Official Conroe information thread

[shaihulud]

I think my context is not understood by you Intel_User. Did I say that they cannot make mistakes? This is not about mistakes, and a decision does not necessitate a probable mistake. Did I say they were invincible? I obviously did not say so. However, multi-billion dollar enterprise institutions are basically invincible. Assets and revenue are at such an amount that the business does not easily dissolve. Mistakes can cause erosion, which means it can be corrected, as with Intel or AMD has done in the past. The ability of the revenue and decision model has to be decapitated for a business of that worth to be destroyed. AMD's and Intel's portfolios cover many lucrative endeavors. As Sandog said they will be around, and you want them around.

As you note with the incompetence comment. I feel the same as you do, and is the same context with my gloom statement. This is completely similar with ignorant statements that the console spells doom for the personal computer. Many people do not comprehend businesses, capitalism, supply and demand, etc. This is more than AMD roxxors11111, obviously, and my argument. All this means is there is going to be either a shift in demand to Intel, or the demand for AMD grows. What takes place is the battle to gain the shift, but neither will win a war. This battle soon will take place and cannot be discerned till the final products are released and examined. But to spell doom for either of the companies is nothing but asinine.

I do not think we are off topic. If this is information about the Core processor then any information to argue or debunk would be part of the subject matter. With such a generalized subject matter this has to be understood. However, if the title was narrow in subject matter then yes it could be considered off topic if the context is dissimilar.

The pricing models definitely means there will be a price war. Even if the AM2 has an advantage, they will have to lower prices to compete with Core's pricing. This is the battle that should be watched the most. Seeing this will mean my savings are to most likely go towards Core architecture, simple as that.

Just to note there is FSB and MSB, Memory Side Bus. FSB is from CPU to core logic. MSB is from the memory management unit to memory. If seen from this perspective the QDR and DDR buses can usually not be confused.

CPU----------FSB---------[corelogic/MMU]----------MSB----------Memory banks.

[Water_abx]

Something I have been wondering about. How big/wide will the address bus be for Conroe? I can't seem to find any information about that.

[shaihulud]

Just to note, CPU's never access memory. The MMU's provide the necessary bits to the processor, and what do the memory work. IIRC, 128bits/16bytes. What type of 128bit access was not included.

But you want to know the addressable amount? I am sure it will be the standard EMT64 range, unless this has changed. But this amount addressable can vary due to operating system and also core logic used for the system.

Even the Athlon64 does not access the memory and is asynchronous. The memory clock is still set to the usual typical 166 or 200 clock. The path to the MMU is integral and at the clock of the processor. But the MMU will fetch at lower clock speeds. To note, Athlon64's are not AGP capable either. This is due to the integration of the MMU. The mapped regions are done via software for the GART. The AGP tunnel forwards the data.

This can be an informative little read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_management_unit

[Intel_User]

Something I have been wondering about. How big/wide will the address bus be for Conroe? I can't seem to find any information about that.

Address bus is thought to be same as the current Xeon EM64Ts.

I think my context is not understood by you Intel_User. Did I say that they cannot make mistakes? This is not about mistakes, and a decision does not necessitate a probable mistake. Did I say they were invincible? I obviously did not say so. However, multi-billion dollar enterprise institutions are basically invincible. Assets and revenue are at such an amount that the business does not easily dissolve. Mistakes can cause erosion, which means it can be corrected, as with Intel or AMD has done in the past. The ability of the revenue and decision model has to be decapitated for a business of that worth to be destroyed. AMD's and Intel's portfolios cover many lucrative endeavors. As Sandog said they will be around, and you want them around.

True but its not necessarily all roses as people say to be. Many people believe DDR2 will bring significant performance benefits to AM2 just because AMD executed so well these past 2 years, and I am just saying that they can screw up.

Is stating that Conroe will definitely outperform AM2 CPUs gloom for AMD. Not really, but it may sound like it. But from what we know, performance leader is starting to become clear, just as some knew when they saw initial benchmarks of 800MHz prototype Opteron performing like 2.0GHz Willamette.

[Water_abx]

Just as long as Conroe/Kentsfield can access more than 4GB of memory, I will be happy.

[Intel_User]

Apologies to all those who felt I was in any way offensive.

I think my context is not understood by you Intel_User. Did I say that they cannot make mistakes? This is not about mistakes, and a decision does not necessitate a probable mistake. Did I say they were invincible?

Quote:
The only thing that I disagree with all of you is the fact that you all state nothing but gloom for AMD.

Just as he is generalizing his opinions to a wider audience than just me, I feel I am doing the same thing.

Going from forum to forum, I found generally the opinions toward AMD/Intel is quite similar. In ABX I found it to be a little different, but Sandog may be a big influence here.

When people say: "Oh AM2 is gonna catch up to Conroe because DDR2-800 will bring twice the bandwidth"

vs

"Oh, Intel's CPU sucked because of the high latency DDR2 memory"

Its more gloom toward Intel, than

"Conroe is gonna perform better because of such and such architectural features and AM2 is using DDR2, which has been seen with Intel's first DDR2 platform, despite a bandwidth hungry architecture, it hadn't gained much."

is gloom toward AMD. It varies a little, but I don't like how people think all over the internet that bringing DDR2 will SOMEHOW benefit Athlon64s more than Intel, when it has been shown that Pentium 4's, which are more bandwidth hungry than A64s, don't gain much from DDR2??

[specmike]

http://sharikou.blogspot.com/

Personally, I think he is speculating quite a bit and making some assumptions that have no basis. He's probably smarter than me but, that's why I don't climb out on limbs.

Mike .

[h20-ski]

That guy is nuts. From what little I have seen, from Anandtech and the few benchmarks at Xtremesystems.org, Conroe is faster that what that guy claims. Not only that but Anandtech published benchmarks more in tune to what the average person does with a computer, gaming and media encoding.

Edit: I see that he has a major biases towards AMD as can be seen on some of his other blogs

[fvbounty]

Originally Posted by specmike

http://sharikou.blogspot.com/

Personally, I think he is speculating quite a bit and making some assumptions that have no basis. He's probably smarter than me but, that's why I don't climb out on limbs.

Mike .

He sure does have some interesting ideas, its way over my head but made for good reading...

[FightingChance]

People hold grudges and have processor preference like the competing company shot their dog or something. People love conflict, I guess.

[Sandog]

I believe most of the hype that has been going on because I have faith in Intel. There is no reason that Intel can not produce an equal or much better chip than AMD with all their experience, money, and manpower. Intels latest presentations, technical documents, and diagrams appear to explain well the new performance features. I am sure Conroe won't be as good as some have said but it will be better than the current crop of AMD Athlon64 chips. I think people will be happy when they see how cool these chips are going to run, I know I will be.

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by FightingChance

People hold grudges and have processor preference like the competing company shot their dog or something. People love conflict, I guess.

I wan't to get back to talking about motherboards and RAM myself. I am thinking a lot of members in here will want to get the D975XBX pretty soon and I can start stealing posts away from Intel_User

[FightingChance]

Other than the 965 series, is the 975X going to remain the 'premier' board for this next generation of Intel processors, or is there another chipset on the horizon?

[Sandog]

Not this year as far as I've heard (beside 965/3 chipsets). As much planning as Intel lets be known, I think we would have heard something else. Intel hasn't been keeping any of their CPU's secret. I think the Kentsfield will even have to run on the D975XBX if it arrives early this year like I've read.

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by specmike

http://sharikou.blogspot.com/

Personally, I think he is speculating quite a bit and making some assumptions that have no basis. He's probably smarter than me but, that's why I don't climb out on limbs.

Mike .

Hahaha, Con-roe. I guess I had to hear it sooner or later. You can tell he's and extremist when he says things like 'Intel doesn't know it's dead because it doesn't have a brain' and naming April 19th as 'Intel capitulation day'. Sounds like the Ward Churchill of technology to me. Instead of seeing Americans burn in hell he'd like to see Intel do the same.

I read IDF reviews, those two systems were identical systems. No different than if you ran the same test at home with the same common benchmarks you run now. Maybe some benchmarks favor Intel or the extra cache helps but so it will at home to.

Keep this in mind, similarly priced Presler keeps up with Athlons pretty close and Presler is based off some old technology. The new Conroe will be much better.