RSSCan Intel Retain Lead with Woodcrest?
By Nate Mook | Published June 26, 2006, 2:52 PM
Intel on Monday rolled out its newest dual-core Xeon processor, known by its code-name "Woodcrest" and branded the 5100 series. The chip will serve to help battle increasing competition from rival AMD, which has made major strides in the server market with its Opteron processors.
Woodcrest is targeted at the server market with a design that focuses on power efficiency. The chip offers a 40 percent power reduction while providing performance improves of up to 135 percent, Intel claims. The 5100 is based on Intel's 65-nanometer process, and is compatible with the current "Bensley" Xeon platform already in use.
With speeds of up to 3.0 GHz and a 1333 MHz front-side bus, the 5100 is powered by Intel's Core 2 Duo microarchitecture and utilizes only 80 watts of power. A 2.33 GHz version is expected to arrive in the third quarter requiring just 40 watts. By using less power, more servers can be put in the same space, keeping costs down.
“Simply put, the Core microarchitecture is a technical marvel that is driving a new era of power efficiency without compromising on what can only be described as eye-popping dual-core 64-bit performance,” said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group, in Monday's announcement.
Intel has a tough road ahead in order to retain dominance over the chip industry. AMD has seen increasing market share with its dual-core Opteron processors, which have long focused on reducing power usage. The company also recently inked a deal with Dell to integrate Opterons into the leading PC maker's servers by the end of the year.
The 5100 series Xeons will run between $209 to $851 USD in 1,000-unit quantities, depending on features, Intel says. Over 200 server and high-end workstations models are slated to include the new chips, coming from over 150 manufacturers.
where's conroe?
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|For that matter, where's Waldo?
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|I have always used AMD and will continue to do so, Intel despite the plague of the games that say quote "Runs better with intel" is false, its clock speed's are never true, my AMD 64 Bit 2.2Ghz outruns a Pentium 3.0 equivlent at 1/10th of the price.
Reminds me of the Nvidia and ATI debate, I have never ever had a problem running a AMD Board, with a ATI graphics card, people with Nvidia can't say the same, im an avid gamer and i get complaints from people all the time running Nvidia with Intel that thier games constantly crash, unstable operating system enviornment, and programs failing to perform.
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|You clearly show to be a AMD fanatic. Woodcrest and Core 2 are based on Centrino/Dothan/Banias/Yonah. Their IPC and performance/power ratio are much better than both old Pentium 4 / Pentium D and AMD products.
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|Re: Rynet
Everybody good geek and harcore gamer knows that Conroe is superior than FX-62, and on the server side (2P) Woodcrest is faster than Opteron. The flagship of Intel is the Centrino Duo which will be updated in August with Merom and it's still better than Turion 64. After August, the only thing AMD still has is the Opteron for multi-processor (4P+) server market. The heat is on AMD and they better shape up because geeks don’t care.
If you take sides with chip manufacturers you'll be left behind and nobody cares. It’s your choice.
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|"Everybody good geek and harcore gamer knows that Conroe is superior than FX-62"
is this some sort of "geek/gamer" faith?
or have you actually used a conroe chip?
every hardcore gamer uses an AMD 64/FX.
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|I have to say that this Intel Woodcrest smokes the Opterons.
There are many "amateur geeks" out there that take sides with hardware manufacturers. I call them the DAH people.
A true geek takes no sides with hardware manufacturers, because the only thing we care is the best/fastes part and if we can afford it we'll buy it.
I used to use Intel. Then came AMD with and for nearly 2 years they dominated the market (part of that was also BS which I'm allergic). Now I'm going back to Intel, and if Intel invests in R&D and doesn't fall behind then I'll continue buiyng Intel. Otherwise it's AMD.
Competition is good for business!!!
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|"Dell has a tough road ahead in order to retain dominance over the chip industry."
That would be "Intel," not "Dell," correct?
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|Pretty sure they meant Dell.
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|This ought to be fun to watch.
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|Hardware debate--hardly "beta" newsworthy. Well, it's here though.
Anyway, this will help Intel regain some of the lost customers that were die-hard Intel fans that moved to AMD. However, at this point in time, it is late for Intel to "leap back" at AMD because they took to frikin long. They could have smothered AMD had this been released 6 months ago, but now, who knows?
I'm an AMD user at the moment, but heck, this new Intel CPU is simply better and cheaper than the competing Opterons AT THIS MOMENT, so Intel has the better one right now, but tomorrow, who knows?
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|AMD won't have any real chance until 2008 when their new architecture will be released.
Unfortunately for them, the Intel Centrino-based versions will go 4-core on 2007 and then a new architecture will be released by 2008, maybe an 8-core one if the technology scales as good as it already seems.
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|Multi-core will only go so far, I predict we don't see more than 8-core outside the server market, ever. There is only so much multithreading you can do, and no one really cares if your volume control and browser are 1000x more responsive(especially when the browser will still be bound by network speeds).
As far as Intel releasing a new architecture by 2008, well they might; but if the haven't learned from their mistake with the P4 it will take them until 2010 to realise it is better.
The things I've read about HyperTransport 3 and AMD opening up certain aspects of their architecture to allow 3rd party coprocessors...well, lets just say I don't see Intel regaining the lead for too long.
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