Nehalem Is Coming In 2008!

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Unless you have been living under a rock these past few months, you know that Intel is releasing a completely new architecture that will replace the beloved Core 2 processors.  These new processors are right around the corner and Intel plans to introduce them sometime at the end of 2008.  These processors will again completely re-invent the computer industry much like the Core 2 line did 2 years ago.

Early rumors and beta tests put this processor's performance as high as 45% higher than the Core 2 Extreme.  I hope to have more tests and numbers in the future months when the release becomes closer.
The Nehalem line will introduce some new features.

Intel Quick Path Interconnect
Intel is now leaving the old FSB design to move to a new design where memory bus speeds are no longer dependant upon the FSB.  Nehalem processors will each carry their own memory controller and connect directly to your memory of choice.  Memory bandwidth will be double that of Intel's highest FSB speed of 1600 MHz.

Multiple Memory Channels
The first Nehalem processors will have up to three channels of memory, but the Nehalem architecture is capable of using up to 6 channels of DDR3 memory.  Not only will the new QPI be able to finally realize the true potential of DDR3, but the multiple channels will mean even more performance.

Hyper Threading
While Hyper Threading is nothing new and was first introduced in the Pentium 4, it is now making a comeback in multi-core processors.  Hyper Threading is a technology that duplicates some hardware on each core to run two threads simultaneously on a single core.  This means that a quad-core chip can not simultaneously handle eight threads!  This is great news for video and audio encoders as these programs can effectively double their performance than on any single current generation Intel processor.  Also more and more programs are using multi-threading such as games and everyday applications like Microsoft Office.  Never again will your machine be thread-locked.

LGA 1366 Socket
While the LGA 775 socket has been good to us, Intel now needs many more pins to handle both the memory and QPI (Quick Path Interconnect) connections.  This will mean a bigger chip overall, but a slight increase in size will generally be better as heat dissipation will be much better.

More SSE4 Instructions
SSE stands for Streaming SIMD Extensions, which are added instructions to the core line of basic instructions for any x86 processors.  Every updated instruction list has added more functionality and performance to the Intel line of processors with SSE4 instructions adding more floating point number performance enhancements.  While the new Core 2 line of processors had support for some SSE4 instructions, Nehalem will support the full line of SSE4 instructions.  This means certain applications will see a huge boost in performance over the Core 2 chips.

More Cores
While the first Nehalem processors will be quad-cored, the Nehalem architecture is very scalable and up to eight cores per processor are supported.  Adding two cores is really like adding four due to the Hyper Threading that these processors will implement.

Smaller Fabrication
While the newest Intel processors are running cooler and better thanks to their 65 nm fabrication process, the new Nehalem processors are now going to be fabrication on a 45 nm process.  This means a smaller size for a given number of components.  This means lower temps and much more functionality in the same space as the Core 2 processors.

You may be wondering how we are going to use these chips if there are no motherboards to run them.  The good news is that there are manufacturers designing and engineering new boards such as Foxconn, MSI, ABit, Asus, Gigabyte, Intel, and Mitac.  All these boards will use the new chipset with the X58 northbridge with a new ICH10 southbridge.  The X58 chipset will be a high-end product for enthusiast and thus will support the highest rated components and aggressive overclocking.  And for all you SLI and NVidia fans out there, Intel will not have support for NVidia SLI on the X58 chipset.  However, two or four PCI-E x16 slots will be standard with support for CrossFireX.

Edited by MattSlagle - 27 Jun 2008 at 11:13am