We knew it was coming. Sources are now saying that Intel is going to move away from its high-clockspeed, high-heat NetBurst architecture and derivations thereof in favor of Banias/Pentium M-like architectures. In short, Intel's Israeli office not only hit one out of the park with Pentium M, but it looks like the bases were loaded, too. Intel will be bringing their desktop and notebook designs together (again) under the Pentium M-derived line by 2007. Code-named Merom, the line will aim for low power consumption, higher instructions per clock, and will shy away from the aggressive "crank up the MHz, Scotty!" tactics that made the P4 such a climber, but such a burner. How appropriate it is, then, that the Pentium 4's Icarus flight will result in a new mythography where the new product codenames are almost all ancient Israelite archaeological sites.
"The Pentium M in most regards is very competitive with the Pentium 4 while running at dramatically lower clock speeds," said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at Insight 64. "Power consumption and heat dissipation is almost as large an issue on desktops as it used to be in mobile."
It looks like Intel's decision to put away the megahertz myth was indeed all about the marketing, as the company won't be able to post such impressive megahertz leaps with the newer CPU line. And they shouldn't need to, either. We'll take performance however it comes, and with this news, it looks like it won't be coming in a 10GHz form any time soon. (For the skinny on this architecture, check out Hannibal's technical foray into the chip's architecture. To understand the Pentium M, it's essential to understand Micro Ops Fusion.)
Posted February 1, 2007 @ 12:32 PM, by
Nate Anderson Bryan Lee, one of the key executives overseeing the Zune player, is out as Microsoft gives former Xbox guru J Allard total control of the music player. Full Story
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Nate Anderson As the BitTorrent file transfer protocol gains both popularity and legal uses, ISPs are faced with an increasingly difficult decision about whether to throttle it or not. Network neutrality agreements can make this even more complicated. Full Story
Posted February 1, 2007 @ 10:15 AM, by
Eric Bangeman Michael Dell returns to the CEO position at the company he founded in the wake of sliding market share and disappointing earnings. Will his presence in the driver's seat be enough to bring back the good old days? Full Story
Posted January 31, 2007 @ 5:38 PM, by
Jacqui Cheng Recent data from Internet traffic management company Ellacoya says that only five percent of users generate nearly half of all Internet traffic. However, the other 95 percent are what count when deciding what new services to provide. Full Story
