[geeks] Speaking of Atom and power usage..

[Mark]

On 17 Aug 2008, at 16:34, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

> To be quite blunt, I don't think Intel ever made anything that runs
> normally at 4gHz, but most customers think that a 2x2gHz dual core  
> chip
> does. :-)

I think they released a very high priced 'Extreme Edition' P4 (please,  
it's no PIV) that ran at 4GHz didn't they? It was a ludicrous price  
IIRC and probably made a better room heater than CPU :P

I think you are being a bit unfair about Core, it's not just the  
ability to pile cores on chips and market them as 'fast', Core's  
actualy computational units (Core's cores. if you will) actually  
overall perform better than P4's hideous NetBurst architecture clock- 
for-clock while using a lot less electricity. I think that's plenty  
commendable and a good reason to upgrade myself.

While you are right, 2x 2GHz != 4GHz, it's a lot better than 3.2GHz  
(about the average speed of most high performance P4s) single core  
stuff plus you get the advantages of SMP wrapped up in one convenient  
low-power package. Add to that the genuine benefits of the new  
architecture and you can't *really* argue against Core2 chips.

Like I keep banging on about, the real interest will be when Intel  
pops out a 1.6GHz Dual Core Atom. That's gonna pack a lot of power in  
a small space and be very power efficient. If they can hook it up to a  
new chipset with a vaguely economical current generation chipset,  
it'll be even better :)

Intel always made out that Atom was super-low power and aimed at  
embedded and low-consumption device markets. It probably isn't as  
powerful as a lot of stuff around it, but I am kinda surprised that  
the AMD chip outperforms it on cpu power and undercuts it on power  
consumption. That said, we use 3 Lenovo SFFs at $work that use AMD 64  
X2s and they are very high efficiency (they comply with the highest  
level of energy star rating for a desktop, whatever that level is?),  
so maybe I'm not *so* surprised!

Low energy computing is going to emerge as a major market. The more  
power-per-watt you can pack into a small chip, the better mobile and  
always-on computers are going to work for our energy reserves and our  
mobile future.

-- 
Mark Benson

My Blog:
<http://markbenson.org/blog>
Visit my Homepage: <http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson>

"Never send a human to do a machine's job..."