Week in Review
March 21, 2006The processor industry has been buzzing the last few days. Here’s a recap of important events just in case you missed out.
- Intel Price Cuts Looming
- AMD in the UMPC Game
- Intel Lowering Pentium D Power Drain
- Conroe and Woodcrest Information
- Nano-Tube Fabrication?
- Intel Warns
- Google Chooses Intel
Intel Price Cuts Looming
Both Forbes and DigiTimes are reporting that Intel will most likely be slashing prices significantly on current Intel Pentium D processors as well as the upcoming Pentium D 960 that we reported on earlier.
“Anticipated price reductions on Intel Pentium D-series CPUs in the third quarter should spur demand for the Intel-developed Viiv digital home platform, as mainstream system prices should be reduced to more affordable levels, said Taiwan PC system makers.
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After the second round of price reductions, local Taiwan system makers expect mainstream Viiv system prices to be reduced to NT$30,000-35,000 (US$926-1,080), which should help stimulate demand.”
According to DigiTimes, Intel will slash the price of their upcoming Pentium D 960 by about one third, a significant price-drop for a high-end model. This should help spur demand for Intel’s VIIV platform vision. Intel will make out in the long-run though, as Intel’s highly successful Centrino platform has proven. Intel truly is moving horizontally into related markets and merging this into their platform strategy. Soon enough we should be seeing the fruits of the Intel-WiMax initiative as well as Intel works to build an integrated WiMax solution for mobile computers — which I would bet will be mandatory to sport the Centrino brand (or whatever moniker they adopt in the upcoming year).
Oh, while we are on the subject of Intel cutting prices, it should be stated that the Forbes article mentions Intel’s plan to trim prices on the recently released (although hard to buy) Core Duo processors sometime in May. (more…)
Intel Lowering Pentium D Power Drain
Intel seems to be on the brink of lowering the power consumption of its Pentium D 950 and 940 processors — as well as introducing the Intel Pentium D 960 processor, a previously unannounced CPU. You can read more regarding Intel’s plans from this document on their website. (more…)
Conroe and Woodcrest Information
March 20, 2006A bit of information regarding Intel’s upcoming next-generation micro-architecture has hit the web.
“The Intel Core micro-architecture is a milestone in enabling scalable performance and energy efficiency. Later this year it will fuel new dual-core processors and quad-core processors in 2007 that we expect to deliver industry leading performance and capabilities per watt. People will see systems that can be faster, smaller and quieter with longer battery life and lower electric bills,” said Justin Rattner, chief technology officer of Intel Corp.
· Intel Wide Dynamic Execution – Delivers more instructions per clock cycle, improving execution and energy efficiency. Every execution core is wider, allowing each core to complete up to four full instructions simultaneously using an efficient 14-stage pipeline.
This will compliment Intel’s latest strategy well — moving as far away from the NetBurst architecture as possible. Keeping the pipeline short on their future architecture will allow them to increase performance without the need for a greater frequency (allowing power and heat to remain in check). (more…)
Intel Warns
March 5, 2006
Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, has warned the market that its sales will be less than expected for the current quarter — this is on-top of the less then expected earnings Intel announced only a few weeks ago. During Intel’s initial earnings disappointment, it was clear that AMD was stealing market-share away from Intel, but I don’t think anyone expected Intel to disappoint Wall Street three times in a mere month. AMD is really putting Intel’s back towards the wall; hopefully WoodCrest and Merom will save our 800lb underdog.
Intels New Vision: Finesse over Brute Force
February 27, 2006Intel’s New Vision: Finesse over Brute Force – Part 1 : An Introduction
Only a few years ago Intel’s roadmap was aimed at failure. Many comments regarding Intel’s ill-witted trajectory were made by analysts, investors, consumers, as well as traditional and online press publications. Intel took the backlash, but by the Fall of 2004 Intel had announced plans for a complete roadmap change, perhaps the most profound roadmap change in the last decade from the chip giant, that would allow it to better compete with other processor manufacturers – namely Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD).
Today we look at the market and we see AMD grabbing a large chunk of the server and desktop processor market – and finally making inroads into the laptop market with it’s Sempron and Turion family of processors. When the market-share reports came out a few weeks ago (you can read our report on that here) the public was in awe, we all knew that AMD was eating away at Intel’s bottom line and slowly stealing market-share away from the industry goliath, but I don’t think the vast public knew the extent of AMD’s recent success.
The question we must ask ourselves now is how could this have happened? How could Intel, who is set to invest over $6 Billion this fiscal year in research and development, falter to a company seven times smaller than itself; to a company that most thought would be bankrupt by now? Well, the answer, at least partially, can be attributed to Intel’s brute force strategy. (more…)
Intel and AMD Touting Quad Core Chips
February 13, 2006
We’re not talking about quad-processor systems here, but rather actual quad-core processors. AMD and Intel have both been touting them as of late as the next big-thing. Intel’s quad-core wonder is codenamed ‘Clovertown’ and will be aimed at enterprise and server level systems. ‘Clovertown’ is initially going to be released with a dual-socket motherboard, allowing for a maximum of 8 processor cores per system. I’d like to see if Intel will be demo’ing a four or eight way version of this. Hopefully Intel will have their interconnects up to date by then. While AMD and Intel will both show off their quad-core goods this year, I wouldn’t expect to see them in production until 2007.
(more…)
Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955 Dual Core Processor Review
February 9, 2006The Intel Pentium Processor Extreme Edition, with the processing capabilities of four threads, delivers more computing capabilities that enable you to explore new ways to accomplish and enjoy performance-intensive tasks on your PC. (more…)
Intel Pentium D 920 Dual Core Processor Review
An Intel Pentium D processor-based PC delivers an extra powerful gear when you need it. Accomplish more while running multiple applications, such as editing video while downloading music. This is an Intel Pentium D 920 2.80GHz dual core processor with an 800MHz FSB, (2) 2MB L2 caches and includes EM64T. (more…)
Intel Pentium 4 w/ HT Technology - 3.4GHz Processor Review
This 3.4GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor 550 with HyperThreading technology features a 1MB on-die cache, an 800MHz frontside bus speed and Hyper-Threading Technology. Get advanced performance for today’s productivity, digital imaging, music and entertainment applications. The Intel Pentium 4 Processor provides the performance, quality, and reliability demanded by consumer and business customers. (more…)
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