Intel Cancels its Timna chip 90
zensonic noted that Intel has announced that they are
cancelling the Tinma chip. It was an integrated chip that would be used in low end systems... they cited market demand and design problems as the reason.
Timna and the MTH (Score:1)
Software progresses to meet hardware (Score:4)
Software is made to match existing or future hardware. Quake3/UT are a massive improvement, graphics-wise, over (say) Doom. But Doom was smoking fast on my 486/66. Quake3's install CD would physically emit a laughing noise as the drive door closed if I tried installing it on that box. And as fun as Doom was, Quake3 is MUCH easier on the eyes to play and just plain more INTERESTING. It's the rampant increase in hardware quality that gets you that, er, interestingness.
Same goes for Office-type apps. I remember in the days of the aforementioned 486/66, Word would take nearly a minute to load, took forever to spell/grammar check, and don't even THINK about running anything in the background! MIDI player maybe! =) Now on Windows/Linux on my spiffy new-age box, I can have several apps going at the same time, say (under Windows) Photoshop, VC++, Netscape, SQL Server clients... hell, SQL Server... all stuff that I'll regularly tab between during the day.
And there are still apps that bring this new box to its knees. Bryce comes immediately to mind as an app that makes my CPU and RAM cry in pain. Maybe a little 256M upgrade...
My point, and I do have one, is that while it sometimes seems that technology progresses for no reason other than to encourage consumption, the efficiency and kewlness factor of PCs now is far greater than that of PCs 5 years ago, 10, 15... I'm surprised those old XTs got bought by ANYONE for anything besides Lotus 123. They were all but unusable. Sure, products are made to make money, but by labelling the PC consumers as suckers you're really blindering yourself from the big picture.
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Re:A Victory for AMD (Score:1)
What's new in that?
Well, if you think it's a turd now - do you remember it 6 years ago? THAT was a dry turd..
Doh..... here went my plan... (Score:1)
Darn, now I have to redraw my schema....
Original post about FACE Intel! (Score:3)
I posted the original FACE intel comment, I post it on every intel-fscks-up article that slashdot posts. So, for the third time today - here's the original article - and I won't venture any insight as to why the original comment got reset (kinda pisses me off), but it's most certainly a factor as to why Intel has been missing to boat. This is also in the Pentium IV thread. [slashdot.org]
I post this every time Intel screws up (which is pretty regularly, when you think of it) and every time, no moderators pick up on what's going on. So, for the good of my health, here's the same diatribe yet again:
Intel is losing their edge because they treat their engineers like garbage. Please have a look at the Former and Current Employees of Intel [faceintel.com] protest web site for the skinny on what's going on there. Intel's abusive human resource policies are coming back to haunt them, because the people with the experience to pull these projects off are getting fed up and leaving for companies like Texas Instruments and AMD.
Always look for what's going on behind the scenes.. Intel has some great spots to work, but the microprocessor division and their manufacturing lines are not one of them.
Don't buy intel. Don't buy their stock. They need to correct their HORRIBLE HR policies - and I wonder why Slashdot hasn't picked up on this earlier.
SMP capability (Score:1)
Is anyone else hooked on SMP like me? Is anyone else on a wacky upgrade cycle like me? I think I'm crazy, but then again, working over the summer has its advantages...
Now, as for what this has to do with the main article... well, the VP6 and such is where Intel really needs to be putting its efforts. Making a cheap line, a normal line, a power line, and a super line, as documented in recent reports, is normally called SPREADING YOURSELF ALL OVER THE PLACE. Some can do this, but it gets tedious and tiresome, as is evident by this article's announcement. Now, while I'd rather see Intel lose even more market share, I can still say that for them to do better, they maybe need to NOT try and segment the market into so many little slices.
Long rant? Yes. But hey, this is slashdot... discussion encouraged!
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A temporary setback (Score:2)
But if you look at sales figures you can see the most growth in two areas:
- Cheap desktops (less than $1000)
- Notebooks
I think people are getting smarter about computers and making the decision to buy a cheaper desktop if they don't need all that speed, and also choosing a smaller, cooler form factor like a laptop instead of buying a high-performance desktop.In addition, it looks like thin clients are making another go of it and that also indicates that people are rejecting performance at the cost of simplicity/reliability.
There will always be a hardcore minority of game/benchmark freaks that want the latest and greatest, and since they tend to also have more technical knowledge they have a disproportional representation on the web.
BTW since I just bought a new space heater... I mean Athlon desktop I have to count myself amongst the hardware freaks, but I sympathize with those that want a simpler computing experience.
Re:Why use Intel anyway (Score:1)
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Re:Strange (Score:1)
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Re:Software progresses to meet hardware (Score:1)
Heck, the people who only use the basic Office suite don't need anything more than a Celeron 333, 96MB of RAM and a 4GB hard drive (well, to run Windows 2000 anyways). Of course, a network card is a must, but rarely a sound card.
There is a market for low[er]-end machines... the corporations or the small businesses. Home users will vary from a basic machine (even an iMac) to a super dual-processor system ready to run BSD/Linux/whatever...
Spelling (Score:1)
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Re:Sorry to see a "low end" chip bite the dust (Score:1)
However, _most_ college students just want to get connected to the campus-net, write their papers, communicate with their professors and assistants, and get through school. They don't focus on the coolest/fastest stuff ('cause Dad - unless he's a geek - isn't going to replace it every semester).
Last Fall I gave my daughter a Sony VAIO notebook for school. Campus tech-support couldn't get it to connect to their net. This year, she bought a different PCMCIA NIC, and it works! It's just a notebook, but that is just what many students have now.
So, only students who believe, wrongly, high-end hardware will impress professors, will pressure parents for latest systems.
[Here's the "I walked 10 miles through snowdrifts to school" story.] When I was in college, I did _type_ all my papers on an Olympus portable (that was a typewriter, for those unfamiliar with them) and I managed to communicate. However, there was an IBM 1401 in the computer center. It took Fortran punch-cards. There was also a commercial service-bureau down the hill (that also used the punch-card regime, plus OCR), and I worked there as a "night operator" for a while, in the early '70s.
That little datacenter processed the billings for Evergreen Air (the CIA airlift contractor during the Vietnam war). I've never seen so much money flow through any system since then - add millions of dollars per day, multiply by months, and - as Everett Dirkson said - pretty soon it adds up to real money!
Back to the topic. Intel is in trouble! They aren't capable of releasing any competitive products, lately. The P4 is delayed, as is their wrong-designed Itanimium, and now... Timna is canceled - will Intel sell a lot of suspect overclocked P3 chips this year?
Re:Timna or Tinma? (Score:2)
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DAMN RAMBUS (Score:5)
Re:A Victory for AMD (Score:5)
As I may have mentioned, my first thought when I read "Tinma Cancelled" was "Duron". Intel's roadmap has some serious potholes in it, after recalling PIII's, push back of the P4, supply problems and losing customers to AMD. AMD folks must be heading down to the Tied House (in DT SJ) to get plowed.
I know a number of people within Intel who say expense practices are loose and Intel is hemmoraging large amounts of cash on sloppy management and indecision. I'm expecting after this week there will be some shakeup and possibly some restructuring. This many mis-steps usually doesn't go unrewarded.
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Chief Frog Inspector
Intel Problems (Score:3)
The new management wanted to change Intel's direction - that is what new management always wants to do. Since Intel was a successful dominant player in a single huge market - they decided to become an unsuccessful player in lots of smaller markets. Of course the consequences of that sort of direction change seems to escape the perceptions of the razor sharp minds who are paid the big money to lead industry.
I am reminded of the huge retail discount chain who spent close to a billion dollars to build branch stores in Mexico - only to discover to their shock that Mexico is a poor country compared to the US and that the people there couldn't afford to buy what they had to sell.
Doh.
Re:WTF? (Score:2)
Re:TIMMAHH!! (Score:3)
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Chief Frog Inspector
Several Things (Score:3)
1. Continue to push through new standards in the industry.
Unlike MS, who introduces new "standards" in software to twist old ones and keep things proprietary, Intel generally pushes through hardware standards that improve hardware in general.
Remember AGP, and everyone bitching at the time that it wasn't needed? I bet everyone's glad that their video cards today aren't running on the PCI bus. Speaking of PCI (which is getting old and crusty itself) Intel is leading the development of its replacement, in the same way that it led the development of PCI to replace ISA. ATA-100, and its future successor, Serial ATA, come to mind as well. Even RDRAM (may it RIP) was just bad execution of a good idea (more serialization, less traces on the memory bus).
2. Merced.
Whoa, before you flame this, think about it for a moment. This oft-delayed processor not only introduces a new computing paradigm (EPIC), it's also a processor that completes 8 instructions per clock cycle. Once the die shrink comes around, and clock speeds start coming up in McKinley, what exactly is going to compete with this 64-bit chip? Not Sledgehammer. Not a whole lot of RISC chips out there.
3. Willamette.
Merced, reversed. Instead of focusing on the number of instructions per clock cycle, it simply focuses on the number of clock cycles. While a lot of people have commented derisively about it, 2 years from now when the Willamette core has been refined and Intel is several GHz ahead of everyone else, I don't think near as many people are going to be laughing.
Re:Sorry to see a "low end" chip bite the dust (Score:2)
I recently got a PII-300mhz server, with 64 megs of RAM. You know how much it cost me? Nada. A company was forsaking it for a newer model, and I got it for free. Now why would someone pay now for a chip not much faster than the chip of yesteryear that can be had for free or close to it?
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Re:Another refocusing of Intel's staff (Score:3)
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Chief Frog Inspector
Re:Strange (Score:1)
That is a completely accurate statement. So was my previous post. What's 2+2 ?
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Another Nail in Intel's Coffin (Score:2)
Well, looks like Intel's just started another nail in their own coffin. Now, Moore himself is standing there over the fine oak with inlays of pure silicon, holding the nail for me...
Do I reach for the framing hammer sitting on the workbench?
Pondering this situation, I consider their market dominance despite more techologically advanced peers. I wonder about the costs to computer users everywhere of the forced compatibility with an ever-more obsolete core ALU as Motorola's 68000 is pushed to relative obscurity, used only by a fringe of purists that doesn't even include me anymore.
I question the sustainability of a processor design style that adds transistors without calling upon those gates to do more, to be more efficient.
And as I hit Ingram Micro's website and buy 17 new computers for the office, I pick up the framing hammer and give it a good swing. Right on the mark.
The new machines have Athlons under the hood.
It's not a perfect swing, mind you. It's not a Motorola or a Transmeta. But it's what I need.
People will always need a faster computer. (Score:2)
I basically agree with you - most people have no real need for a 1 Ghz processor, DDR/RDR RAM, or awesome graphics cards.
Sure. That sounds great.
Remember the first Pentium 60 you saw? Or Pentium 100? Remember how lightning fast that was, and how it was the pride of your desktop?
Then, the MP3 came along, and you wanted to listen to tunes in the background as you worked.
The MP3 is on the verge of becoming the next "killer app" (if it isn't already). And yet a P100 with 24 megs of RAM and Windows 95 will barely play them.
Sure, Windows is inefficient, but's it's also about as close to a standard OS as we've got right now. The point remains, the P100 is obsolete: it won't do what I want it to do.
How long until the next big thing comes along and forces you to move up to the 1GHz box that you just shunned?
Your stance is pretty naive, especially given someone with your history in the field:
there was an IBM 1401 in the computer center. It took Fortran punch-cards.I mean, I'm sure a 4.77MHz XT could do a lot of things that, for a variety of reasons, your FORTRAN-punchcard system couldn't do. I know my old DEC PDP-8 couldn't keep up with one.
But, thankfully, the XT wasn't the be-all and end-all. It was a great machine in its time, but I'm really happy that I'm not limited to them. If we'd been limited to XTs, the World Wide Web, MP3s and emerging technologies like practical video streaming just wouldn't have been possible.
So, which comes first, the intensive apps, or the hardware to run them?
(And no, I'm not as old as I sound; when I was in high school, I scored a junked PDP-8 from the Canadian Federal Government. I still have parts of it.)
Tinma undone by i815 chipset? (Score:2)
I think the reason why the Tinma chip has been cancelled is simple: it would have been too limiting compared to a motherboard that uses the Intel i815 chipset, which has dramatically dropped in cost lately.
Remember, the i815 chipset has a fairly good graphics subsystem (it may not be nVidia GeForce quality but then the majority of computer users don't need that level of graphics chips) and a very good sound subsystem (it has full wavetable MIDI support); that's why many medium-cost computers are now using the i815 chipset matched to a FC-PGA form-factor 600-700 MHz Celeron CPU.
Besides, the Tinma CPU would definitely not have compared well against the AMD Duron 700 MHz systems.
Re:People will always need a faster computer. (Score:1)
The MP3 is on the verge of becoming the next "killer app" (if it isn't already). And yet a P100 with 24 megs of RAM and Windows 95 will barely play them.
I can play MP3s on my 486/66, in the background while I code. Sure, Windows is inefficient, but I don't think that it slows down the hardware so much that you need a gigahertz processor for normal use. (I'm sure, however, that the next version of Office will include enough delay loops to make it look like you need that newest processor.)
I'm not saying that a 486 is good enough, of course (I'll buy a newer computer when I manage to scrape together a few pennies.) But the fact is that nobody really needs the latest chip; they just want it for bragging rights. Me, I'm happy to stay a couple years behind and a few hundred dollars richer.
yes indeedy several things (Score:1)
anyone who has a good idea and does not play with the group and goes for standard anyway be doomed as they make every effort to discount you I would not mind as alot of bright people work there but they can go round spreading FUD quicker than I would believe
MERCED
jeez give me a break I would like to see what Intel are paying HP
HP do the parallel optimization and pipeline design and compiler and VLIW design and Intel say hey well market it and produce it HP say ok and now Intel get all the credit ? well its egg on face because the glue between IA32 and IA64 is holding things up as well as it being a complex chip HP are nearing PA-RISC and IA64 integration because they are very umm similar
HP are more involved with Willamette simply because its the chip they are useing
dont be silly
regards
john jones
have you seen andy groves Intel watch ?
why is it there ?
(a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)
Re:Several Things (Score:1)
A more fair comparison would be to take a GF2 (not MX) chip and put it on the standard PCI bus and compare it to a full 4X AGP version of the card. I'm sure you would get a clearer picture of the differences of the two buses. This is hypothetical of course because there is no PCI GF2 card in existance, but I'm sure the AGP version would blow the socks off the PCI version. If a PCI version existed.
Re:Andy Grove (Score:1)
Re:Software progresses to meet hardware (Score:1)
This is circular argument. Why does PCs need so much resources, because it needs to run the latest apps. What do you need to run the latest apps, the latest, massively resourced PCs.
"it sometimes seems that technology progresses for no reason other than to encourage consumption, the efficiency and kewlness factor of PCs now is far greater than that of PCs 5 years ago, 10, 15"
Efficiency is being able to do the same thing with LESS resources. For example, the shareware version of DOOM on PCs was about 4 Meg. The Amiga version of the same could be fitted on a 1.44M floppy.
Another example, 5 years ago PCs were running DOOM with 66MHz. Now they run Quake III with 660 Mhz (sure it can run on slow systems). So is Quake III 10 times better than DOOM? Has not the memory requirements also increased, network bandwidth too? Has not the number of characters in the arena, and the number of platforms supported DECREASED? How do you quantify better?
Remember if you cannot quantify it, then you cannot say it is efficient.
Whats the distinction between NEED and WANT? Who here can say, with their hand on their heart, that the first time they played doom on 66 Mhz machine, they immediately thought that this is crap, and they NEEDED a 666 Mhz machine?
Re:Andy Grove (Score:1)
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Chief Frog Inspector
Re:From the Inside (Score:2)
Sometimes what are apparently dumb ass management decisions work, but mostly they fail. Sometimes wise decisions fail, but mostly they work. There are always good sounding arguments for foolishness; else why would anyone ever make a foolish decision? In Intel's case abandoning a successful strategy to do just the opposite might work - but so far the evidence is strongly against it. Even the staunchest supporters of the new direction have to admit that it is a very risky approach; the odds are against it.
The reason that fools continue to exist in the world is that they succeed just often enough to keep trying. Those successes are both necessary and proper - the wise don't have the world completely figured out, and successful fools remind them of that fact. It is more evidence of the Yin and Yang nature of reality: mostly the wise succeed and mostly fools fail, but there is an element of the wise failing and fools succeeding.
Had Intel continued to do things the way it did things in the past: with focus, great engineering from experienced personnel, a sterling reputation, and a huge bankroll for development, it is difficult to see how anyone could have challenged them. Now the only part of that package which is there is the huge bankroll, and that may be enough to buy Intel the time to succeed with its new direction, or it may not be, time will tell.
Re:Sorry to see a "low end" chip bite the dust (Score:1)
The old PC was so useful under unix that I kept it as my only PC for quite all that time. When I bought it, it was top of the line at the time. I remember paying over 3000$ for it.
It was a capable machine and it can do everything I needed, play mp3s, compile, write perl and php scripts, browse the internet etc
The strange thing is that with the latest windows and all the latest software I don't feel my new pc is any faster than my old box. Sure I can play nice games but I don't see the benefit.
Why does all windows software become more and more slower and bloated instead of being more efficient?
The only way I can really see a performance increase is doing anything under unix or when I'm compiling software under both windows and unix.
So now I'm sticking to my original platform (freeBSD) I wonder how many more years I can get use out of it before I finally need to upgrade!
Old PC's are still usefull. My old PC is still useful as a personal all-purpose server and I always look for old hardware people just throw away. (I just think their market idiots)
Not in the high end (Score:1)
A Victory for AMD (Score:1)
Re:WTF? (Score:1)
Ditto (Score:1)
WTF? (Score:1)
Where the hell'd they go??
Andy Grove (Score:4)
TIMMAHH!! (Score:4)
Re:WTF? (Score:2)
My guess is they are fixing the hole, and have shifted Slashdot to another server for the moment..
Re:WTF? (Score:1)
Strange (Score:5)
Faceintel.com [faceintel.com]
The poster's contention was that Intel is working its engineers to the bone, and under a demeaning work environment, and this is why Intel is falling behind - their top talent is leaving for AMD and Texas Instruments (TI) en masse as a result of management. This, the author contended, was the real reason for Intel's recent failures - they've pushed their engineers too far.
I doubt this is a conspiracy, but I'm reposting this anyway, as the comment deserves to be seen, as does the site.
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I see this as a bad move by Intel... (Score:1)
Re:WTF? (Score:1)
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Re:WTF? (Score:1)
Sorry to see a "low end" chip bite the dust (Score:5)
Since I bought my machine, the bus speed jumped from 66 to 100 to 133 MHz. Processor speed went to 350, 400, 450, until the low end machine you can get from mail order catalogs is around 633. High end close to twice that. The Pentium III and Athlon became available, with better throughput and more cache. At the same time, video cards progressed from the then-new Voodoo 2 to the TNT, TNT 2, Rage 128, Matrox G400, GeForce, and GeForce 2. Take a low end machine out of all these specs, say a 600 MHz machine with a 100 MHz bus and a TNT 2. That's at least twice the performance of my machine. And in all honesty, I don't know what to do with all the power of my current set-up.
These low-end chips that get kicked around, like those from Transmeta, are still more powerful than what I currently have. And yet the constant wisdom that is spouted is "there's no market at the low end."
I cracked open my machine yesterday to add a new card, and it really struck me how much junk there is in the average PC. Mine must weight 30 pounds. There are a couple of fans, and two absolutely enormous heat sinks. It bothers me to see people tossing these out and buying new machines, just so they can surf the web, listen to MP3s, run Office, and play horribly broken game demos (that is, game demos that don't look like anyone gave a moment's thought to making them run fast on more than reasonable machines). Nobody cares about power consumption or form factor either, just so-called "performance." Even if you need a car battery to power a video card, some people don't care. "My bubble sort is too slow! I need an Athlon!" At some point, this has to stop. People don't realize how much they're being suckered here, which is surprising for the typical anti-corporate college student geek.
Xscale aka StrongARM does a wee bit more (Score:3)
x86 is a screwed up architecture and you have to have ever decreasing die sizes and people to rejig everything (memory access/SMP crossbar) to get real improvements (AMD know this and are dumping/saying it is not surported parts for their upcomeing 64bit chip )
2
the DIE SIZE is BIG putting it mildly
this means less profits something intel does not like
good old digital has a bit of problems with patents
enter Intel's lawyers (these are people who I give respect to ! )
Intel gets strongARM + a whole bunch of people who only have 3-5 years left to get shares/pension now sorry but Digital's engineers (who have been doing this for a long time) + Intel's budget and we get
(drum roll please)
Xscale
die size/performance that beats the pants off anything MOT has produced and part of the ARM arch so yes all those routers/palms/watchs (IBM linux watch)/4G phones can use it and have code that runs on it
er and you want to prat around with x86 compatible stuff which is huge die/power requirements
I don't think so
kiss it all goodbye because x86 is going bye bye dorthy
john jones
(a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)
Re:WTF? (Score:1)
This just in from the /. newsroom! (Score:1)
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
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Chief Frog Inspector
My other account worked.. (Score:1)
Account name: God Password: Pete
Re:Andy Grove (Score:2)
Although home users were very unlikely to buy many P4 systems, that the rollout is pushed back, people will feel that they should have had the opportunity to see them anyway, now all they can buy is PIII's. The psychology is that the PIII is the 2000 model and they want to see the 2001 model, kick the tires and slam the doors, which people have now been told to wait on. Maybe Intel would do well to take a page out of Apple's book (yeah, yeah, not
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Chief Frog Inspector
AMD Stock (Score:2)
-- "Microsoft can never die! They make the best damn joysticks around!"
Yeah, you could use one (Score:1)
Either way, is Intel now a Lion?
Re:Original post about FACE Intel! (Score:2)
Issues aired on the site certainly shed some light on Intel's Chernobyl-like year. Even though AMD is a smaller company, and more agile because of this, I've wondered how it has been that they have had such phenominal success, while behemoth Intel hasn't used their vast resources wisely enough to blow AMD out of the water. With all Intel's revenues, their R&D should be second to none, yet these quality issues, delays and cancellations are typical result of disruption and turmoil.
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Chief Frog Inspector
Re:Several Things (Score:1)
MSX! (Score:1)
Why to design a new low-end chip while you can get a good old MSX to do your work?
Hey, lots of offices out there buys ultra-fast Pentium machines so they can use Word. Throw this away, get a MSX running Wordstar and it's all set!
Long live the Z80!
Wave bubye (Score:1)
Intel is on a downward spiral folks. For the longest time it seemed as though they could do nothing wrong, then cam PPro which was a fine chip, but not what was needed. Ok, it was the software makers that shot that one down. Fast forward to the i820 screw up. I had 5 systems affected by that. Nope, not at all impressed. Oh, let's not forget about the serial number issue. Then there was the P3 1.13 screw up. And shall we discuss the P4 setbacks? Rambus? ZX chipset? I am sure I have missed something? Oh ya. first generation celeron (except the the insance oc'ers out there). What's next Intel?
Re:Tinma undone by i815 chipset? (Score:1)
The cancellation of Timna was a Good Thing (Score:4)
Now, had Intel released Timna, with RDRAM and all (Assuming RDRAM was, say, half as expensive as it is now)it would bring the low end PC market to even smaller profit margins, with higher prcies too.
In mass quantites, a Celeron 600 would probably cost around $50-60, and a cheap i810 motherboard with built in sound, video, and winmodem for another $50 or so. In the case of the Timna, the CPU would probably be in the $160 range, going by past "low end" CPUs from Intel, but the motherboard will naturally be cheaper, so maybe $30-40 for a motherboard. Add another $100 for the same amount of memory, and you have something that costs a bit more then $200 over a similarly equipped Celeron system.
Had Intel chosen to go this route, they would have shoved Timna down the throats of companies, stopped making Celerons, and we would have more expensive "cheap" computers that aren't any better then the old ones. Not only this, but also consider that because the computers would be in the "cheap" range, they would need to keep profit margins low. Very low. In order to offset the cost difference, they would have probably had to sell Timna systems at a gross loss (Not a Net loss, a Gross loss), which would cause a mass exodus amongst a lot of PC building companies, who would revert over to AMD where they could see more profits, better sales, etc.
This situation would see Intel almost completely drop out of the low end market, and their midrange stuff would be sorely lacking. While this may have been a good thing for AMD, it is not for the consumer, as less competition on any level (As in AMD owning the low end market) causes less price competition, and we would see prices drop slower, slower releases of new processors, and higher pricing.
It truly is a good thing Timna was cancled.
Re:DAMN RAMBUS (Score:1)
Re:I see this as a bad move by Intel... (Score:1)
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"Stop it, Ford," he said. "You're turning into a penguin."
Re:Not in the high end (Score:2)
Well then it's obvious that everyone needs 800+ MHz processors!
I'm doing some pretty hardcore stuff on my machine: software development in Lisp, mathematical modeling, 3D animation. Few people can say the same thing ("Uh, I'm downloading porn"). You could always come up with some extreme example ("I'm solving systems of 2 million equations"), but that's not even close to the norm.
Re:Several Things (Score:2)
[Anandtech] [anandtech.com]: "The results are really no different at higher resolutions, with the PCI card falling only 1.2 FPS behind the AGP card when at 1600x1200x16. The max difference comes at 1280x1024x32, with the PCI card performing 2.3 FPS slower than the AGP card, a difference that may be attributed to the slower bus speed of the PCI card. This difference, however, is not really noticeable."
This is an Athlon 750 system; the bottleneck isn't the CPU, and apparently it isn't the bus.
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Re:Sorry to see a "low end" chip bite the dust (Score:1)
RAMBUS - the problem (Score:2)
Next on the block: Itanium. Doesn't go fast enough, and needs an optimizing compiler with the mind of God to make it go.
Went to the Stanford EE380 [stanford.edu] talk last week. The head architect of AMD's 64-bit architecture spoke. No details on implementation, just the architecture as visible to the programmer. It's the obvious extension of x86 to 64 bits, no more, no less. In 64-bit mode, there are more registers and no segmentation. Bootable as a 32-bit CPU, can be run in its native 64-bit mode, or can run 32-bit programs under a 64-bit OS. Still supports all the 16-bit modes. The GCC port took about a month. That's the probable future.
Re:Wave bubye (Score:1)
on the other hand, had they marketed the CPU's to the software companies and said "look, you can license a piece of software to a single pc," they'd have had some support. but they didnt. Understand, Sun, IBM, and im sure all the other big enterprise hardware companies have and use processor serial numbers for licensing. IBM have been doing it for decades.
Intel's a pretty good technological company, they've just been f*cking up with their marketing as of late. But I blame that on M$. Remember way back when (a few years ago) when you coulndt find a computer-related commercial on TV. Now its almost all we see. As soon as M$ decided to sell computers to Joe Six-pack, the industry has gotten even _more_ stupid.
bob
Re:Andy Grove (Score:3)
Re:WTF? (Score:1)
Oh cynical me (Score:1)
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IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN (Score:1)
LINUS [mikegallay.com]
Re:Strange (Score:1)
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AMD (Score:3)
A little bit of info here: http://www.aceshardware.com/Spades/read_news.php?
As for compaq: well, make what you wish of this: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/1222
I'd say that AMD is setting it's self up to replace Intel rather quickly. Already, many OEMs are droping their Intel only policy...
Re:TIMMAHH!! (Score:1)
Re:A Victory for AMD -- 4 Words (Score:1)
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Another theory (Score:2)
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Why use Intel anyway (Score:2)
AGP vs. PCI64/66. (Score:2)
A viable replacement for PCI at 32 bits/33 MHz has existed for many years now - PCI at 64 bits / 66 MHz.
This has been used in workstations since long before AGP was introduced. But, instead of migrating this standard architecture down to the consumer level, they introduce their own in an attempt to capture market share.
Likewise, there's no reason for AGP 4x to exist, when PCI 64/133 has just as much bandwidth and doesn't restrict you to only one slot.
Speaking as a person who's done graphics driver work for a few years, I can say that there are many, many fun things that you could do with multiple high-speed card ports with multiple graphics cards. However, that doesn't seem to be on Intel's agenda. PCI 64/66 would also give us somewhere to stick 1 Gbit network cards without losing most of our bandwidth. If not for AGP, these ports would be standard by now.
Clarification. (Score:1)
That should be "bus bandwidth". The network card would work fine. Just don't try to use two of them in one machine, or a PCI graphics card in the same machine.
Re:you can get by with a 386 (Score:2)
but why would you?
You're missing the point. A nice 1995 Chevy or Ford is infinitely better than a car from 1912. But does having a 500 HP Chevy mean all that much in comparison with the 1995 car? Unless you're into drag racing, no. If you compare a 300 MHz Pentium II and a 1 GHz Athlon, the differences are irrelevant. They both feel identical for everyday tasks. In fact, you couldn't figure out which was the faster machine if you were just using Windows and Word and browsing the web. Even for more advanced work you wouldn't notice the difference, except in a few cases (like rendering scenes overnight in 3DS MAX). See the point?
Re:new CPU not x86 compatible? get a grip (Score:1)
yes its non x86
how many phones are there ?
and how many have ARM processors ?
now how many routers are there ?
how many PDAs are there ?
how many games consoles are there ?
please
oh and how much do you think the software that runs on all those is worth ? to the company LOTS just because you paid money for the software does not mean its worth that answer this if a company would like to be paid by consumers or a nice hunk of cash + 1c for each one shiped what would make you more money ? (you are not microsoft which is a good thing!) any bean couter will tell you take the cash plus roayltys it makes more money
please all palm software is going to break when they change to a new CPU unless they emulate it
ah well
john jones
(a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)
Re:Tinma undone by i815 chipset? (Score:2)
They are certainly NOT "junk"; the speed is quite good and the sound subsystem does support full wavetable MIDI sound. Combine that with a 733 MHz Pentium IIIEB CPU and you have a very nice system for business users and the majority of home users.
Re:But that's simply not true. (Score:2)
Then you are a fool. I stopped noticing speed increases after about 200MHz or so. I can't tell the difference between a 200MHz chip and a 1GHz chip, except in contrived circumstances (like running Unreal in software rendering mode).
Re:People will always need a faster computer. (Score:2)
No, You won't need the GHz for playing MP3s. You'll need it as speech recognition gets mainstreamed, or as video compression codecs become ever-more sophisticated. Or the next big thing, that no one right now can imagine.
(I'm sure, however, that the next version of Office will include enough delay loops to make it look like you need that newest processor.)Or paperclips that annoy us but make Office seem more human to the 55-year-old secretary in my office.
I'm not saying that a 486 is good enough, of course (I'll buy a newer computer when I manage to scrape together a few pennies.) But the fact is that nobody really needs the latest chip; they just want it for bragging rights.If there's no bleeding edge, there's no perspective to make leading edge seem reasonable.
Me, I'm happy to stay a couple years behind and a few hundred dollars richer.My old Pentium 166MMX is on its last legs, but it's done me very well: soon I'll hand its old XT-fliptop cased glory down to my roommate and pick up a PIII-600 or so. I'll use the money instead to fuel up something that I really enjoy: my 1976 big-block V8 Dodge Ram. But I'll never question that the bleeding edge has its place.
Timna? (Score:2)
Timna or Tinma? (Score:2)
Kevin Fox
Another refocusing of Intel's staff (Score:3)
I think that this is a move in the right direction. We already have enough stinking bargain chips (now that VIA is starting up the damned Cyrix series again with the CyrixIII, that puts the total of cheap-ass CPUs from 2 [Intel Celeron and K-6 x] to 3). Maybe now the Intel hardware designers can work on a chipset that doesn't suck, like a DDR chipset for the P4, or maybe a new 440BX-esque chip for the Coppermine series. I'm sick of VIA dominating the chipset market with their "0.25 micron crap on PCB" strategy.
Re:Strange (Score:4)
Other sources I have read say that intel has lost a lot of their top chip architects over time -- they aren't interested in doing process shrink after shrink after shrink for the different cores, which is why the HP-designed McKinley is going to smoke the Intel-designed Merced. I would suspect the average age of an intel employee is around 28-30 by now, with the 2000-3000 new college hires every year for the last 4 years. Those people are the ones who got to architect the Willamette (Pentium IV) chip which is really the first new architecture since Pentium Pro (Pentium II and III are essentially the same micro-architecture with some fancy memory hacks and some SIMD extensions for the marketroids to use as "differentiators").
Anyone with 4-6 years experience still doesn't have a great grasp on the hurdles that will be hit on a 2 year-long project with many hundreds of people working in different groups. I know this for a fact, because I am one of those people, who could easily be working at Intel right now. Missing deadlines will be the norm at Intel, not the exception, no matter how many warm bodies get thrown at a project, because new designs are much harder than process shrinks, and quality design practices take lots of experience to be learned adequately.
Comments?
Re:WTF? (Score:1)
If Intel used the reason "Because of Design Issues" there goes their entire product line!!!
--Chris ^^
http://www.darkstarpro.com/ [darkstarpro.com]
Is it me, or (Score:1)
I really don't mean this as flamebait, but honestly, someone name three things Intel has done right lately.
(By the way, I'm not anti-Intel or pro-AMD. I use a PIII, fyi.)
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