Intel's early 2011 "Sandy Bridge" processor line-up

By the end of this year, Intel will start manufacturing the 32nm processors based on the Sandy Bridge architecture. 

The Sandy Bridge desktop and mobile offering for Q1 is detailed in the table below and it contains no less than 19 CPUs - 12 quad-cores and 7 dual-cores, going from 2.3 GHz to 3.4 GHz. The chips listed come in LGA 1155 packaging and feature an integrated (dual channel) DDR3 memory controller as well as a graphics core.

source:tcmagazine

Mac Pro to Get 6-Core Xeon Gulftown Processor in 2010? I for one hope so.

I don’t want to give up the tower (aging G5) with all its versatility for an iMac no matter how fast it is.  So I’m waiting for the next Mac Pro and want it faster than the iMac i5-7.

HardMac reports that Polish website PCLab prematurely leaked performance numbers on Intel’s upcoming Xeon Gulftown (Core i9). The results have since been pulled but is summarized by HardMac:

First figures indicate that this CPU is very promising. At equivalent clock speed, it is 50% faster than the corresponding quad core Xeon for parallel tasks. Despite having 50% more transistors, the CPU strongly benefits from 32-nm engraving as it drains 50% less power in idle mode and 10% less in full loading mode.

According to their sources, Apple is planning on using the Gulftown processor in a future Mac Pro revision due in early 2010. When placed in a dual-processor configuration, this would give the Mac Pro 12 physical and 24 logical cores. Such massively multi-core designs have been expected for some time with under-the-hood changes in Snow Leopard specifically preparing for such a possibility.

The use of the high-end Gulftown processor in the Mac Pros make more sense now that we’ve seen Apple using the Core i7 processors in the iMacs. Benchmarks have shown that the performance of these high-end iMac rivals that of the entry level Mac Pros which cost considerably more. The use of Gulftown would presumably reestablish a larger performance gap between Apple’s consumer and professional desktop computers.

source:macrumors

Intel Core 2 Quad S-Series shaves power consumption to 65W

The new processors are all based on Intel’s 45 nm manufacturing process, and they basically utilize the same silicon as the regular, non-S models, centering on the Core 2 Duo ‘Wolfdale’ design, utilizing two processing cores. Intel puts two of these onto one physical processor to create a Core 2 Quad processor, which it refers to as Yorkfield. Supporters of monolithic processor design have criticized this approach, saying it would not result in a true quad-core. And indeed, the disadvantage is increased front side bus traffic due to inter-core communication. However, we believe that the real judge should be the benchmarks, and the results there have been nice: the Core 2 Quad delivers high performance at an acceptable power consumption level.

S-Series Models

ZoomThe S-series currently consists of three processor models. All have exactly the same technical characteristics and performance as the corresponding regular models, but they are rated at a maximum thermal design power of 65 W. The Core 2 Quad Q8200S runs at 2.33 GHz and has two 2 MB L2 caches; the Core 2 Quad Q9400S is a 2.66 GHz part with two 3 MB caches; and the Q9550S top model runs at 2.83 GHz and has the full 6 MB L2 cache for each dual core die, resulting in a total of 12 MB L2 cache.

Power Matters

Having four cores run at only 65 W is a significant step, as this has been the thermal design limit for Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors since their introduction. This means that virtually any Core 2 Duo system that was designed to be energy efficient will now be able to work with these quad cores as well, effectively doubling the performance reserves.

However, Intel is not the first company to deploy a 65 W quad core processor
for desktops, as AMD presented its Phenom X4 9100e in May 2008. Credit belongs to AMD as the first, but the 9100e wasn’t a high-performance part at only a 1.8 GHz clock speed. Not only is the Core 2 Quad faster when compared at the same clock speed, but the new S-series models at 65 W are available at mainstream clock speeds of up to 2.83 GHz. The higher frequencies mean that they are able to provide substantial performance even for traditional applications that may not be able to benefit from multiple processing cores.

source:tomshardware