelsinger's keynote was infinitely better than Barrett's, in terms of interesting information.
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WooDaddy - Thursday, March 3, 2005 - link
I'm still lost on the performance benefit of dual-core tech. In theory it sounds nice.. but benchmark have proven otherwise.Right now, I'm between a rock and a hard place trying to figure out which proc to go for or wait. A64 for gaming, P4 5xx for encoding, or wait for dual core from AMD or Wintel? Hell, 64-bit OS isn't readily available yet (shut up linux folks.. I'm talking Windows)
sprockkets - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
The Pentium processor lives again!Of course, we are referring to something great and new, not that old 75mhz screamer with new superscalar technology from 1995!
Quanticles - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
"but i dont mind intel's move at all, if it actually leads to lower prices from AMD, or convinces AMD to hurry up with desktop duallies too... it'd be perfect for me."You should want AMD prices to be higher so they can make money. The competitive market wont last long if AMD starts losing money.
Quanticles - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
Pentium D(umb)j/k, i like this better than pentium 4 - which was completely misleading.
They should make the available features more visible, however. Most processors are the same, just with different features turned off.
piroroadkill - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
" while the benefit of dual core is not going to help the fps in games... maybe it may help in the sense of being able to play games while1) downloading "
What in the motherfuck? I could download on my old P133 in the loft in bits just as quick as I can download on my P4 3.37Ghz.
Visual - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
To those concerned about the size of the die - don't worry, it's not like intel intends to actually make/sell much (if any ?) such chips :pthese chips are ment to be announced rather than being produced :p the lack of number in the name also makes sense, since it'd be a non-existant cpu why would they bother to number it :p
intel's goal is just to paperlaunch something to be "first dualcore to the desktop", announce cheap prices to force AMD to drop prices too, reducing their margin, etc.
but i dont mind intel's move at all, if it actually leads to lower prices from AMD, or convinces AMD to hurry up with desktop duallies too... it'd be perfect for me.
ceefka - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
#* Your explanation is the only way it makes sense to me. Nice one.I do think however that the differences between the Intel logo's are too little and too few. They're butt ugly too, but that's just my opinion.
With just the suffix D standing, I have the feeling that singlecore Pentiums will be a thing of the past in a year or two.
By the way, does anybody know what names and logo's AMD will apply for the dualcore versions of the Opteron and Athlon64? The AMD logo's always look a little cheap to me.
Maybe both companies could launch a contest between end-users to come up with new logos for their various CPU's. The reward: a system with their top CPU of that moment.
defter - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
Uhm, I meant #18defter - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
#17 Downloading is CPU intensive??? Well maybe if you have 10Gbps connection to the outside world...xsilver - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
#17while the benefit of dual core is not going to help the fps in games... maybe it may help in the sense of being able to play games while
1) downloading
2) encoding
3) anything else cpu intensive you can think of
whilst not taking any frame hits from your game
I think design into running 2 systems off the 1 box -- ala jetways "magic twin" system will be quite a good idea ... maybe especially for the corporate environment?
I imagine it would save quite a lot of money if only 1 of every 2 employee's needed a desktop box
... yes 2 monitors, keyboards etc are still needed but hey....