Possible 4-way Woodcrest config?
Anyone know if Intel brings out a 4-way woodcrest config ? I know they were supposed to bring it out around early 2007 for the masses (lest they get the knife twisted in the opteron inflicted wound) - some insider strings being pulled to offer this a bit early for apple ? probably not - but interesting to watch if apple would release two configs of mac pro one in dual woodcrest and one in 4-way woodcrest - considering power and heat and clouds and rain and etc. being low ...
heck, no harm in dreaming is there ?
heck, no harm in dreaming is there ?
Comments
By mid 2007 Intel should have Cloverton which is dual woodcrest on 1 die wih SMP supportI believe.
Kentsfield will be the dual conroe on 1 die.
Can you handle that?
Originally posted by luvosx
In fact I think they should also provide 4 drive bays much like those in xserves - push/pull front replaceable sata drives - vertical mounted like in xserve-raid and a blu-ray recordable.
How about they include 4 SAS/SATA bays and include the 4-Port RAID controller on the 5000x Intel chipset. Offer two configurations. Non-Hot Swap and Hot Swap.
Create a new SFF Apple Drive Module that works with <enter dream mode> the new 24 drive enclosure Xserve RAID which could come in Dual or Single bus versions.
I used to dream of a bank of PCMCIA (now express cards) for everything from network to video to ... so that even those damn things can be interchanged while the machine runs.
Dude(tte)s, When you have a solid OS, what's the point in not flaunting it ?
hmurchison, Man I can handle that like nobody's business. I may end up with a divorce but hot damn, that machine would be in my bed with dual 30".
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0607intelcore2.html
Originally posted by luvosx
Ha, Eight core Xeons ? Hmmm - hmurchison, any further news u know about ?
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0607intelcore2.html
This article contains nice info on Clovertown (quad-core xeon to come at the end of this year). Used in a dual-socket system, it will give you 8 processsing cores at up to 2.66GHz! Will also be hot (220W).
"Clovertown is essentially two Woodcrests together on a single package, for what Intel is calling the first "quad-core" processor. Like Dempsey, Clovertown will present two electrical loads on the front-side bus, as the two chips on the package communicate with one another and the world using the FSB. Each chip will have its own 4MB L2 cache shared between two cores, and as one might expect, the bus speed will top out at 1066MHz. We don't yet have any word on clock speeds, but Intel is targeting a TDP of 80 W for most Clovertown processors, while the top performance model should come in at 120 W. Clovertown could well be a simple drop-in replacement for Dempsey and Woodcrest, provided that server and motherboard makers make the necessary provisions for power delivery and cooling. Obviously, any server that can cool a Dempsey ought to be able to keep a Clovertown happy."
Originally posted by luvosx
Ha, Eight core Xeons ? Hmmm - hmurchison, any further news u know about ?
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0607intelcore2.html
Nice! That's going to be an expensive motherboard. I could see something like this having a heaping of FB-DIMM slots and some other very nifty features.
I could see a 4 socket Core Architecture server being a total workhouse. Everything possible would be redundant. It would be the perfect VMware box.
The ThinkSecret article is pretty non-sensical as it mentions both 8-core total but 4 sockets which would be expensive and stupid. Though with 4 sockets they could go up to 16 processor cores
Anyway, the Woodcrest chip that is expected to be in the MacPro will be repalced with Clovertown later this year and I would see no reason for Apple to hold out on updates -- as I said in another thread, they don't have the PPC-based luxury to lag.
I personally was intending to buy Woodcrest Mac Pro after WWDC; but now won't be doing any buying until Clovertown as that's a real big step opposed to Woodcrest.
But, there may also be a Clovertown-MP** coming down the pipe- a multi-processor (> 2 sockets) version of Clovertown. Details are sketchy. We have to wait till the Intel developer conference in Sept to get more info.
** Intel may never release Tulsa, if Clovertown-MP works well.
yikes..
I believe Woodcrest still has a good 12-24 months in its current incarnation. It won't be until either an update to the core Micro Architecture or a process shrink that woodcrest will step aside. The clovertown and kentsfield will be a premium product to compliment woodcrest and conroe.
Originally posted by erbium
what kind of a subject name is this??
yikes..
*hehehehe*
Yeah, when I logged in this morning I thought AI had been replaced with a swingers thread! Ill change it to a more concise subject header.
b.
Originally posted by jbaker78
There is a little confusion as to what is Clovertown, from all the reports I have read, its not a replacement for Woodcrest but intended to be at the very top end of the line up. Clovertown is 4 cores but on two dies (2 cores/die). This essentially means that the power consumption is double and the heat produced is doubled. This also means they are going to be priced at a premium.
I believe Woodcrest still has a good 12-24 months in its current incarnation. It won't be until either an update to the core Micro Architecture or a process shrink that woodcrest will step aside. The clovertown and kentsfield will be a premium product to compliment woodcrest and conroe.
I agree, except I want to clarify the power consumption bit. Most of the Woodcrest line is 65W; 5160 is 80W, and 5148 is 40W. This doesn't mean that Clovertown will be 130W (65x2) to 160W (80x2). It will be more like 80-120W because it will use the LV dies.
If Apple designs the power and cooling for the higher end of this power envelope (i.e. 120W per socket), then Clovertown will be a drop in replacement on the Mac Pro Woodcrest motherboard.
I expect the Mac Pro line to be:
"Better" Quad core 2x2.67 Woodcrest $2999 (2x3.0 BTO, $3499) @ WWDC'06
"Best" Octa core 2x2.67 Clovertown $4299 @ MW'07
Originally posted by mwswami
I agree, except I want to clarify the power consumption bit. Most of the Woodcrest line is 65W; 5160 is 80W, and 5148 is 40W. This doesn't mean that Clovertown will be 130W (65x2) to 160W (80x2). It will be more like 80-120W because it will use the LV dies.
If Apple designs the power and cooling for the higher end of this power envelope (i.e. 120W per socket), then Clovertown will be a drop in replacement on the Mac Pro Woodcrest motherboard.
I expect the Mac Pro line to be:"Good" Quad core 2x2.0 Woodcrest $2199 @ WWDC'06
"Better" Quad core 2x2.67 Woodcrest $2999 (2x3.0 BTO, $3499) @ WWDC'06
"Best" Octa core 2x2.67 Clovertown $4299 @ MW'07
Of course the above are just starting prices. You can easily add another $500-$1000 for memory, hard drive, graphics, and support upgrades.
Originally posted by mwswami
Both Woodcrest and Clovertown are only DP (Dual Processor) capable.
But, there may also be a Clovertown-MP** coming down the pipe- a multi-processor (> 2 sockets) version of Clovertown. Details are sketchy. We have to wait till the Intel developer conference in Sept to get more info.
** Intel may never release Tulsa, if Clovertown-MP works well.
Clovertown-MP will not be able to beet amd with a FSB.
Originally posted by Joe_the_dragon
Clovertown-MP will not be able to beet amd with a FSB.
Why do you say that? I'm not too sure that AMD is going to have a faster solution here.
Originally posted by Joe_the_dragon
Clovertown-MP will not be able to beet amd with a FSB.
You might want to check out this link below. Dual core conroe was beating quad core opteron systems. Even without the on die memory controller looks like core will outperform AMD.
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/a...jsp?id=53163-1