3 GHz! How long can this continue?
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/05/07/intel.pentium.4.reut/index.html"; target="_blank">http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/05/07/intel.pentium.4.reut/index.html</a>;
Intel is going to be at 3 GHz by the end of this year. The GHz gap continues to grow and still no sign of a pulse from Apple and Motorola. This is serious, we are no longer talking about the competition being clocked twice as fast...soon it will be 3 times as fast! The MHz myth doesn't apply to that sort of a gulf between chip architectures, and people know it.
All the more tragic because of the brilliant new version of OS X Jobs announced yesterday. However I fear that Apple's hard work will be for nothing as long as Motorola is sinking.
Text of announcement:
Intel rolls out fastest Pentium 4 to date
May 7, 2002 Posted: 9:05 AM EDT (1305 GMT)
SANTA CLARA, California (Reuters) -- Intel Corp. Monday rolled out three new microprocessors, including the speediest Pentium 4 to date, keeping up the speed race against rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
In addition to a Pentium 4 chip running at 2.53 gigahertz, Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, also introduced a far faster bus, which connects the processor to memory chips in a personal computer. The faster bus moves bits at 533 megahertz compared with 400 megahertz previously.
In addition to improving the performance of PCs, the faster bus also makes more room for faster Pentium 4 chips. Intel executives have said its Pentium 4 chip, and the company will be selling a Pentium 4 chip running at 3 gigahertz in the fourth quarter.
Intel and Advanced Micro Devices have been slugging it out for the moniker of the highest-performing processor since Advanced Micro introduced its Athlon processor in August 1999.
Intel said the faster processors, which will be found in PCs costing about $2,200, speed up the performance of gaming, business software tools, and faster video and sound editing. For example, PC with a Pentium 4 running at 2.53 gigahertz can convert songs to the digital MP3 format almost six times faster than the fastest PCs of three years ago, Intel said.
Intel also introduced Pentium 4 chips running at 2.40 gigahertz and 2.26 gigahertz. Both of those Pentium 4 chips also have the faster 533 megahertz bus.
The 2.53 gigahertz Pentium 4 costs $637, the 2.53 gigahertz Pentium 4 costs $562, and the 2.25 gigahertz Pentium 4 costs $423, all in quantities of 1,000.
Dell Computer Corp., the largest PC maker, among others debuted systems with the new Intel chips. Dell's Dimension 8200 desktop PC is priced at $2,129 and comes with the new, fastest Pentium 4 chip, 512 megabytes of memory, an 80 gigabyte hard drive and a 19-inch monitor.
Copyright 2002 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*
Intel is going to be at 3 GHz by the end of this year. The GHz gap continues to grow and still no sign of a pulse from Apple and Motorola. This is serious, we are no longer talking about the competition being clocked twice as fast...soon it will be 3 times as fast! The MHz myth doesn't apply to that sort of a gulf between chip architectures, and people know it.
All the more tragic because of the brilliant new version of OS X Jobs announced yesterday. However I fear that Apple's hard work will be for nothing as long as Motorola is sinking.
Text of announcement:
Intel rolls out fastest Pentium 4 to date
May 7, 2002 Posted: 9:05 AM EDT (1305 GMT)
SANTA CLARA, California (Reuters) -- Intel Corp. Monday rolled out three new microprocessors, including the speediest Pentium 4 to date, keeping up the speed race against rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
In addition to a Pentium 4 chip running at 2.53 gigahertz, Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, also introduced a far faster bus, which connects the processor to memory chips in a personal computer. The faster bus moves bits at 533 megahertz compared with 400 megahertz previously.
In addition to improving the performance of PCs, the faster bus also makes more room for faster Pentium 4 chips. Intel executives have said its Pentium 4 chip, and the company will be selling a Pentium 4 chip running at 3 gigahertz in the fourth quarter.
Intel and Advanced Micro Devices have been slugging it out for the moniker of the highest-performing processor since Advanced Micro introduced its Athlon processor in August 1999.
Intel said the faster processors, which will be found in PCs costing about $2,200, speed up the performance of gaming, business software tools, and faster video and sound editing. For example, PC with a Pentium 4 running at 2.53 gigahertz can convert songs to the digital MP3 format almost six times faster than the fastest PCs of three years ago, Intel said.
Intel also introduced Pentium 4 chips running at 2.40 gigahertz and 2.26 gigahertz. Both of those Pentium 4 chips also have the faster 533 megahertz bus.
The 2.53 gigahertz Pentium 4 costs $637, the 2.53 gigahertz Pentium 4 costs $562, and the 2.25 gigahertz Pentium 4 costs $423, all in quantities of 1,000.
Dell Computer Corp., the largest PC maker, among others debuted systems with the new Intel chips. Dell's Dimension 8200 desktop PC is priced at $2,129 and comes with the new, fastest Pentium 4 chip, 512 megabytes of memory, an 80 gigabyte hard drive and a 19-inch monitor.
Copyright 2002 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*
Comments
Dude, you're like a Chatty Kathy doll that keeps pulling her own string.
Anyway, I'm sure there are more than enough threads going already for you to post this stuff, aren't there?
Sheesh.
[ 05-07-2002: Message edited by: murbot ]</p>
Oh yeah, BTW, you're going to get sued.
[ 05-07-2002: Message edited by: murbot ]</p>
"Doesn't feel that thin!"
Lighten up dude. I meant the "our processors are slow, we're ****ed" posts.
Have you seen Planes, Trains, and Automobiles?
LOL just shows your age.
<strong>
Oh yeah, BTW, you're going to get sued.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually MacNN is getting sued. Everything you post here becomes property of MacNN.
J :cool:
JYD is right - we're f*cked. I reckon SJ actually doesn't see it at all.
Apple needs to get rid of these bottlenecks more than it needs to close the MHz gap. You can close the MHz gap with additional CPUs.
<strong>Give me a Dual 1.8Ghz DDR-based G4 and I will trade my Dual Gigger for it
I'd trade your dualie too
<strong><pokes JYD in the chest>
"Doesn't feel that thin!"
Lighten up dude. I meant the "our processors are slow, we're ****ed" posts.
Have you seen Planes, Trains, and Automobiles?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh. I guess I need to lighten up...rough day, no sleep last night. I saw that movie but it was ages ago, back in the 80s, no? Heh, usually my sarcasm/jk detector works better..
FWIW, I will be using OS X until Apple goes under, and then some. My concern is that Apple WILL go under if they cannot offer competitive hardware. I still want to be using Macs 10 years from now!
<strong>Forget about single chip MHz numbers. MP can work for Apple. Apple's only major problems are bandwitdh bottlnecks all over the place.
Apple needs to get rid of these bottlenecks more than it needs to close the MHz gap. You can close the MHz gap with additional CPUs.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Agreed. But if that eBay mobo is any indication, Apple doesn't even plan to jack up their bus speed at all beyond adding DDR ram support. Yeah that's an improvement, but it's no match for the Pentium's 500+ MHz bus!
I also have a hard time believing that it would hurt Apple's margins all that much if they modernized their mobos. If everyone else is using faster mobos then the sheer production volume should render them quite cheap.
Odd that Apple would gamble so much..but then they have remained profitable over the last year. But what if that profitability is earned at the cost of the future? What if the only reason Apple can remain profitable is by using antiquated hardware and selling it at obscene prices? This would seem to be the case...
<strong>
Agreed. But if that eBay mobo is any indication, Apple doesn't even plan to jack up their bus speed at all beyond adding DDR ram support. Yeah that's an improvement, but it's no match for the Pentium's 500+ MHz bus!
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Intel hasn't jacked up the Pentium's bus speed at all from 133MHz either, besides adding QDR support (for a much narrower bus). 4 x 133 = 533. As with all clock-doubling, you only get maximum throughput in some cases (streaming large blocks of contiguous data). Worst case (random access of small bits of data), you get the performance of a 133Mhz bus, at best. As it happens, the type of memory that the quad-pumped 133Mhz bus is attached to (Rambus) is really good at streaming large blocks of sequential data and really bad at random access. On top of that, the P4's super-deep pipeline is - wait for it - optimized for handling large blocks of sequential data, and sucktacular at dealing with small bits of code/data, especially if they have lots of branches in them.
[quote]<strong>I also have a hard time believing that it would hurt Apple's margins all that much if they modernized their mobos.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I can't imagine how it would. Any additional costs would be nominal, and they'd vanish after DDR SDRAM became the standard configuration - and thus, the cheapest available sort of RAM. It's already price-competitive with SDR SDRAM.
The benchmarks I can recall show that adding DDR to a PC motherboard has increased overall performance by 5%-15%. There have been hints that Apple is trying a completely different architecture than you seen in PC boards, in which case it would take them longer to get it right and the results, when they appear, will be impressive.
Awesome, that way Apple can put its RAM prices back higher than the ceiling because they go back to non-standard. It all fits!
<hr></blockquote>
There's also been hints at a 2.4 GHz G5. Rock on, Apple!
New P4 533MHz bus - 533.333 million cycles per sec * 16 bits per cycle / 8 bits per byte = 1066.67MB/sec
Current G4 bus - 133.333 million cycles per sec * 64 bits per cycle / 8 bits per byte = 1066.67MB/sec
(Of course, latency is a different question...)
No, RDRAM isn't the problem, it's DDR.
[ 05-07-2002: Message edited by: Nostradamus ]</p>
What if Apple took your garden variety DDR266 and worked out a scheme to interleave it. 2 64bit memory channels serving double the peak throughput of regular DDR would, I think, satisfy most memory system concerns. Wasn't there something about dual memory channels on the G5 back when G5 speculation was flying high?
Still, there is one bit I don't understand:
If that's true, then it suggests that the 133 MHz system bus in Powermacs has been FASTER than anything on the Wintel side up until now. So if Apple's bus is so fast, why do people complain about it being a bottleneck?
If Apple's bus was really as fast as you say it is, I think it would have been the darling of the industry, at least among geeks. But it isn't.
Forgive me but I have a hard time believing your claims.