Rahul Sood: Concerns about Conroe yields

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jebo_4jc

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http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/04/it-all-comes-down-to-yield.html

He sites the delays with Pentium M platforms (specifically, chipsets), as well as the complexity of 4MB cache and new architectures to say that he thinks supply will be severely constricted when Conroe/Merom launches. Basically, review sites, OEMs like Dell and etc. will get their CPUs, but we will be waiting anxiously to buy them in the retail channels.

Who knows if he's right---everything anybody says is pure speculation at this point. But I think the main point I take away from this article is, as soon as I see an E6600 and a motherboard selling at MSRP, I'm buying it, because it's very possible prices will be going significantly higher than MSRP until the initial demand is satisfied.
 
As far as Merom Engineering sample (ES) chip (available worldwide, if you lucky to spot it on sale) it comes in 2 revisions....Production 2005 is "A" chip and most FSB walled @ 220ish and prodution 2006 is "B" chip no one tested it......

Rev. A merom ES...

screenshot0219tg.jpg


Rev. B merom ES...

screenshot0191cg.jpg
 
Same as Yonah T2600 retail...

Rev. 1 chip "A" mostly walled @ FSB 220ish..

picture0149oo.jpg

screenshot0967cc.jpg


Rev. 2 chip "B" mostly FSB@250ish..

screenshot0038fr.jpg
 
Make no mistake... Dell, HP, etc will get most of the first conroe procs and 965 chipsets, but that doesn't mean that you won't be able to buy them soon after. That's just kinda the way it goes and one of the few drawbacks of sticking with Intel. They have to keep their income base happy, and sadly it's not you nor I. :D
 
LOL Rahul. He has a track record worse than theinq.

Intel will be allocating CPUs to OEMs first, but that's not a surprise. Intel Retail boxed CPUs (less than 5% of the market) usually follows 1-2 months after a processor is released.

That being said, it would normally take a great deal of silicon to produce a processor with 4 megabytes of cache. You would think this could limit their production output – but then there’s another issue.
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This guy is absolutely clueless. Cache is the one area of the MPU that has the most redundancy. And Intel is famous for having high cache density. To compare:

Core Duo (Yonah, 65nm, 2MB L2): 90mm^2
Core 2 Duo (Conroe, 65nm, 4MB L2): ~140mm^2
AMD X2 (S939, 90nm, 2x1MB L2): 199mm^2
AMD X2 (AM2, 65nm, 2x1MB L2): ~147mm^2 (estimated)
and of course Intel has mass produced much larger chips in the past.

Yonah was a ramp up of Intel's new 65nm process. Along with Intel's chipset shortage, there were delays with the introduction of that mobile platform. Rahul is just an AMD fanboy.
 
Man this Rahul guy wont shut up...Does he have slumber parties with Hector Ruiz? Its only negativity towards intel with his latest public comments reguarding Conroe's release.
 
Intel can easily handle the production of Core Architecture products.

Core Duo (Yonah, 65nm, 2MB L2): 90.3mm^2
Core 2 Duo (Allendale, 65nm 2MB L2) ~ 110mm^2 (estimated)
Core 2 Duo (Conroe/Merom, 65nm, 4MB L2): ~140mm^2
AMD X2 (Toledo, 90nm, 2x1MB L2): 199mm^2
AMD X2 (Windsor, 90nm, 2x1MB L2): 220mm^2
AMD X2 (Brisbane, 65nm, 2x1MB L2): ~141mm^2 (estimated) 64% of 90nm part is reasonable.

Though it would depend if Brisbane uses Z-RAM technology or not.

130nm is 208% the size of 90nm
90nm is 192% the size 65nm

Saying 4MB is expensive to produce is useless unless you know the fabrication process node.
 
i don't think intel will risk having shortages anyways, they are already trying to rush it out the door as soon as possible
 
One of Intel's core competencies is its cache production.
Look at the Itaniums & Xeons with HUGE cache's 8mb, 16mb, 24mb.

4Mb will be cake for them.

Now who knows about the yields on the core itself, but considering its very similar to Yonah which is in production and seems to be a great overclocker already. I would think Conroe will do very well even from the get go.

The "A" steppings are overclocking like champs and putting up world record numbers. I can't wait until they actually release the real deal B or C steppings once they've refined things.
 
pxc said:
Intel will be allocating CPUs to OEMs first, but that's not a surprise. Intel Retail boxed CPUs (less than 5% of the market) usually follows 1-2 months after a processor is released.
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Yeah that's the part that sucks. All the Intel fanboys screaming "I'M BUYING A CONROE IN JULY!!!11one" are going to be severely disappointed. Here's the timeline as I see it: (correct me if I'm wrong)

July - ES launches @ $1,000
August - "reasonable" Conroe models launch to Dell, HP, etc.

October - we get to buy retail samples of "reasonable" models


October != July
Oh well, as was said somewhere else, waiting until October will help me learn patience, and help me save up enough money for basically a complete system overhaul....E6600, 975 mobo, 2GB DDR2, and a DX10 video card.
 
It's not going to take that long, but you have to realize that until 965 boards start coming out, there really is little need to bring conroe to the market. With 975, a $200+ board, being the only one available and all. Don't worry, I bet you'll see 965 and Conroe out early august.
 
I bet you can buy a Conroe from NewEgg the second day after it is launched....Mark my words.
 
jebo_4jc said:
Yeah that's the part that sucks. All the Intel fanboys screaming "I'M BUYING A CONROE IN JULY!!!11one" are going to be severely disappointed. Here's the timeline as I see it: (correct me if I'm wrong)

July - ES launches @ $1,000
August - "reasonable" Conroe models launch to Dell, HP, etc.

October - we get to buy retail samples of "reasonable" models


October != July
Oh well, as was said somewhere else, waiting until October will help me learn patience, and help me save up enough money for basically a complete system overhaul....E6600, 975 mobo, 2GB DDR2, and a DX10 video card.
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i highly doubt that the earliest we will be seeing the conroe will be october. august maybe but certainly not october. also dx10 video cards are overrated.
 
DemonDiablo said:
i highly doubt that the earliest we will be seeing the conroe will be october. august maybe but certainly not october. also dx10 video cards are overrated.
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Sure we will be "seeing" them in the HP on the shelf at Best Buy. But I'm betting they will be rare at Newegg and so on.

I can see how you say DX10 is overrated, but the fact remains that the industry is heading in that direction with Vista, so why should I buy a 7800 or x1900 when I can wait another 2 months and buy a DX10 compatible card?
 
jebo_4jc said:
Sure we will be "seeing" them in the HP on the shelf at Best Buy. But I'm betting they will be rare at Newegg and so on.

I can see how you say DX10 is overrated, but the fact remains that the industry is heading in that direction with Vista, so why should I buy a 7800 or x1900 when I can wait another 2 months and buy a DX10 compatible card?
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i guess you can say im a bit optimistic in this situation with conroe. intel is looking to knock amd the F out and having a late launch isnt going to do them much good.

as for the dx10 card thing...well it just that i dont recall any dx10 games even being announced yet? add to that the fact that its going to be awhile before you get anything other than tech demo games and im just not seeing buying a 300-500 dollar video card untill 2008 being a valid idea. however i can see your point in that if dx10 cards just so happened to be out around the time that you were upgrading why not take a peek.

also im sceptical with how well dx10 cards are going to run dx9 games. dx10 gives way to a 3rd type of shader unit. if ati and nvidia implement this shader onto their cards (not required to be a dx10 card) then that means that they will be using that much fewer vertex and pixel shaders. i dunno, dx10 is one front line i guess you wont be seeing me on anytime soon. gl with that :D
 
jebo_4jc said:
Yeah that's the part that sucks. All the Intel fanboys screaming "I'M BUYING A CONROE IN JULY!!!11one" are going to be severely disappointed. Here's the timeline as I see it: (correct me if I'm wrong)

July - ES launches @ $1,000
August - "reasonable" Conroe models launch to Dell, HP, etc.

October - we get to buy retail samples of "reasonable" models


October != July
Oh well, as was said somewhere else, waiting until October will help me learn patience, and help me save up enough money for basically a complete system overhaul....E6600, 975 mobo, 2GB DDR2, and a DX10 video card.
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That would shock me greatly... I wouldn't bet on anything other than mid-July at the latest, personally.
 
meh, I'll probably have the money at the end of summer, so coming out late won't bother me too much. and I'd laugh my friggen ass off if this guy ends up buying a Conroe down the line when the benchmarks on the retail version are out (since so many AMD fans are all calling at how this processor is an ES, not real retail). :-D, and yea, major companies like Dell will be receiving the first conroe's.
 
StealthyFish said:
meh, I'll probably have the money at the end of summer, so coming out late won't bother me too much. and I'd laugh my friggen ass off if this guy ends up buying a Conroe down the line when the benchmarks on the retail version are out (since so many AMD fans are all calling at how this processor is an ES, not real retail). :-D, and yea, major companies like Dell will be receiving the first conroe's.
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Who is "this guy"?
 
jebo_4jc said:
Who is "this guy"?
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This guy is Rahul, hehehehe! I'd pick July 10th for the date VARs has them for sale. VARs = Newegg, ZZF, MWave and etc..... For the record, any time during the 3rd quarter is still early, not late since they weren't supposed to ship until the 4th quarter any way. That was after it was moved up from the 1st Quarter of 07.
 
Donnie27 said:
This guy is Rahul, hehehehe! I'd pick July 10th for the date VARs has them for sale. VARs = Newegg, ZZF, MWave and etc..... For the record, any time during the 3rd quarter is still early, not late since they weren't supposed to ship until the 4th quarter any way. That was after it was moved up from the 1st Quarter of 07.
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I hope you're right. But, July will probably only be the XE. I'm thinking E6600 probably won't be released until August at the earliest, and I'm really afraid they won't hit retail until September/October.
 
jebo_4jc said:
I hope you're right. But, July will probably only be the XE. I'm thinking E6600 probably won't be released until August at the earliest, and I'm really afraid they won't hit retail until September/October.
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Sure, IMO but I'd not think Intel would draw all this attention to then delay the launch and piss everyone off. They are normally quiet about Paper launches and I don't think this is P-L. But then if it is August so be it, but Sept puts it at the end of the 3rd Quarter since Oct. is the begging of the 4th, not likely.
 
Last I have heard from the rumor mill is that Intel is ready to roll conroe pretty much right away but their MB companies like Asus are not finished engineering their conroe supported boards. I was reading that Intel has been presuring these companies to hurry it up heh.
 
I'm sure Dell and those vendors will get first dibs and initially first exclusivity just as they have been recieving with the BTX, Quad SLI, Dual Core, SLI, etc.
 
Donnie27 said:
Sure, IMO but I'd not think Intel would draw all this attention to then delay the launch and piss everyone off. They are normally quiet about Paper launches and I don't think this is P-L. But then if it is August so be it, but Sept puts it at the end of the 3rd Quarter since Oct. is the begging of the 4th, not likely.
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If Dell starts selling the E6600 and other mid-range Conroe processors in August, but Newegg doesn't get them until October, then it's still considered a hard launch. It wouldn't be a paper launch if we can't buy them until October, and Intel would have told the truth about Q3 '06 since Dell and HP had Conroe in August.
 
jebo_4jc said:
If Dell starts selling the E6600 and other mid-range Conroe processors in August, but Newegg doesn't get them until October, then it's still considered a hard launch. It wouldn't be a paper launch if we can't buy them until October, and Intel would have told the truth about Q3 '06 since Dell and HP had Conroe in August.
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sshhh you're so pestimistic. im telling you the last thing intel wants to do is drop the ball on this one. they are looking to burry amd 6 ft under ground and having retail conroes come out in october isnt exactly a smart idea (take a look at amd's roadmap).

im more worried about conroe made boards being out, reviewed, and having good revisions of said boards being out by mid to late august. im hoping abit or msi can get something nice out in time for this launch.
 
DemonDiablo said:
im more worried about conroe made boards being out, reviewed, and having good revisions of said boards being out by mid to late august. im hoping abit or msi can get something nice out in time for this launch.
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QFT. Conroe is useless if we don't have boards to slap them in. Seems like this should be the easy part though, with early 975 boards having been available for a while.

I don't know, for some reason I just have a bad feeling that we will be waiting a long time to get our Do-it-yourself Conroe PCs built.
 
Don't forget Apple. I'm sure they'll get a couple hundred thousand Conroe and Merom processors for their upcoming line refresh :rolleyes:
 
jebo_4jc said:
If Dell starts selling the E6600 and other mid-range Conroe processors in August, but Newegg doesn't get them until October, then it's still considered a hard launch. It wouldn't be a paper launch if we can't buy them until October, and Intel would have told the truth about Q3 '06 since Dell and HP had Conroe in August.
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If Intel announces on July 10th, you'll be able to order from Dell, HP, Gateway and the rest except Voodoo PC, on that same day. Look closer at what Paul Otellini said when he said Woodcrest in June, Conroe in July and Merom in August.

The boards will be announced in about 1 month on June 7th. A full month before the processor. There are already 304 an 305 Revs of i975 that support Conroe. No, I'm told Conroe is shipping NOW, not starts shipping in July or whatever. Conroe is also NOT rushed as one Poster implied. Conroe was proposed when the first Pentium-M shipped.

I'll add to what the other guys said, I'll plan for Sept. so July will come faster.
 
who the f*ck is this rahul guy? From what hes written, it looks like hes on crystal meth.

Anyway, Conroe should be out in July (xtreme edition comes first and than the othermodels) Should be out no later than late-july to early august. No way at all that it will come by october...
 
cupholder2.0 said:
who the f*ck is this rahul guy? From what hes written, it looks like hes on crystal meth.
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LOL. Ever heard of VooDoo PCs?
 
lol. and by the way, Conroe release date was moved up. From all of the intel guys I've heard from, they've already got the finished product done =).
 
cupholder2.0 said:
Yeah, didnt kno this tard was there president lol.
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Tard or not...I'll give him the benefit of the doubt because VooDoo makes some of the highest quality OEM PCs available (and they get away with charging an arm and a leg for them). He at least knows something :)
 
jebo_4jc said:
Tard or not...I'll give him the benefit of the doubt because VooDoo makes some of the highest quality OEM PCs available (and they get away with charging an arm and a leg for them). He at least knows something :)
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or his marketing team does, but we'll save that for the 'Why Rahul Sood likes men' thread.
 
I cant stand these companies which sell computers at 2-3 times the price it would cost you to built them...*cough alienware cough*. All the noobs still think alienware is the best and better than anything a person could just build.
 
lol, high quality companies like Dell, Alienware, and Falcon Northwest? =O. all charge two arms and five legs for their computers and they're all quality too. Don't have to be a genius to sell things for 4 times more than the parts really cost.
 
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