Intel, AMD Both Make Gains Per Fresh iSuppli Report

Blighted chip maker AMD has something to cheer about as it has made some significant gains in the global microprocessor market in the last one year. According to research firm iSuppli, AMD accounted for 13% of the global revenue share, which, although down 1.1% from Q4, is an improvement of 2.2 points from Q1 of 2007. While AMD hangs in there with long term gains, Intel witnessed good growth in Q1, 2008. Intel’s global revenue market share stood a 79.7%, up 1.2% from the preceding quarter. But there is a slight blemish for Intel as it yielded 0.7% share to its archrival over a year’s span. The next twelve months present a huge opportunity to chip makers as the ultra-portables market beckons with its promise of riches. But AMD hasn’t still fully divulged its plans for the lucrative low-voltage processor market

A Brief History Of Extreme Systems

When the chipmaker introduced its first Extreme Edition processor, Intel was forced to fall back on the workstation and server line of products since its desktop parts lacked the performance. When AMD unveiled its Athlon 64 FX-51, Intel was forced to sell a Xeon processor, which contained an additional 2 MB of L3 cache, as a desktop CPU under the name "Pentium Extreme Edition 3.20 GHz". Initially, these CPUs used the Prestonia core but later transitioned to the newer Gallatin design. At the time, switching to a different motherboard or even an entirely different platform in order to use such an Extreme Edition CPU was not necessary, since Intel packaged the CPU as a desktop part.

The Intel Pentium Extreme 3.20 GHz system

This was possible since the server processors used the same front-side bus protocol as the desktop parts. Only since the desktop and server/workstation technologies have drifted apart has the buyer been forced to buy a special motherboard for an Extreme Edition system.













The AMD 4x4 system
AMD was the first to bring dual-socket systems to the desktop with its 4x4 system. Intel, in turn, was the first to market with a quad-core processor, making AMD fall far behind in the desktop processor performance race. To compensate for this setback, AMD decided to put two dual-core CPUs on a dual-socket motherboard. For this approach, AMD used Opterons from the server segment, which ran a mere 200 MHz faster than any of its siblings at the time and were called "Athlon 64 FX70 to 74." The drawback was that AMD was forced to develop a completely new and very expensive motherboard for the CPU design. To make things worse, there was only one manufacturer that made the motherboard. Today, this system has been all but forgotten, and AMD no longer ships the 4x4 processors.
With the introduction of its Skulltrail platform today, Intel is following in AMD's footsteps. Both the D5400XS Skulltrail motherboard and the new Core 2 Extreme QX9775 processor were originally designed for the workstation/server segment.















The Intel Skulltrail test system
The system is not exactly a revolutionary step for the users - more like a comparatively cheap server CPU and a specially designed and frightfully expensive motherboard. Intel is expecting its desktop buyers to spend a good deal of money on this combination so that Intel won't have to develop anything new in this arena. We've already seen once before how this story can unfold with AMD's 4x4 system, and the same fate may also await Intel's Skulltrail. As the saying goes, "Those who do not learn from history..."

Intel Core 2 Extreme CPU Cooler Review

The product we’re testing today is not available as an off-the-shelve retail heatsink, it comes with bundled with Intel’s 45nm Extreme processors (e.g.: QX6850) . Its full name is FCLGA4-S which doesn’t make us much wiser.Intel reference heatsinks haven’t changed much in design since the introduction of the first S478 and S775 processors. They offer a basic performance/noise level, most if not all 3rd party heatsinks offer better performance at lower noise levels so this market has been growing for several years now, we have tested over 150 of these heatsinks here at the site, and even more new CPU cooler solutions are being released at and increased rate.When we first saw the FCLGA4-S we were quite surprised by its size and design, to say the least, it’s quite a step forward from the previous reference coolers:

The unit features a custom size 110mm fan with blue LED lightening (!) which is controlled through PWM (1000~2900rpm). When it comes to weight you might be surprised… ~420gram. If you know that the previous AlCu reference coolers weighed close to 450gram and was smaller in size you know something is up.Our friends at FrostyTech found out what made this new cooler from Intel thick; there is a copper insert alright, but it’s hollow and serves as a heat column; which is a cheaper alternative to the well known heat pipe.
The 41mm diameter copper "thermal chamber" works along a similar principle as a heatpipe, using a working fluid under a vacuum. The low pressure causes the fluid to change states when heat is applied, allowing the vapour to rapidly conduct heat between hot and cold surfaces. A solid metal block by comparison would rely upon the metals conductive properties to move heat from the base and distribute it along the cylindrical walls to which the fins are soldered.

Intel power PC platforms: Core 2 Extreme QX6800 and V8

Review Intel has been dancing all over AMD's financials with its Core 2 processors for the past year and it's keeping up the pressure, most recently with the Core 2 Extreme QX6800 and, more intriguingly, it's product-that-isn't-a-product, the V8 platform.

Let's start with V8 as it's something of an odd ball. It consists of an Intel S5000XVN ATX motherboard and two quad-core Xeon X5365 processors, each clocked to 3GHz and capable of operating on a 1333MHz frontside bus. With it, Intel sent us a pair of CPU coolers, 4GB of Samsung FB-DIMM PC2-5300F memory and an 850W power supply from Cooler Master.
So, that's eight physical cores on two sockets all with an estimated value of £2400. Good value as a bundle? It's hard to be sure, as Intel isn't selling the V8 as a system but is instead touting it as a technology showcase.
Or is it? As it happens the Xeon X5365 processor isn't currently available through the usual channels. If you want one, you have to buy a Mac Pro from Apple. The covering letter that came with the V8 refers to an "eight-core media creation PC", which is a pretty good description of the top-of-the-range Mac Pro.
Could V8, or a version of it, be a board supplied by Intel for Apple and now getting a lease of life beyond the Mac platform? Neither Intel nor Apple are saying, of course

VoodooPC's Intel Core 2 Extreme-Based

VoodooPC has announced the availability of Intel Core 2 Extreme-based high performance desktops. Part of the Omen series, the desktops are among the first to make use of Intel's just-announced Core 2 CPUs. As is always the case, being a member of the early adopter club comes at a hefty price, with base configurations starting at $4,400 and going all the way up to $6,000. A mere bag of shells, really. The systems use Core 2 Extreme CPUs running at 2.93 GHz. Other specs include an 80GB, 7,200 RPM hard drive, 16X dual layer DVD burner and 2GB of RAM. Users can choose between ATI and nVidia cards, with the GeForce 7900 GT hovering on the high end.
The Omen series come in aluminum cases with too-cool-for-the-room designer cutouts and so forth. You know, the type of things that are cries for help. – Nicholas Deleon

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770

Intel's Core 2 Extreme QX9650 was the first CPU to use Intel's new 45nm fabrication process. Aside from this, and despite the impressive performance, especially if you run applications that take advantage of SSE4, there wasn't a great deal about the QX9650 to cause much excitement, unless the prospect of 12MB of L2 cache is enough to float your boat.
This was a deliberate policy on Intel's part, a policy known as tick-tock. In a ‘tick' year Intel would move on the process technology, in this case the 45nm process, and then in 2008, a ‘tock' year, the front-side bus would be raised from 1,333MHz to 1,600MHz. Moving one step at a time should keep problems to a minimum and enable Intel to iron out technical issues in an orderly fashion instead of in a terrible rush.
The tick-tock logic makes perfect sense provided Intel has dominance in the processor market and is able to dictate the speed at which it rolls out new technologies and speed bumps. So what were we to make of the arrival of a Core 2 Extreme QX9770?
This is a new quad-core Penryn processor that runs at 3.20GHz on the 1,600MHz front-side bus that we didn't expect to see until some time in 2008. The clock speed increase compared to QX9650 is a relatively small 200MHz. Pricing is the usual USD $999 per processor for a tray of 1,000 units but no-one will buy a thousand of the things, and that's assuming that Intel will ever even make one thousand QX9770s.
The timing of the QX9770 is especially odd as Intel doesn't currently have a chipset that officially supports the 1,600MHz front-side bus as X38 tops out at 1,333MHz and we won't see the X48 chipset 1,600MHz support until early in 2008. This means that the new CPU relies on the Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers to add BIOS support for the QX9770, which isn't the sort of thing that we expect from Intel. It rather suggests that AMD's launch of the quad-core Phenom has caused Intel some concern and in response it has launched this new processor in something of a rush