Core 2 Duo Fastest Ramping Chip In Intel's History, Otellini Says
Speaking at a launch event for the chip at the company's Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters, Otellini said when the Pentium processor launched years ago it took one year to ship 1 million units. "We will ship 1 million processors in a little less than 10 weeks," he said.
Core 2 Duo, formerly code-named Conroe, has been Intel's much discussed replacement for current Pentium 4 processors. It is based on Intel's new Core microarchitecture, which Intel said offers better performance while drawing less power. In fact, Otellini said Core 2 Duo would perform on average 40 percent better than previous Intel processors and would draw 40 percent less power.
Intel has been able to ramp up quickly thanks to advanced manufacturing processes and aggressive pricing, Otellini said. Intel, he noted, currently has three 64 nanometer facilities in operation and will bring a fourth online later this year.
Previous factories were running on a 90 nanometer processor. In effect, using 65 nanometer means Intel can manufacture smaller dies, thus increasing the yield. Otellini said the Core 2 Duo packs 291 million transistors on a die the size of the fingernail of his smallest finger.
Intel said Core 2 Duo processors already are shipping and that the chip maker has an aggressive seed program for the channel. Early systems based on the processor are expected to be available Aug. 7.
System builder Velocity Micro is already stocking distributors with Core 2 Duo gaming systems, said company president and CEO Randy Copeland. He said his ability to get early quantities of the new processors was "excellent."
Intel also said the first Core 2 Duo notebooks, formerly code-named Merom, are expected to ship at the end of August.
The two product launches mark a complete line of Core architecture-based processors in server, desktop and mobile. Intel rolled out its Xeon "Woodcrest" server processors last month.
Otellini touted the power saving features of the Core microarchitecture, which couples dual core running at lower frequencies with a variety of technology tweaks, to lower overall power consumption. He noted that Intel has been talking about reducing power in its processors for years. But Intel, in fact, has been increasingly criticized over the past six months to a year in the server market for the price/performance per watt metrics of its server processors. Intel actually moved up the ship date of its Xeon "Woodcrest" to address market demand for powerful processors that draw less power.
At the event, Otellini declined to answer questions about rival Advanced Micro Device's plan to acquire graphics and chipset maker ATI Technologies. However he did note that like AMD, which said it will work to integrate graphics into a version of its CPU, Intel will incorporate some amount of graphics into its processors in the future. But he declined to offer any additional specifics.
Intel is shipping five versions of the dual-core Core 2 Duo, including an Extreme processor, model number X6800, running at 2.93GHz with a 1066MHz bus speed and 4MBytes of cache. It will be priced at $999 in low quantities. The lowest cost part is a 1.8GHz with a 1066MHz system build and 2Mbytes of cache priced at $183 in low quantities.
A variety of system makers showed off Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Duo mobile wares a the event. Among them were several gaming systems.
Systemax showed its Sabre system for gaming and 3D authoring applications. It featured dual graphics cards from ATI Technologies, 2Gbytes of RAM and an air cooling system, and was priced starting at $2,995.
Velocity Micro showed the Core 2 Duo Extreme over clocked to 3.4MHz, a change that was personally approved by Otellini, Copeland said. The system also included two dual GPU graphics cards from Nvidia and 2Gbytes of memory. Because of the over-clocked processor and the number of GPUs in the system, Velocity put in a 1000-watt power supply, he said, and a special water cooling system.
Hewlett-Packard showed off a Viiv system it said can be ordered starting Friday on its Website as well as two notebooks that HP representatives said would also include upgraded discrete graphics from Nvidia to better complement the new processor and high-definition video applications.
Gateway showed off a consumer desktop system and several notebooks. A Gateway spokeswoman said a "powerful" corporate model will be released next week.