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Giz Explains: Intel's Entire Confusing Armada of Chips
Intel Lynnfield Core i5 and i7 Processors: Nehalem Superpowers Cheaper Than Ever
Giz Explains: Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch
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DougOLis
10/20/09

In reply to Giz Explains: Intel's Entire Confusing Armada of Chips
Although Intel doesn't market chips according to their codenames, the individual chip gets a model number that gives you an idea of how it compares, spec-wise (clock speed, cache size, etc.), to other chips in the same group.

That's not entirely true. An Intel i7 870 (and 860 for that matter) are going to be a hell of a lot faster than an i7 920. They are different core types and that idiom holds true for each core, but the general public will see i7 920 vs. i7 870 and mistakenly think the 920 is faster.
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Edited by DougOLis at 10/20/09 6:07 PM DougOLis was starred DougOLis was unstarred

CaptMoose
10/15/09

In reply to Giz Explains: Intel's Entire Confusing Armada of Chips
Just to make things more confusing, The new i7 8-series (Lynnfield) actually goes back to a P55 socket and double-channel RAM, but gets many better benchmarks scores.

[www.guru3d.com]

[gizmodo.com]
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BloggyMcBlogBlog
10/15/09

In reply to Giz Explains: Intel's Entire Confusing Armada of Chips
Thanks for the article Matt. I'll be getting a new computer when Win7 drops and this definitely helps. #intel
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The5thElephant
10/15/09

In reply to Giz Explains: Intel's Entire Confusing Armada of Chips
A decent Giz-Explains, but it could definitely use a chart and a clearer visual heirarchy. Also future chip technologies we should look out for? #intel
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Monty
10/15/09

In reply to Giz Explains: Intel's Entire Confusing Armada of Chips
Outstanding summary, Matt, but maybe you could post this sort of information a little later in the day for us West Coasters who might have head explosions reading such great material before 2 in the afternoon. Seriously - great information - thank you! #intel
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friendlynerd
10/15/09

In reply to Giz Explains: Intel's Entire Confusing Armada of Chips
I would agree with your take on Celeron, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Pentium Dual-Core line. They're essentially Core2 chips with less L2 cache, and they run/benchmark pretty nicely for anyone not doing heavy gaming/photo editing. In an office setting they're more than sufficient. #intel
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reddingofish
10/15/09

@friendlynerd: I use a Pentium D at work and it works great most of the time. Sure I have never tried to play Crysis on it but who has time for that. #intel
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friendlynerd
10/15/09

@reddingofish: Pentium D does not equal Pentium Dual-Core (confused yet??)

The Pentium D is essentially 2 Pentium 4 chips stuffed onto one heatsink. Therefore they're ineffecient with energy and run pretty hot.

The Pentium Dual-Core is kind of a hobbled Core2 Duo that uses little energy, runs cool, and runs rings around the Pentium D. #intel
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anexanhume
10/15/09

In reply to Giz Explains: Intel's Entire Confusing Armada of Chips
Merom and Penryn share the same branding because they are largely the same architecture. Nehalem was a full new architecture from the alternating Israeli and Oregon design teams, hence the new naming. Now, if Intel decides to keep the Core ix naming for Sandy Bridge, the shit will hit the fan. #intel
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matt buchanan
10/15/09

@anexanhume: Yeah, tick-tock cycle, which I've explained elsewhere, but thought might make things more complicated in this instance. #intel
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anexanhume
10/15/09

@matt buchanan: Sounds like a challenge to me. One which Nvidia rises to quite well. They'd rebrand their girlfriend as their sister to get a date. #intel
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Amir Oulad
10/15/09

In reply to Giz Explains: Intel's Entire Confusing Armada of Chips
Nice explanation I understand the differences much better now.
Celeron/Pentuim: run
Core3i: One night stand
Core7i/5i: HAve sex with it

BTW I love the new layout! #intel
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ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNO-TOAD
09/08/09

In reply to Intel Lynnfield Core i5 and i7 Processors: Nehalem Superpowers Cheaper Than Ever
Don't say that... I just bought a Q9400 last month
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reddingofish
09/08/09

In reply to Intel Lynnfield Core i5 and i7 Processors: Nehalem Superpowers Cheaper Than Ever
When are the i9s coming out?
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FooSchnickens - BPH Free
09/08/09

In reply to Intel Lynnfield Core i5 and i7 Processors: Nehalem Superpowers Cheaper Than Ever
Aww, I was looking forward to my pseudo 8 core chips. Even if they did "cheat" to do it.
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Nanan00
09/08/09

In reply to Intel Lynnfield Core i5 and i7 Processors: Nehalem Superpowers Cheaper Than Ever
So what is the point of getting an i7 socket MB then not getting an i7 chip with one of the main distinguishing features of the triple channel memory? Why not just save yourself a few hundred dollars and get an i5?
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wagnerrp
09/08/09

@Nanan00: You're missing the point. These two channel i7s use the LGA1156 socket. That's right, Intel has confused the entire market by making i7 chips on two separate sockets.
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FooSchnickens - BPH Free
09/08/09

@wagnerrp: Mind. Blown.
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met2art
09/08/09

@Nanan00: While triple-channel memory is a distinguishing feature of the Nehalem architecture, it's not the sole distinguishing feature. There are numerous other benefits and overall speed increases, even with standard dual channel memory. With the decreased cost but improved power over prior architectures, dual-channel Nehalem may make a nice sweet-spot for gamers on a budget who want to remain faithful to Intel. The suggestion of i5 is spurious, because it doesn't support hyperthreading, but the i7 does. This may signal that i5 is on the outs, eventually.
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andyo
09/08/09

@met2art: ?? Where have you seen other benefits with dual channel? If anything, Lynnfield is better because of a less restrained turbo mode. Did you see the tests, and the numerous previews before? This review is not much of a surprise. Triple channel and the QPI is what gives socket 1366 its potential advantage, though as Anand says this potential will be better served with upcoming 6- and 8-core chips. Then the differentiation will be obvious.
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met2art
09/08/09

@andyo: Did I say dual-channel was a benefit? I don't recall that. Note: "even with dual channel memory" is a key part of the comment. Hyperthreading and other advancement sin the i7 architecture, over i5, make some compelling points, if the pricepoint is equivalent to i5. Although, mileage may vary, and it will depend greatly upon the mobo as well.
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andyo
09/09/09

@met2art: There's been some confusion. When you said "Nehalem architecture", I now see you were including both Bloomfield and Lynnfield and comparing them to previous architectures (like Core). But the OP was confused about differences between sockets 1366 and 1156, so I thought you were comparing between those. Basically his question was why have an i7 on 1156, if you can't take advantage of triple channel. The reason is hyper threading, pretty much, but really the answer is that these Lynnfield i7's are much more similar to the i5 than to the Bloomfield i7's.
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DudleyJibsheet
08/27/09

In reply to Giz Explains: Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch
this is very informative -- thank you!

looks like the name 'snow leopard' is a good fit -- rare and fast.

there's a good article on the ever-feline mac os names over here: http://onthebutton.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/apple-snow-leopard/ worth a read.

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joule79
08/27/09

In reply to Giz Explains: Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch
I think you are missing the whole point. Parallel programming has been around for ages in threading. The issue with threading is that too many of them can actually hurt performance. So, if you have a core2duo machine, the optimum number of threads is probably 2, but if you have 16 cores, 16 threads will be best. Programming for different number of cores is possible but painful and hard. What central dispatch does, is creating this work queues and actually using as many threads as is beneficial to your specific hardware, taking the issue away from the programmer to optimize processes.
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skierpage
08/29/09

@joule79: You're not quite right. "Moving things off the main thread" should be done whenever there's a task that might take a long time, like spell checking or contacting an update server. Doesn't matter how many cores you do or don't have. "Splitting up the main thread to benefit from parallelism" is aided by knowing how many simultaneous threads can run.
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BelleCachinga
08/27/09

In reply to Giz Explains: Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch
""valid concern on Windows that a mixture of parallel apps won't cooperate with each other as much," so you could wind up with a situation where say, four apps try to use all 16 cores in your machine, when you'd rather they split up, with say one app using eight cores, another using four, and so on. GCD addresses that problem at the system level"

That is not a valid concern, you don't overload the CPUs in that way the intruction set on the CPU stops it from happening, someone is giving you a mixed version of Windows.
You also miss the common problem with GCD you can only multi-thread as well as GCD can, if Adobe bring out a new version of PS that can multi-thread better than GCD then Windows gets that functionality and mac user do without.
Much like 64 bit PS.
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matt buchanan
08/27/09

@BelleCachinga: Right, one criticism of GCD is that might be too simple.
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