Nehalem derivatives detailed

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 19th August 2008

Comments (4) Email to a friend Stumble

Nehalem derivatives detailed

By the looks of things, Nehalem-EX will be the only octo-core processor... and it's targeted at the high-end server market.

When Intel first announced Nehalem back at IDF Fall 2007, Paul Otellini revealed that there would be two, four and eight-core products based on the new Nehalem architecture; this afternoon, Pat Gelsinger delved down into the various different models during his keynote.

There was a huge focus on Nehalem during Pat’s keynote and it’s clear that he’s very excited about what the team of architects has achieved.

The high-end desktop products, which were formally named the Core i7 range just a week ago will all be quad-core processors.

The server and workstation markets will initially be covered by the Nehalem-EP processor, which is designed for dual-socket platforms and will be quad-core based. Later on, Intel will introduce Nehalem-EX for quad-socket platforms – this will be the company’s first octo-core processor and Pat Gelsinger showed off some of the first Nehalem-EX silicon to come back from the fab.

Moving down into the mainstream, Pat said that there would be two different mainstream processor designs—Lynnfield and Havendale—but neither have been given an official brand name yet. Both are likely to be dual-core processors, although some rumours suggest Lynnfield is a quad-core. Havendale is likely to feature integrated graphics, while more than likely Lynnfield won’t – this wasn’t something that Gelsinger talked about openly, though.

To cater for the thin and light notebook segment, there will be another two processor designs—namely Clarksfield and Auburndale—and we’re under the impression that these will follow the same path as Lynnfield and Havendale, in that one will feature integrated graphics and the other won’t.

Based on what Gelsinger disclosed, it looks like the mainstream processors will cover both notebook and desktop platforms – it’s been clear for a while that Intel’s focus has been on mobility and the fact that processor shipments for notebooks are projected to overtake desktop processor shipments in the 2009-to-2010 timeframe makes it a wise choice to use the same processors in both desktops and larger notebooks.

Clock speeds haven’t really been discussed so far, although Intel did show a demo of Lost Planet: Colonies running side-by-side on both a Nehalem and a Penryn processor, each clocked at 3.2GHz. In terms of performance in the demo showed, the Nehalem-based system was around 50-to-80 percent faster, but the question is whether or not this is a final clock speed for Intel’s Core i7 ‘Extreme Edition’ processor. That's unclear at the moment – I guess only time will tell, but we’ll be keeping our ear to the ground ahead of any official announcement from Intel.

Discuss in the forums.

Previous story Next Story

Quote

wuyanxu 20th August 2008, 09:08

what about sockets?

i heard there will be different sockets for different market segment, so if one buys mid-range motherboard, one may not be able to use higher end Bloomfield (currently named i7)

Quote

Timmy_the_tortoise 20th August 2008, 12:06

Yeah, I heard that too.. The different socket types weren't discussed?

Quote

M4RTIN 20th August 2008, 14:55

so you can only go quad core if you go super high end, if the sockets for i7 and whatever the dual core one is called is different that could be a real pain, having to buy a new board and start again with windows jsut to swap cpu's

Quote

bowman 20th August 2008, 18:09

LGA1366 = Bloomfield ('i7') quad cores. QPI, triple-channel DDR3. Both high-end desktop and dual-socket workstation and server platforms.
LGA1160 = Lynnfield ('isomethingorother' I guess they'll be, not i7) quads and Havendale duals. DMI, dual-channel DDR3. Mainstream desktop platforms, different socket but same CPUs for laptops I guess.

Log in