Saw this on the RMBS thread...
Opinion: Intel winds down in GHz
clock race
By Jack Robertson
Electronic Buyers' News
(10/31/00, 09:50:23 AM EST)
Here's a great present, AMD -- from your good friend, Intel. The
microprocessor king is forfeiting the mainstream desktop GHz
clock race to its closest competitor for the next nine months --
until Intel fields its own comparable speed-grade desktop
processors in mid-2001.
But you say Intel will be unveiling the 1.4- to 1.5-GHz Pentium 4,
known as the Willamette, next month? Despite what the Santa
Clara, Calif., marketing machine may try to convey, the Willamette
appearing Nov. 20 isn't a mainstream desktop processor and
comparable to AMD's Athlon Thunderbird and Mustang. It's aimed
strictly at the very high-performance (more than $2,000)
workstation and desktop market.
That's all that Intel ever claimed the Willamette Pentium 4 would
be. Until now, that is. Without an above-1-GHz processor in its
current line, Intel has been forced to make Willamette appear to be
something it was never intended to be: an MPU bearing a clock
speed competitive with AMD's mainstream chips.
Intel withdrew its 1.13-GHz Pentium III from the market in August
because of technical glitches. At the time, the processor titan said
the problem could be easily fixed, and the 1.13-GHz chip was
supposed to be back in supply this fall. Now, Intel says it will be
the second quarter of 2001 before that chip returns. The Northwood
mainstream desktop Pentium 4 that competes in the AMD Athlon
space won't make its appearance until the third quarter of 2001.
By then, the 1.13-GHz chip will be at the rear of the MPU speed
race. By mid-2001, AMD should be perking along at 1.5 to 1.6
GHz, analysts noted.
Many believe that the delay of Intel's 1.13-GHz chip has more to
do with marketing than a major technical overhaul. The initial
Willamette Pentium 4 at 1.4 GHz has a deep-pipeline throughput
dilemma, as previously reported. The difficulty of purging and
refilling the deep pipeline with data for misprediction of prefetched
data can slow the overall performance of the Willamette to the
same level as the 1.13-GHz Pentium III, regardless of the higher
clock rate.
Intel said its Net-Burst Pentium 4 micro-architecture will take care
of the misprediction drag on performance. Even if it doesn't for the
initial Willamette chips coming to market later this year, there
won't be any 1.13-GHz Pentium IIIs around for a possible
embarrassing comparison.
Whatever the reason for holding back any 1.13-GHz or
higher-speed Pentium III processors, Intel has ceded the
mainstream (less than $2,000) desktop clock race to AMD for
almost three quarters. Unless Intel marketers can persuade people
that the pricey Willamette Pentium 4 with expensive Direct
Rambus memory is somehow midrange. |
