System Builders Mixed On Upcoming Intel, AMD Processors

Intel and AMD are preparing to release new multi-core microprocessors in the second half of 2007.

While high-performance system builders are excited about potential performance gains, those serving broader markets are wondering when operating systems and applications will catch up.

While Intel is set to release four additions to its Core 2 Duo Processor line on July 22, it's the debut much later in the year of the product codenamed Penryn that has specialized system builders abuzz. Penryn, the successor to the Merom core now used for the chip giant's Core 2 Duo T5000/T7000 series mobile processors, will mark the debut of Intel's version of the 45 nanometer process, the latest milestone in semiconductor fabrication.

No release date has been set, but Penryn will ship in "the latter half of the second half" of 2007, said Steve Dallman, general manager of Intel's Worldwide Reseller Channel Organization. Desktop and quad core versions of the processor are codenamed Wolfdale and Yorkfield and are scheduled for release in 2008.

The release of Penryn has been timed to ensure that motherboards and Intel's 3 Series chipsets are in place to support the new processors, Dallman said.

"The good news for the channel is that when the 45 nanometer processors come out, the boards and chip sets are already going to be compatible. That means there'll be big opportunities for the channel, because they can take the lead on this technology," he said.

AMD's quad-core Opteron chip, code-named Barcelona, will start to ship towards the end of summer with full systems coming out shortly after that, said John Fruehe, AMD's worldwide market development manager for server/workstation products.

Fruehe said Barcelona would be would be easy to install after removing dual cores and would offer a "significant level of performance improvements" over Intel's quad-core Xeon 5300 processor for servers.

"The opportunity for the channel is great. We will add shared level-3 cache for all four cores. Each core has its own dedicated level-2 cache. We're talking the same power and thermal ranges as the current dual cores," he said. "And you'll also get new enhancements for virtualization, which is a big deal for the channel because 80 percent of their customers are running virtualization or considering it."

Fruehe would not give specifics on pricing.

"What I can say is that we'll have a very aggressively priced processor, but more importantly, the price for performance is going to be outstanding," he said.

Systems builders had mixed feelings about the new products from the two chip giants. The latest and greatest in microprocessors simply doesn't matter much to Smart Guys customers, said Glen Coffield, president of the Longwood, Fla.-based systems builder.

"One thing about the CPU business is that nobody cares. It's the bottom end of the stack. The customers don't care. There's a fringe element that cares," he said.

Coffield said that "99.9 percent" of his customers favor stability in their purchasing over upgrading components ahead of the OS and application curve. He said that until operating systems and software are built to take better advantage of multi-core processors, it would stay that way.

"We've had Athlon 64's for going on five years. And do we have a viable 64-bit OS yet? No. We need a true multi-threaded 64-bit OS and we need applications. And Microsoft needs to stop screwing around with Google and get back to their core business and say, hey, we've already got 64-bit applications like their very popular flight simulator, and build that into their office products," he said.

But for a specialized manufacturer of high-performance systems like Boxx Technologies, the quad-core releases are huge, said Francois Wolf, director of marketing for the Austin, Tex.-based company.

Wolf, whose company builds systems for visual effects artists and architectural design firms, said multi-core processors were a great boon for certain aspects of the visual effects business, but not others.

"As far as 3-D modeling and visual effects, a lot of the advanced software is just catching up now [to multi-core chips] When all of the ISVs have caught up in terms of multi-threading, it'll be great. But that said, anything that has to do with using sophisticated interactive software " modeling, 3-D modeling, animation, where it's not just a computing exercise " sometimes you can't have multiple threads running, so it's not so important," he said.

"The real area where multi-core processors are excellent for us is in rendering. The more individual processing units you can throw at the problem the better. And for that multi-core processors are a panacea, the El Dorado."