Intel To Expand Core M Broadwell Line With Faster Dual-Core Processors 52
MojoKid writes: Intel didn't waste much time following-up on its initial Core M lineup launch. The company has added 4 more Core M models to its roster. Like the launch chips, these four are dual-core designs that support HyperThreading to enable an effective four logical threads for processing. Also like those earlier chips, these are spec'd with a TDP of 4.5W. These new chips, however, are generally faster than the launch models, with a new top-end processor called the M-5Y71. This chip has a base clock speed of 1.2GHz, but is burstable through Turbo up to 2.9GHz. What really sets these chips apart from the initial Core M models is that their TDP is scalable, based on what the builder is looking to do with it. If the chip is set to be used in a notebook with very little free space, the OEM could opt to drop the chip down to 3.5W and lose 600MHz in the process. By contrast, a bulkier notebook could handle a hotter chip better, so a higher TDP could be decided upon. If that route's taken, any one of these new chips could peak at 6W and add 200MHz to the base and top-end clocks.
Nice (Score:2)
How much can they do with overvolting and watercooling?
Re:Nice (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, if the peak (judging from the last sentence of the summary) is 6w, that is easily in the power envelope of USB. (6w = 5v@1.1a) so, all they mean is a larger Passive cooler. You probably don't need a Heat-sink-fan unit until about 10-15w
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, if the peak (judging from the last sentence of the summary) is 6w, that is easily in the power envelope of USB. (6w = 5v@1.1a) so, all they mean is a larger Passive cooler. You probably don't need a Heat-sink-fan unit until about 10-15w
There might not be much room for overclocking, since we know Intel has been having lots of trouble with their 14nm yields.
It's possible that they're rolling out low power dual core chips because that's all they can produce in any significant volume.
Not USB powerable (Score:1)
Well, if the peak is 6w, that is easily in the power envelope of USB. (6w = 5v@1.1a)
The maximum current for USB 2.0 is 500mA and for USB 3.0 it is 900mA, so 6W is well outside the power budget for a USB-powered device. 4.5W is possible on USB 3.0 as long as you don't want power for anything else like a screen, memory or other peripherals. It is more manageable with the 3.5W option but at 600MHz you are way below the performance of equivalent ARM-based parts with the same power profile, so you have to really want x86 in your device.
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Uhh, USB 3.0 has a battery charge specification that allows for 1.5A
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Uhh, USB 3.0 has a battery charge specification that allows for 1.5A
Yes it does, but that is designed for charging batteries and doesn't allow data transfer at that current. So while you can technically power one of these chips using a cable with a USB connector on it, that isn't what I would call a USB-powered device.
Intel Maths (Score:5, Funny)
"(6w = 5v@1.1a)"
Are Intel still having problems with their floating point maths?
5V x 1.1A = 5.5 W
Intel's new Tock-Tick release cycle ... (Score:4, Funny)
For so many years in a row, Intel has been making faster and faster processors. This year, for a change, they have decided to focus on making only slower processors, and the Broadwell series is the result! This year they are slowing down the CPUs, next year they will slow down the system bus ...
Re:Intel's new Tock-Tick release cycle ... (Score:5, Funny)
all to better compete head on with amd
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AMD? Arm is the real competition.
Re:Intel's new Tock-Tick release cycle ... (Score:5, Funny)
If they keep lowering their CPU clock speeds like that, their competition is going to be Atmel.
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Like I said ARM. Atmel licenses cores from ARM.
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They license ARM cores from ARM. They use their own AVR cores in their AVR microcontrollers. That's obviously what the parent was talking about.
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The point of lowering clock speeds is lower thermal profile and better battery life. Something Intel can't manage until they either scrap x86 or radically alter their chip design process
If they can get similar total performance and better clock for clock performance, going with lower clock speeds is the right thing to do.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Agreed. Part of the reason this is possible, though, is due to faster SSDs and RAM and efficiency gains in caching, algorithms, etc, and the push to do lots of processing in the cloud. The processor stopped being the bottleneck long ago.
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What I think we will see once Intel and ARM start hitting a wall with nm sizes is a race to throw as many cores on a die as possible.
Next step after that will be bigger caches and better caching algorithms.
After that, the next step will be to have special purpose cores. For example, some phones have two low-power/low-speed cores, and two faster/more energy using cores. I wouldn't be surprised to see that, as well as cores that are dedicated to specific tasks, but general tasks can be put on those cores if
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What jobs do Joe and Jane Average have that won't be well served by a C2Q or Phenom X4 from 7 years ago? None, not a damned thing, in fact many can get by just fine on a C2D or Athlon X2 and never notice any difference because they just aren't stressing the chips.
That is true to a point...
Tossing a SSD and more RAM into such a machine, Windows 8 runs just fine on it, for most people...
Except, it also would suck down more power than it needs to... The same performance that took 65w or 95w of power in 2006 today can be had at 15w of power...
Those AMD chips you love so much suck down power like it was going out of style...
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TechReview did a test of the AMD octocore versus the middle of the line i5 and for the power bill to make the i5 a better buy would mean you would have to keep the i5 in service FOR EIGHTEEN YEARS!!
And I've seen comparisons that put the number closer to 3 years.
There are a lot of ways to make those numbers move, depending on what you're trying to say.
Besides, a Haswell Core i5 will beat the 8 core (that really isn't) AMD chip most of the time anyway.
The fact is, the top end AMD chips use between 50% to 100% more power than similar performance Intel chips. The total amount of power may not be huge, but it does add up over time.
It somewhat depends of course on what you pay for power. I pay 11 cents pe
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That is a very large wall of text...
You are a true believer and honestly I don't think you'll listen to anything at this point...
If the AMD CPU was so good, why aren't more selling?
Even down at your $82 price they aren't selling.
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When the MHz war was in full swing I was getting rid of my PC for a new one every other year with a major upgrade at the halfway point, but now why bother?
The upgrades back when were coming faster than they do today.
Yes, the chips do improve today, but not as much as they once did. The improvements are happening in the areas of features, energy efficiency, and cost, rather than outright performance.
That being said, C2D (Conroe) was a major improvement in performance over Netburst, and Ci7 (Nehalem) was a major improvement over Conroe.
Since Nehalem came out, they have been small improvements in outright performance, but huge improvements in feature sets, ener
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When the MHz war was in full swing I was getting rid of my PC for a new one every other year with a major upgrade at the halfway point, but now why bother?
Just to follow up on this...
Core i7 920, the first 4 core, 8 thread Nehalem processor, was rated TDP of 130W running at up to 3.33 GHz.
Core i7 4790K, the top end 4 core, 8 thread Haswell chip, is rated TDP of 88W running at up for 4.4 GHz.
That is a 32% jump in performance with a 32% reduction in max power draw.
I don't think you can call that "no difference".
Taking it another way...
Core 2 Duo E6600, (Conroe), when it launched in 2006, ran at 2.4 GHz and had a TDP of 65W with 2 cores. It cost $316
Today, you
Re:Intel's new Tock-Tick release cycle ... (Score:4, Insightful)
What jobs do Joe and Jane Average have that won't be well served by a C2Q or Phenom X4 from 7 years ago? None, not a damned thing, in fact many can get by just fine on a C2D or Athlon X2 and never notice any difference because they just aren't stressing the chips.
Bullshit. Maybe, MAYBE they are not stressing the C2D / C2Q chips if they only browse the net / read and reply to emails. Otherwise stuff like watching 1080P, and to a lesser extent 720P H.264 10bit videos ( or even 8bit, without GPU acceleration ), which more and more videos are in now, pushes a C2D into the 80-90% utilization range. Then they can't do any background tasks on the CPU when watching movies.
Even if it does do everything you need, the thermal profile is horrid... I moved away from my Prescott that did everything I needed to a C2D simply because I didn't want the thermal profile of the throat of an active volcano on my motherboard anymore, or the fans that sounded like jet engines that cooled it. The benefits of less heat output and less power input by far outweighed the performance gains ( those had been only a bonus ).
No one can know if we are going to hit a thermal wall anytime soon, the next breakthrough could be happening right as we discuss. Add that to the fact that Intel is reaching ARM power profiles with similar, or higher, clocks, and that x86 / x86_64 vastly outperforms ARM on a per clock-cycle basis and Intel has nothing to fear.
And congratulations on being an AMD only shop, heaven forbid your customers have any kind of choice in the matter. AMD hasn't made anything more than an "adequate" chip since the K6. Can you name one x86 based laptop / net-top / tablet that uses AMD chips and boasts long battery life made in the last few years? I've seen quite a few Intel based ones that boast 6-7+ hours VS. the AMDs that are usually rated at ~5+.
You may think I'm "trolling" asking that, but I am actually quite serious, if there is some AMD chip out there that is really power efficient I would like to know, it's just that the only really efficient stuff I have seen recently was all Intel.
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You make a funny but frankly there realy is no reason for AMD to follow Intel down the rabbit hole of ever lower nm sizes (which if rumors are true is ending up with worse yields and lower clocks do to leakage with each rev)
Yields are a matter of process tuning, if one CPU works well it means the others will too eventually. And the new Core Ms are down to 82mm^2 from 131mm^2, meaning more dies per chip which translates directly to higher margins for Intel. It would mean lower prices, but there's no competition. And eventually they will have tuned it while AMD haven't, it's only a win if AMD never ever has to do the same job.
What jobs do Joe and Jane Average have that won't be well served by a C2Q or Phenom X4 from 7 years ago? None, not a damned thing, in fact many can get by just fine on a C2D or Athlon X2 and never notice any difference because they just aren't stressing the chips.
Yes. Which leaves the question, why should they buy a new machine from AMD rather than some second hand
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New process technology always has low yields at the beginning. But making chips smaller eventually leads to lower manufacturing costs.
Intel has been pushing out some faster chips at the high end. But they aren't going to sell a lot of those Extreme processors, and I agree that the vast majority of users already have a desktop system that is Fast Enough. (Exceptions include gamers who want bragging rights, video editors, and scientists.) The real action is in low power CPUs for ultraportable laptops, tablets
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The problem with your logic is that die shrinks, if yield problems can be resolved, also provide cheaper costs per chip (thus boosting profits) and lower energy consumption. I have AMD chips that heat up the room when I use the computer for extended periods of time. A comparable Intel Core processor does not have this problem. The problem can become more pronounced with server farms and mobile devices.
Desktops will also be a smaller piece of the puzzle as everyone starts to buy more and more mobile devices.
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Ouch (Score:5, Interesting)
Very cool technically speaking, and good for system designers ... it will, however, make it that much harder to comparison shop, if the same CPU has a different speed depending on how it's wired up.
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Realistically speaking... designs with constrained cooling options have been thermally limited for quite a time now. This is most obvious on thin (and of course fanless) tablets (where ARM rules), but becomes increasingly visible also on thin laptops. Thus, you can't really judge all performance measures of a sub-laptop device by CPU model number alone; it is already a puzzle which involves understanding thermals on a level no consumer can be prepared to look at.
Don't get too excited (Score:4, Interesting)
If it's like their first M processor, the turbo boost mode only works when using a single core. i.e. You can run one core at 2.9 GHz, or you can run both cores at 1.2 GHz. That's the price you pay for the extremely low TDP. In contrast, an i5-4250U has a base clock of 1.3 GHz, can turbo boost to 2.3 GHz on two cores, and 2.6 GHz on a single core.
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Dwarf Fortress.
Motherboards (Score:2)
So if I want a real low power consumption desktop small form factor are there motherboards that I can get that will use these?
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If Intel follows what they did with Ivy Bridge and Haswell, they will release a NUC [intel.com] based on these designs.
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The circuitry was never additional. This thing is just a Core i3 chip, desktop version will probably support ECC, other versions will not - save for desktop Pentium if they do as on Haswell. It's crippled with microcode and fuses.