Monday, July 7th 2008
2.93 GHz Nehalem Derivative Presented
One of the newest toys at Tom's Hardware is a Nehalem derivative Intel Bloomfield processor clocked at 2.93 GHz. This processor brings with it, a host of changes. To begin with, say goodbye to FSB. The processor communicates with the system using a technology called QuickPath interconnect. This is a high-speed, low-latency point to point link. It's comparable to the HyperTransport technology, which AMD has been using for close to five years now. Initially, Bloomfield will use a 20-bit wide 25.6 GB/sec. QuickPath link. The CPU incorporates the memory controller, which implies that your choice of memory will depend on the processor. As already noted in regard to the AMD processors, this approach of integrating a memory controller greatly reduces system-level latency. The CPU supports 3-channel DDR3 1333 MHz memory. That's 32 GB/s of bandwidth, with support for up to 24 GB of system memory. Of the six DDR3 slots, the first slot is required to be populated.
Unfortunately, Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) don't allow them to disclose performance evaluations at this point though - ironically - their Taiwanese team ran preliminary tests on a Radeon HD4850 and a Foxconn X58 motherboard we covered here.
Read the whole article here.
Source:
Tom's Hardware
Unfortunately, Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) don't allow them to disclose performance evaluations at this point though - ironically - their Taiwanese team ran preliminary tests on a Radeon HD4850 and a Foxconn X58 motherboard we covered here.
34 Comments on 2.93 GHz Nehalem Derivative Presented
I'm looking forward to seeing the inital results of Nehalem/Bloomfield based set ups once they're ready to hit the market. As for now, these little 'insights' are interesting, but leave me wanting more.
I don't think this will disappoint at all!
I'm not sure it's real tbh.
On another note, the few things that made AMD somewhat superior with their chips, is now gone. Intel now has HTT (nixed the FSB) and Integrated Memory Controller. 2 Key things AMD had going for it. Factor in the fact that intel blew AMDs stuff out of the water with the FSB and non integrated memory controller and you start to see how this sucks for us AMD fellas. I hope AMD has something new and exciting up its sleeve.
Very nice looking chip, I cringe at the thought of the price as well.
:D
How are these gonna oc tho' with no fsb? will it be similar to the way amd chips are overclocked?
Other than the RAM which this "new" chipset removes the bottle neck of, isn't the N/S Bridges and Video run through the FSB? So it still could be considered a bottle neck it just has one less thing running through it. I understand that for pure computation this is a massive improvement but on the other hand many of us are looking at graphics/game performance impacts.
The only good thing AMD has left is its socket life. Sure the DDR3 will have a new board and chipset, but at least new procs coming out can use older sockets (like AM2/AM2+). This new chip will need a new chipset and highly doubtful its backwards compatible.