Saturday, January 31st 2009
Intel Scraps 45 nm Nehalem Dual-Core Chips, Plans Replacement
Grappling with a deteriorating world economy, and overstocked inventories with current-generation Core 2 platforms, Intel seems to have had a change of plans with regards to its dual-core Nehalem-derivatives. Company roadmaps originally pointed at two chips, codenamed Havendale and Auburndale to be the dual-core MCM implementations of the Nehalem architecture, for desktops and notebooks respectively. The "MCM" (multi-chip module) part comes to light in the way the chips were originally conceived: two dice on a package, one holding the CPU complex and the other holding the northbridge, consisting of a memory controller, PCI-Express root complex, and a graphics controller.
Theo Valich, noted industry commentator, in his latest blog post in Theo's Bright Side of IT, mentions that Intel scrapped Havendale and Auburndale in its conceived form. The two were set to make possible Intel Core i4 and i3 SKUs. Instead, Intel is working to push forward the launch of their common successor by six months: the Arandale core. Arandale features in the future series of Nehalem-derived processors to be built on the 32nm high-K silicon process, slated for 2010. Arandale from all that is known thus far is the dual-core Nehalem implementation on 32nm lithography, apart from speculation of it holding a higher amount of L3 cache: possibly 6 MB against 4 MB on the Havendale/Auburndale. The Arandale core was originally slated for "back to school" season, 2010 (around September~October). After rescheduling the launch, it could arrive by March.
Source:
Theo's Bright Side of IT
Theo Valich, noted industry commentator, in his latest blog post in Theo's Bright Side of IT, mentions that Intel scrapped Havendale and Auburndale in its conceived form. The two were set to make possible Intel Core i4 and i3 SKUs. Instead, Intel is working to push forward the launch of their common successor by six months: the Arandale core. Arandale features in the future series of Nehalem-derived processors to be built on the 32nm high-K silicon process, slated for 2010. Arandale from all that is known thus far is the dual-core Nehalem implementation on 32nm lithography, apart from speculation of it holding a higher amount of L3 cache: possibly 6 MB against 4 MB on the Havendale/Auburndale. The Arandale core was originally slated for "back to school" season, 2010 (around September~October). After rescheduling the launch, it could arrive by March.
48 Comments on Intel Scraps 45 nm Nehalem Dual-Core Chips, Plans Replacement
I can hardly wait to see the new line of Intel CPU's the economy is going to be fine it will take some time but then again Intel is not going to let it slow them down and instead of keeping a dual core CPU around that is clearly not as nice to own as a quad core hence the back log of dual cores Intel is doing the right thing and hey intel doesn't even bother with tri cores at all do they ?
As a gamer its really all i need.
But it is still good news never the less .
the only thing I'm considering is changing out my pretty much golden q6600 for a q9650 which I can clock faster and will run cooler...even so, it's a hard decision to justify.
I don't think this is a valid source.
We've already got EVEREST report of an Arrandale-based mobile test platform. All I can tell you: it works, and it works very well. It is definiately manufactured on a 32nm process, and it packs more features than Auburndale (the 45nm variant that got cancelled). It will not only kill AMD, but also VIA -- if those companies survive 2009 ;)
And Quad-cores in the current consumer market are useless. No average consumer needs a Quad-Core processor.
Won't this now put even more pressure on AMD ? I mean Intel can now focus in on there octo cores and quads with out being hampered by dual core manufacturing . Moving from 45nm right to 35nm faster than any time in history .
Haha, nah. I'm happy with my quad and I'll be more happy if I hit 4GHz on water next week sometime on my quad radiator along with my watercooled 4870 x2 :).
If I hit 4GHz, my PC would kickass for another year and a half or so anyway.
I think that you are right but when the average joe looks at the Spec's and sees one has a Dual core ( for about the same price) and the other has a Quad core what do you think joe is going to get ? I see more quads leaving the shelf's at stores than dual cores .
Though single core processors have nothing to do with this discussion really. We are talking about dual-cores, not single-cores. The industry moving away from single core processors =/= dual cores are useless.
Single core processors being phased out is more of an economic move caused by the dies moving to native dual core, and now quad-core, designs. It doesn't make sense to make a dual-core die, then disable half of it to make a single core processor.Well actually, they are cutting production due to the over stock of Core 2 processors, both dual and quad.They don't. Most are still surviving on single cores. The old Celerons, Semprons, and Athlon 64s are still in use more than anything. The average joe isn't really looking to even upgrade to a new computer right now due to the economy, which is why there is such a large overstock in the first place.This is correct, for the most part. However, most of them won't make use of the quad-core processor. They just think it is better and buy it. Just because more people are buying Quads, that doesn't mean they are actually using them to their potential. For and average Joe, a E8400 would be far better than say a Q8200. The higher clock speed would benefit the average joe far more. The average joe is not running multi-threaded apps, so the slower quad-core would hurt them more than anything.