> a huge L3 cache (which most specfp software is somehow) that it destroyed
spec is, after all, CPU2000, and things have changed quite a lot in 6+ years. Itaniums were one of the earliest "breaks" of spec cpu2000 codes, (besides sun's spec-special compiler). if you take it2 results and remove the ~2 smallest-memory components, you get less impressed. I think this has a lot to do with it2's trajectory. it'll be interesting to see how much of Core2's performance is due to the big 4M shared onchip L2 - Intel doesn't seem to have any 2M scores on spec.org yet. > So getting a 20% higher IPC there than k8 is quite *impressive*. hmm, the K8 has an ISA from ~2002, so in the years since then, why would you expect no improvement from their competitor? branch prediction _is_ one of the relatively few places where architectural progress is being made, at least now that we're over the clock-is-everything era. > It's very fair to compare woodcrest to k8, because the next generation chip > from AMD is K8L and as > that must use 0.065 technology which will under normal circumstances take uh, Core2 is 64nm as well. you don't really think Intel would try mass-producing 90nm chips with 4M cache, do you? > till 2008 or so to get sold in shops, that's too pessimistic - it looks to me like AMD's excecutions is pretty decent these days, and I expect to see some preliminary K8L results this year, and wide availability in 1H07. > Basically first that K8L chip must tape out then it takes another year to > produce it and get it in the shops. That's how it normally works. > > But the combination of new process technology + moving from 3 to 4 > instructions a cycle will of course give massive problems > and headaches to AMD. Especially knowing the years of delay it took to > introduce previous technology (0.09) when it was new. well, AMD's been vehement clear that your pessimism is untrue. > In short AMD will have to release some quad core k8 end of this year to be > able to compete with woodcrest AND clock it to 3Ghz. nah. quad-core requires 65nm as well for decent yields, and it's not like AMD's been sitting on their hands for the past 5 years. I'm guessing they're just waiting for the Core2 publicity to subside, then start showing off the K8L. > Of course putting 2 more cores to k8 is simpler for AMD than to design a new > core that executes at 4 instructions a cycle. that's a strange comparison - you must know that K8 is nominally 3x wide, as the P6/P-M was, and that Core is basically "P6-L" (+1 decoder, etc)? so AMD needs to go from 3 to 4. tune up the branch prediction, bigger, smarter caches, 128b/cycle sse, etc. http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/core.ars/5 > That dual opteron dual core 2.4Ghz here is already nearly uncoolable. don't be silly. _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
