Surprise, surprise: Conroe needs a new motherboard!

[InorganicMatter]

Whoddathunkit? It won't work with a single motherboard out there today, including 975X boards. Looks like you'll need the upcoming 965 to have Conroe.

For fear of getting a vacation, I'll let someone else cut the match

 

[steviep]

I'm RIGHTFULLY pissed since I just got 975x. However, this jumped out at me:

The upcoming Intel G965 and P965 chipsets will support Conroe, but any other Intel chipsets from 975X on down will require a modified VRM and BIOS updates.

My Asus board has a LOT of voltage options... that maybe the default Intel boards might not. Asus usually builds boards outside of spec, for overclockers *ponders* Well anyway, here's an AMD !!!!!!'s post that sums up MOST of my opinion nicely (I don't like the ending, since AMD has tried similar things in the past):

The Conroe VRM issue has been known for a few weeks -- I came across it in a PC newsgroup. However, I am not at all surprised. Intel today cares more about maximizing their profits on new-product shipment from Dell and other PC manufacturers and cares little about supporting existing owners of Intel systems. The CPU provides the core lever for the chip-set and motherboard (of which, not surprisingly, Intel also make a huge quantity). So the more new motherboards that have to go with new CPUs is all the better for Intel's profit line. Why do you think that Intel recently invested $350million in upgrading their chip-production facility - not to have it sit idle.... The VRM issue follows a now well-known element of Intel strategy-planning -- with each new CPU family, make sure that a completely new motherboard is required, while soothing customers with marketing spin on all the wonderful new features. When are customers going to wise up enough to strip the Emperor naked ??

Here are a couple of the most glaring recent examples of Intel's version of planned-obsolescence :-

775LGA with 915 & 925 chipset -- first LGA 775 motherboards, but not dual-core compatible, chipsets discontinued after 6 months. Considering that CPU designs typically take well over a year to reach shipment, any reason whatsoever why the 915 & 925 chip-sets were not dual-core compatible ? All of the issues were obvious at the architecture stage. Presumably the CPU architects and the chip-architects at Intel do communicate ?

Yonah has exactly the same pin-count as the Pentium-M, but deliberately designed not to retrofit into any version of the Pentium-M motherboard.

And now we have the VRM game. Intel has known about this for a LONG time. The VRM specs are fundamentally tied to processor architecture coupled with process specs. The exact VRM requirements are captured in process-characterization and early simulation, long before any CPU chips are built. A VRM design capable of handling both the existing 775LGA P4-derivatives and Conroe could probably have been installed from day 1 on all 775-pin LGA boards and most certainly when the current 945/955/975 dual-core compatible 775LGA boards first became available.

Intel is no longer customer-centric, if they ever were in the last 5 years. Sales and short-term profits are now the only motive for all of their current product decisions in their PC-related business. The AMD lawsuit exposes some of the underbelly of the beast. Sad because Intel employs many talented and innovative people.

More power to AMD, nVidia and others in their battles with the arrogant giant. At least AMD has strong TECHNICAL reasons for shifting to the M2 socket (quad-core with DDR2 support etc, etc) and has endeavored to stretch the 939-pin backward-compatibility as much as possible. AMD still has not totally shut the door on further 939-pin versions of the desktop family beyond the FX-60.

 

[Dan_D]

I wish Intel would stop requiring a new motherboard for every generation of CPU they release. It's getting really old.

The i875 Chipset based boards covered Northwood and Prescott cores, as well as later introduced EE series chips.

 

[InorganicMatter]

The i875 Chipset based boards covered Northwood and Prescott cores, as well as later introduced EE series chips.

So true, Intel could have done just as well if they had kept to i875 Northbridge and just kept improving the Southbridge. Ah well, they are after all in the market to make money.

 

[ScHpAnKy]

Wait, you guys make it sound like there's more than two 975 boards on the market...?

 

[Poncho]

Whoddathunkit? It won't work with a single motherboard out there today,

Dude... Conroe taped out around the same time that 975 boards were released into the market, which means that there was no chance for validation on the platform using Conroe. If you buy the FIRST rev. of a board you cannot bitch if there are hardware changes needed to run something that was never said to have been supported. Yes, conroe will run on 975. Yes, there are changes that need to be made, biggest of which is bios. My guess is that you will see some boards that will run conroe with nothing more than a bios update around Q2, maybe early Q3. These companies are just starting to get Conroe procs to test. Give them some time.

 

[chrisf6969]

so we're probably talking more about Microcode to fix errata.....
than VRM circuitry being different, right?

B/c as it was stated in the OP. VRM is know far in advance of tape outs. Now, granted you always have little issues/tweaks to get things to work properly. But that should be BIOS issues.

I KNOW conroe isn't going to pull more juice than a Pentium D 960 or 965. So it isn't an issue like Prescott pulling too much juice on old s478 boards.

 

[Poncho]

so we're probably talking more about Microcode to fix errata.....
than VRM circuitry being different, right?

B/c as it was stated in the OP. VRM is know far in advance of tape outs. Now, granted you always have little issues/tweaks to get things to work properly. But that should be BIOS issues.

I KNOW conroe isn't going to pull more juice than a Pentium D 960 or 965. So it isn't an issue like Prescott pulling too much juice on old s478 boards.

Well, to get conroe to work on intels reference boards there was a VERY minor rework that needed to be done, basically a few cap and resistor changes, and bios obviously. Now... these boards were out LONG before Conroe ever taped out so I would imagine (assumption here) that, provided they followed the design guidelines (they rarely do this however) then there should be minor tweeks needed to a board to get it to work. I can't tell you what those manufacturers did since I don't work on the team that supports them. Time will tell i suppose....

 

[chrisf6969]

Well, to get conroe to work on intels reference boards there was a VERY minor rework that needed to be done, basically a few cap and resistor changes, and bios obviously. Now... these boards were out LONG before Conroe ever taped out so I would imagine (assumption here) that, provided they followed the design guidelines (they rarely do this however) then there should be minor tweeks needed to a board to get it to work. I can't tell you what those manufacturers did since I don't work on the team that supports them. Time will tell i suppose....

Ok after those changes.... can you still put a Presler in the board or does it make the board a "Conroe" only board.

 

[Poncho]

Ok after those changes.... can you still put a Presler in the board or does it make the board a "Conroe" only board.

Nope... it's still compatible with all the older procs.

 

[chrisf6969]

cool, I'm going get my soldering iron out.... j/k....

Ok thats good to know....(how minor it is, and that it doesn't make drastic changes which would me it not backward compatible)

so it MIGHT take a board revision + BIOS. (probably only for 1333FSB Conroe XE)

or who knows maybe just a BIOS, if Asus over designed with extra quality & extra voltage settings, etc..

My back up plan in 5 months if it doesn't work.... is to RMA my ASUS board b/c of the Marvel SATA problems then maybe get a newer revision that can support Conroe!

 

[steviep]

cool, I'm going get my soldering iron out.... j/k....

Ok thats good to know....(how minor it is, and that it doesn't make drastic changes which would me it not backward compatible)

so it MIGHT take a board revision + BIOS. (probably only for 1333FSB Conroe XE)

or who knows maybe just a BIOS, if Asus over designed with extra quality & extra voltage settings, etc..

My back up plan in 5 months if it doesn't work.... is to RMA my ASUS board b/c of the Marvel SATA problems then maybe get a newer revision that can support Conroe!

Not a bad idea actually... hehe. The Marvell SATA product on the Asus board really is in its beta stages... what a pain in the ass it was to get it to work.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Asus did indeed over-design as they usually do, and that Conroe CAN work in the Asus board with a BIOS update... but for some strange reason (i.e. money) the option won't be offered to people who want Conroe, forcing them to buy a new motherboard

 

[dgingeri]

Did any of you really expect anything different from Intel? The differences between the 915 and the 945 chipsets were extremely minor. They simply had to tell the chipset to moderate between 2 chips. This was done before the 915 was released, if you remember the road map from the release days of LGA775 and PCI-Express. Simply put, the 915 should never have been released. The 945 should have been released as the 915, as well as the 975 as the 925, but Intel chose to castrate the chipsets specifically to force people to upgrade motherboards so they could sell more chipsets.

I, on the other hand, have had the same A8V board for 3 different revisions of chips now, my original 3500, my 4000, and now my dual core X2-4200. I may be upgrading in the near future to an NF4-SLi board when I upgrade to a 7800 video card.

btw, it was Intel that pushed for the PCI-Express video interface, even though it wasn't needed in the slightest, and forced everyone to get a new motherboard to get a new video card. nVidia and ATI just went along with them. nVidia actually innovated with it making SLi and Crossfire possible. If you remember the Intel chipsets don't have a way to un-bundle the X16 slots to 2 X8 slots. nVidia did that first.

All you have to do is look at Intel's processor and memory performance over the last 4 years to see what they are really up to. They haven't had more than a few percent performance increases for a very long time. Even the P4, when released, wasn't an improvement over th P3. The P3 was a well made chip and platform, but they got so greedy. They held performance up for a very long time. It was only that AMD kept innovating that forced Intel to actually take a look back and see that they needed to get off their butts. Every generation they have released since the original P4 has been solely to push people to pay the most they could get for the least amount they could put into it.

AMD saw the chance and pushed hard. They now have the better product. Intel has nothing to counter the A64X2 and will not until mid-2007. AMD has SO beat Intel down.

 

[Poncho]

so it MIGHT take a board revision + BIOS. (probably only for 1333FSB Conroe XE)

I've seen nothing that would indicate that an EE Conroe would work on 975. The FSB simply cannot go that high. Now... you MIGHT be able to oeverclock the board to get there, provided the board would even boot with the proc. For the EE Conroe you'll have to get a 965 or greater board (975 is an older board remember).

 

[Poncho]

All you have to do is look at Intel's processor and memory performance over the last 4 years to see what they are really up to. They haven't had more than a few percent performance increases for a very long time. Even the P4, when released, wasn't an improvement over th P3. The P3 was a well made chip and platform, but they got so greedy. They held performance up for a very long time. It was only that AMD kept innovating that forced Intel to actually take a look back and see that they needed to get off their butts. Every generation they have released since the original P4 has been solely to push people to pay the most they could get for the least amount they could put into it.

Wow.... AMD !!!!!! much? Are you telling me that there is littel difference from a P3 to a 3+ Ghz P4? Give me a break. Granted... since the move to 800FSB the gains have been minor, there have always been gains. Get your head out of AMDs ass.

AMD saw the chance and pushed hard. They now have the better product. Intel has nothing to counter the A64X2 and will not until mid-2007. AMD has SO beat Intel down.

Actually... you're about a year off. They'll get their asses handed to them by Q3 of THIS year. Keep spewing the same "AMD is god" bullshit. While you've got your head in the sand..... Intel will blow right by you.

 

[InorganicMatter]

I'm glad I caught this, as much of a dissapointment as it is. I was about to get a $1300 refund and was seriously considering biting on a 930 once the prices cut. Must...hold...out...longer.

 

[Jason711]

ooops

 

[Jason711]

Wow.... AMD !!!!!! much? Are you telling me that there is littel difference from a P3 to a 3+ Ghz P4? Give me a break. Granted... since the move to 800FSB the gains have been minor, there have always been gains. Get your head out of AMDs ass.




Actually... you're about a year off. They'll get their asses handed to them by Q3 of THIS year. Keep spewing the same "AMD is god" bullshit. While you've got your head in the sand..... Intel will blow right by you.

dothan is a much nicer proc than the p4 has ever been. lower power/high perf... and wait.. dothan is based on the p3? crazy!

and do you recall the perfomance level of the 1.6ghz p4? it was horride!


and where/what is this amazing processor that is going to be so much better than the x2? id like some perfomance figures, if you please.

 

[steviep]

btw, it was Intel that pushed for the PCI-Express video interface, even though it wasn't needed in the slightest, and forced everyone to get a new motherboard to get a new video card. nVidia and ATI just went along with them. nVidia actually innovated with it making SLi and Crossfire possible. If you remember the Intel chipsets don't have a way to un-bundle the X16 slots to 2 X8 slots. nVidia did that first.

And the 975x does it too.

All you have to do is look at Intel's processor and memory performance over the last 4 years to see what they are really up to. They haven't had more than a few percent performance increases for a very long time. Even the P4, when released, wasn't an improvement over th P3. The P3 was a well made chip and platform, but they got so greedy. They held performance up for a very long time. It was only that AMD kept innovating that forced Intel to actually take a look back and see that they needed to get off their butts. Every generation they have released since the original P4 has been solely to push people to pay the most they could get for the least amount they could put into it.

AMD saw the chance and pushed hard. They now have the better product. Intel has nothing to counter the A64X2 and will not until mid-2007. AMD has SO beat Intel down.

Like, yeah man!! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!
Seriously, though, you'd better watch out for Conroe. The tables will SO be turned, man! In fact, AMD won't have anything to compete with Conroe until they actually make a new architecture to be released in 2008! Since they've been using THE SAME ONE (K8) since what... 1999? You accuse Intel of the same thing that AMD is doing. The only difference is that Intel is forcing people to upgrade motherboards all the time, where AMD isn't. And that may have something to do with the fact that AMD doesn't make their own mobo chipsets. I'm still raising my fists in protest over that (I want Conroe on my 975 ), but at the same time Intel DOES add positive things to each of their almost-unnecessary chipset revisions.

 

[Poncho]

dothan is a much nicer proc than the p4 has ever been. lower power/high perf... and wait.. dothan is based on the p3? crazy!

and do you recall the perfomance level of the 1.6ghz p4? it was horride!

Yea it is based on the P3, but that DOES NOT make the P3 a better proc. If they scaled P3 to 2ghz... then you might have a point, but they didn't. The P3 is no way better than a current P4, it might be more effecient clock for clock... but that just isn't reality. A 3.6 600 series prescott is a great deal better than a 800mhz P3. Deal with it...

And yes, the 1.6 P4 was shit. But can you compare that proc to a current gen P4? No way.

and where/what is this amazing processor that is going to be so much better than the x2? id like some perfomance figures, if you please

It's called Conroe.... and if you want an idea of what it can do look at Yonah. Now imagine at least a 30% increase from that and you'll have conroe. Conroe is supposed to be a 30% increase from it's mobile counterpart Merom which is Yonahs successor.

 

[Jason711]

! Since they've been using THE SAME ONE (K8) since what... 1999?

and to think it has taken intel that long to come up with something? 6 years?

and if you say 2008, that really isnt that long away. at least i hope AMD wont wait six years to counter a rival product.

 

[Down8]

Wait, you guys make it sound like there's more than two 975 boards on the market...?

Asus, Intel, Gigabyte, off hand. I'm sure there are others.

-bZj

 

[Asian Dub Foundation]

if conroe is the powerhouse they say it will be, then a new mobo is worth it

 

[Jason711]

Yea it is based on the P3, but that DOES NOT make the P3 a better proc. If they scaled P3 to 2ghz... then you might have a point, but they didn't. The P3 is no way better than a current P4, it might be more effecient clock for clock... but that just isn't reality. A 3.6 600 series prescott is a great deal better than a 800mhz P3. Deal with it...

And yes, the 1.6 P4 was shit. But can you compare that proc to a current gen P4? No way.




It's called Conroe.... and if you want an idea of what it can do look at Yonah. Now imagine at least a 30% increase from that and you'll have conroe. Conroe is supposed to be a 30% increase from it's mobile counterpart Merom which is Yonahs successor.

sorry, it was 1.4. got my facts wrong. and no, im not about to compare a past gen to current gen. i weigh the two clock for clock, with the major factor being IPC. thats just the way i do it.. sorry. but at that time the p4 was clearly inferior to a product they already had running. it was hard to believe at the time. and a dothan running at 2.5ghz is quite impressive. and yes, i know that isnt a true "p3".. but damn.. its a modified one.

and ill be honest, i obviously do not know anything about conroe. nor will i pretend to. so please explain where this 30% boost is coming from? is it just clock speed?

 

[InorganicMatter]

and ill be honest, i obviously do not know anything about conroe. nor will i pretend to. so please explain where this 30% boost is coming from? is it just clock speed?

Intel is way increasing the work per MHz, but is still keeping the MHz high (3.33GHz), and is increasing the FSB to 1.33GHz, along with the boost in cache.

if conroe is the powerhouse they say it will be, then a new mobo is worth it

Agreed. The last 3 refreshes were unnecessary, as we haven't seen any major improvements since the i875 chipset (besides dual-core). I think Conroe will finally offer enough incentive to warrant a new chipset.

 

[Down8]

How likely is it that Intel would update the Bad Axe to support Conroe? I want that damn mobo so bad, but I'd hate to buy 'old tech'... yet again.

-bZj

 

[Jason711]

Intel is way increasing the work per MHz, but is still keeping the MHz high (3.33GHz), and is increasing the FSB to 1.33GHz, along with the boost in cache.


Agreed. The last 3 refreshes were unnecessary, as we haven't seen any major improvements since the i875 chipset (besides dual-core). I think Conroe will finally offer enough incentive to warrant a new chipset.

is there an estimated IPC count? anything tangible? any specific links anybody has that "basically" describes each would be pretty cool.

 

[steviep]

if conroe is the powerhouse they say it will be, then a new mobo is worth it

You're right. But the problem with that assumption is the fact that Conroe will run (regular versions) at 1066 fsb, with voltages that apparently aren't that far off where we are with the current 900 series., on the LGA775 socket. My current 975 board should be able to handle it (hell, it can OC to 1333FSB, too, for the Conroe XE), but likely won't in the end.

 

[Poncho]

and ill be honest, i obviously do not know anything about conroe. nor will i pretend to. so please explain where this 30% boost is coming from? is it just clock speed?

See this is my problem... don't come into the INTEL forums to talk shit when you don't have any idea as to what is going on with Intel. If you have an educated, informed post then by all means, stir some shit up. Poke all you want and we'll have a great debate. If you don't know much but want to learn the ASK questions.... don't come out poking.

Ok... rant off. Basically I want you to imagine a Dothan (normally 2.13/533fsb) clocked to 2.66/1066, with 4mb cache and add a second core. So now you have a pissed off dothan that can multitask. Done. Now, there are quite a few changes between Dothan and Merom, Yonah is a dual core Dothan and Merom is the next gen Mobile which Conroe is based on, but my example should give you an idea. You've seen Intels mobile line go head to head with comparable AMD procs, only lacking in the multi tasking area (yonah solves this though) and now you've got ALL of intels procs going to be based around this same architecture.

 

[Jason711]

thats funny, i thought i was being perfectly civil... (and i will point out, that if any one here is being uncivil.. you are, but thats ok... intel forum right?)

ok, ive got the general concept i believe.. though i did a search on wikipedia and saw something interesting... is this true?

"Unfortunately, the FSB is the weak link in the new architecture, as it uses the infrastructure installed in the Pentium 4 Era which cannot handle the full bandwidth of dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Next_Generation_Microarchitecture

just a regular dothan at 3+ ghz would be quite nice...

 

[TurboGLH]

Wow.... AMD !!!!!! much? Are you telling me that there is littel difference from a P3 to a 3+ Ghz P4? Give me a break. Granted... since the move to 800FSB the gains have been minor, there have always been gains. Get your head out of AMDs ass.

His exact quote "Even the P4, when released, wasn't an improvement over the P3." Guess what? IT WASN"T! The first P4's got stomped by p3's, it wasn't until they had a good 1ghz clock advantage that the p4 started performing. So you your head out of your ass and read a little more carefully next time.

Actually... you're about a year off. They'll get their asses handed to them by Q3 of THIS year. Keep spewing the same "AMD is god" bullshit. While you've got your head in the sand..... Intel will blow right by you.

Oh here we go, "You just wait, in 6mo when our next product comes out, it's gonna kick you ass" Try this on for size. I'll believe it when I see it. Right now AMD owns the performance crown, and no amount of nut hugging on future products that you have absolutly no technical knowledge about is gonna change that. When Intel beats AMD performance wise then you can come back and mouth. So keep spewing the "Intel will kick AMD's ass in 6mo" bullshit. Have you been sitting around the past 2 years waiting for this day, tell you what. Go build a nice 3800x2 system and enjoy, this way you don't have to wait till Q3 just to end up disappointed.

 

[Poncho]

thats funny, i thought i was being perfectly civil...

Your first post that I responded to was a tad on the "!!!!!!" side. No worries.

ok, ive got the general concept i believe.. though i did a search on wikipedia and saw something interesting... is this true?

"Unfortunately, the FSB is the weak link in the new architecture, as it uses the infrastructure installed in the Pentium 4 Era which cannot handle the full bandwidth of dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Next_Generation_Microarchitecture

just a regular dothan at 3+ ghz would be quite nice...

That's pretty accurate. FSB has always been a weakness with ALL processors and you'll usually see large increases in performance when moving up to a higher FSB. If it can or can't handle the full bandwidth of DD2.... eh, not really sure about that. It probably is, but with FSB approaching 1333.... it's probably less of an issue than people will make it out to be.

 

[elfletcho]

I am with the other guy here who knows nothing about this messiah named conroe. Does it have an integrated memory controller? (I am guessing not) 4 MB of Cache and 2 cores! That sure is a lot of transistors. Anyone of you guys got a TDP number for it?

Update: Nevermind found 65 watts for the regular and 95 for the XE. I will believe that when I see it.

 

[dgingeri]

Yea it is based on the P3, but that DOES NOT make the P3 a better proc. If they scaled P3 to 2ghz... then you might have a point, but they didn't. The P3 is no way better than a current P4, it might be more effecient clock for clock... but that just isn't reality. A 3.6 600 series prescott is a great deal better than a 800mhz P3. Deal with it...

And yes, the 1.6 P4 was shit. But can you compare that proc to a current gen P4? No way.




It's called Conroe.... and if you want an idea of what it can do look at Yonah. Now imagine at least a 30% increase from that and you'll have conroe. Conroe is supposed to be a 30% increase from it's mobile counterpart Merom which is Yonahs successor.

Actually, they did scale the P3 to 2GHz, 2.33Ghz as of right now. Yonah and Dothan both are more P3 than P4.

They went the way AMD did, after AMD showed them the way, just like PC-133, DDR, and 64-bit. see a pattern? It's been Intel playing catch up for the past 3 years.

The P3 was Intel's best effort ever, followed very closely by the 440BX chipset. they extended out their lead, and then proceeded to abuse it. I was a big Intel fan until they release a chip that ran 70% faster clock rate and twice the power, costing twice as much, with no extra performance. I had a friend that actually thought he bought a good fast system when he go the 1.3GHz P4 due to Intel's abuse.

The biggest mistake they made was the P4 in general. Sure it allowed a massive increase in clock rate, with minimal performance gains to go with it. If they had adjusted the bus rate and manufacturing processes of the P3 the way they did with the P4, There never would have been any contest. They'd have the dual core P3 at 2.6GHz right now with a 65nm process, maybe 2.8, and still have a strangle hold on the market justifiably. Right now, they have 2 inferior products, even Yonah can't keep up with the X2, and have continued to trick the gullible people into thinking they are gods.

It's not a love of AMD that I have here, it's a hate of Intel and their management. If I had a choice other than AMD, I'd probably consider it very closely. The point is Intel has driven out all other competitors other than AMD and we have all suffered for it. They are the reason my CTO insisted on P4 based computers even though I could have gotten AMD based systems for much cheaper and performing much better. Fortunately, I was able to sway the other executives after that CTO was booted. Now we have 42 3500+ AMD systems coming for the price of 30 of the P4 3.0GHz systems we would have had to get. I can finally get HR off their old P3-800 systems due to this.

 

[major_foad]

Three things...

Conroe is looking to be a great processor... problem is...
The Itanium was looking to be a great processor too... now you can say itanic to any geek and they know exactly what you are talking about.

The Athlon 64 was released in 2003, so no, it's not from '99 - that was the original Athlon (AMD's first good processor), after that was the Athlon XP (very similar to Athlon), and then onto the Athlon 64.

Intel screwed up with the P4 - it was GHz marketing hype and they've been trying to keep up with AMD for years now. The P3 would have scaled had they kept with the die shrinks, and it was a much better chip than the P4 ever hoped to be. That is evidenced in that the Pentium M design will succeed it, and the P-M is, essentially, the P3 that they stuck with and kept improving with modifications and shrinks.

All in all, I'm very excited to see what Conroe can do when it gets here - and I would love if it would hand AMD it's ass (all the better for us all)... From what I've seen, it will bring intel in line with AMD clock-for-clock and might even edge them out if intel can mobilize the engineering monster they posess - and if it can scale easily over 3Ghz then Intel will get the crown no doubt.

 

[SacLANd]

Ahhh, poncho, what has Hoss turned you into?
HA! meh, CWM is impressive. i think it'll be the next big upgrade when i get my new contract with Intel (they actually called me today and wanted to sign but i'm in the middle of the semester).
Perhaps the Hoodsport board you're so proud of. i wouldn't mind 2 woodcrest cpu's with FBD's.
I can imagine the overclocks conroe will get, considering what yonah can do. Intel is pusing their products out the door faster then you can buy them.
I was thinking about holding out for penryn but conroe is just around the corner and its 'bout time to upgrade.
It's true that the biggest problem for mobo makers is the power reqs. that has always been intels downside. hell for the dempsey boards our engineer was scouring for a 700w power supply. but here is the thing most people neglect. unless you're buying a performance motherboard, the req for tomorrow's cpu's simply won't be meet. why? well a VRM's cost is directly related to the power handling. more power= more cost. so to get that 0.1% profit margen, they will cut the corners and put in a "just enough" vrm.

and intels strategy on sockets is just a way to actually keep costs down for the casual user. while most high end servers and workstations get f'd the casual user gets a price cut. thats why chips are seperated into mobile, desktop, workstation, and server. you dont want all the workstation guys saying "hey, why buy this 500$ cpu when we can just get a 200$ cpu in the same board" err or something like that.

 

[mICKEL]

P4 is not as bad as it's made out to be, AMD is just better.

Conroe will have a TDP of 65w max. A 2.67ghz chip called e6700 will likely be the best at release. It should be about 20% better per clock than Yonah, mostly from the fact it has a four issue core not three like all other x86 CPUs. Priced a $529 and faster than a FX60.

Waiting for real benchmarks....

The FX62 may be faster. But at what price? The XE 3.33 will come out latter.
AMD needs 65nm, and a new core. Then Intel will have 45nm. A real good fight is on the way, and prices are comimg down. This is good for all of us.

 

[Anemone]

Frankly, Merom isn't even close to ready. Samples aren't even available. You see any leaked Conroe cpu id's? Nope! So don't tell me how much of a "great new thing" Conroe is "going to be" until you have some proof. Prescott was supposed to be amazing too, until we saw the real thing. Ok so Conroe will be cooler, but I'll reserve judgement on the rest. It is still likely to have a horrid memory controller even running at 1066 or 1333. Remember what the extreme series P4's did when they moved from 800 to 1066? Just about 1%, and often 0% improvement over th 800 FSB clocked to the same levels. So if they do have something 2 YEARS later, show me, don't tell me.

Intel gave up on the whole "upgrade" thing again 2 years ago and right about now I have only one thing to ask. What are you going to do about it? Don't complain. Don't tell the Intel folks, "gee that sucks". Vote with your checkbook. Plenty of folks on the H staff have done so and they haven't looked back. It's not all peaches and cream on the AMD side of the road, so don't think I'm saying all this implying that. I'm saying that if you are fed up with spending and respending the same money on the core components every time you change cpu's the best way to get out of that loop is to take the other side.

It's failure to sell products that is the ONLY thing Intel is going to listen to. They won't read this. They don't care if they talk up specifications and then change them. They care about their bottom line. So go vote. And if you vote to stand by them, then you get what you paid for.

gl

 

[steviep]

Three things...

Conroe is looking to be a great processor... problem is...
The Itanium was looking to be a great processor too... now you can say itanic to any geek and they know exactly what you are talking about.

Itanium? We're talking about the desktop user segment here... and that's where Conroe is aiming for, not the business sector.

The Athlon 64 was released in 2003, so no, it's not from '99 - that was the original Athlon (AMD's first good processor), after that was the Athlon XP (very similar to Athlon), and then onto the Athlon 64.

Athlon = K8... Athlon 64/FX = K8. Next few AMD chips = K8. They won't have K10 (skipping K9 lol) till 2008 by best estimates, so you will indeed have to watch out for Intel bringing in their new architecture later this year.

Intel screwed up with the P4 - it was GHz marketing hype and they've been trying to keep up with AMD for years now. The P3 would have scaled had they kept with the die shrinks, and it was a much better chip than the P4 ever hoped to be. That is evidenced in that the Pentium M design will succeed it, and the P-M is, essentially, the P3 that they stuck with and kept improving with modifications and shrinks.

Yeah the P4 started as a screw up. But have you seen what the Presler can do? Finally, after years, they got the P4 right. And it's damn competetive in value and performance, especially for those the OC. The problem with your above suggestion is that there's no innovation happening. Intel wanted to try something different because they didn't want to always be stuck with the same thing for the rest of their chip-making lives

All in all, I'm very excited to see what Conroe can do when it gets here - and I would love if it would hand AMD it's ass (all the better for us all)... From what I've seen, it will bring intel in line with AMD clock-for-clock and might even edge them out if intel can mobilize the engineering monster they posess - and if it can scale easily over 3Ghz then Intel will get the crown no doubt.

You've seen/heard wrong. Conroe will spank the FX clock-for-clock, if what certain people in this forum tell us. Poncho, as far as I can tell, does indeed work for Intel (the guy has knowledge of things the general public won't know about for a couple years), so you should stop treating him like he's some Intel !!!!!! that's spewing out the usual !!!!!! BS. Especially this guy:

Oh here we go, "You just wait, in 6mo when our next product comes out, it's gonna kick you ass" Try this on for size. I'll believe it when I see it. Right now AMD owns the performance crown, and no amount of nut hugging on future products that you have absolutly no technical knowledge about is gonna change that. When Intel beats AMD performance wise then you can come back and mouth. So keep spewing the "Intel will kick AMD's ass in 6mo" bullshit. Have you been sitting around the past 2 years waiting for this day, tell you what. Go build a nice 3800x2 system and enjoy, this way you don't have to wait till Q3 just to end up disappointed.

BTW, why in the hell would I build an AMD system right now? That would be stupid. AM2's around the corner, thereby making my DDR1 and CPU's useless. I'd say AMD's one of the worst investments in computing, at the moment. I just built an Intel system for precisely that (not because I'm a !!!!!!, because it was the only logical choice). If AM2 was out, it might've been a different story, but as far as I'm concerned, AMD is using old tech at the moment, while Intel's pushing ahead with the newer tech that I'd be able to use down the line if I so happened to switch systems.

 

[Poncho]

Frankly, Merom isn't even close to ready. Samples aren't even available. You see any leaked Conroe cpu id's? Nope! So don't tell me how much of a "great new thing" Conroe is "going to be" until you have some proof.

Umm.... I've used Conroe, Merom and Woodcrest. Merom taped out before Conroe did over 6 months ago. I was using Merom on the Calistoga (945GM) platform and have used Conroe on 975 and 965 and have used Woodcrest on the next gen server platform (Blackford/Greencreek). I didn't get a chance to run any benchmarks on conroe, but I can say that I was VERY impressed with it in the short time that I had my hands on one. Merom simply blew me away in comparison to the existing mobile line.