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Yeah, I wouldn't set your hopes that high, if that were the case Intel has 4 to 5 generations of silicon already prepped that they could start churning out in v

by trome 10y ago

Yeah, I wouldn't set your hopes that high, if that were the case Intel has 4 to 5 generations of silicon already prepped that they could start churning out in volume within 3 months. Comparatively, AMD has been building chips to order as of late, since they do not have the money to build a bunch of chips that may or may not sell, so your looking at a 3 to 4 month delay before you can get a new chip like Ryzen after announcement. The cache arrangement (see pic halfway down) and better branch prediction are interesting though, cache has always been a space where Intel has been able to use way less transistors to store the same amount of data. http://semiaccurate.com/2016/12/13/amds-zen-becomes-ryzen/ http://semiaccurate.com/2016/12/13/amds-zen-becomes-ryzen/

rl3 10y ago
>... if that were the case Intel has 4 to 5 generations of silicon already prepped that they could start churning out in volume within 3 months. Can you elaborate? I'm fairly certain Intel deviating from their existing roadmap to such a degree and on such short notice would be extremely difficult at best.
- trome 10y ago
  After the Pentium 4 debacle, Intel Israel came up with the Core micro-architecture to replace it. Since then, Intel has built up a 4 to 5 year buffer of developed silicon so that if any generation or two is worse than their competitors, they won't be caught flat footed & have to pay contra-revenue to incentivize manufacturers to use their chips. Most notably this can be seen in review samples of chips sent out, where AMD and Qualcomm will send out chips dated as being made shortly before being sent per the packaging, Intel will send out chips that are dated 4 to 5 years old, as they are from the first or second run of silicon that Intel did with that chip design.
  - sitkack 10y ago
    Isn't that a sign of really really poor competition?
    - trome 10y ago
      It is, hence why they got fined in the EU recently. That being said, so long as AMD & Via are still alive and producing x86-64 chips, they'll avoid the brunt of anti-competitive regulations.
  - russell_h 10y ago
    I'm fairly certain this isn't true, do you have any references?
  - rl3 10y ago
    >Intel will send out chips that are dated 4 to 5 years old, as they are from the first or second run of silicon that Intel did with that chip design. Fabrication process advancements (i.e. die shrinks) in that time span are enough to rule out what you said with near complete certainty—let alone the notion Intel is somehow shelving architectures for 4-5 years at a time. Architectures may be developed over those spans, sure—but not shelved for that long.
    - trome 10y ago
      I'm not saying that they have 4 to 5 full micro-architectures shelved (that'd be insane), but from talking to Intel Oregon people they do keep a deep stock that will buy them a few years. Think incremental improvements like you see from Intel every year, not 20% or 30% performance improvements.
michaelmrose 10y ago
Not trying to be a jerk but this sounds like a huge misunderstanding of reality. I had understood that new generations of cpu to be years from beginning of development to store shelves.

by trome 10y ago

rl3 10y ago

>... if that were the case Intel has 4 to 5 generations of silicon already prepped that they could start churning out in volume within 3 months. Can you elaborate? I'm fairly certain Intel deviating from their existing roadmap to such a degree and on such short notice would be extremely difficult at best.

trome 10y ago
After the Pentium 4 debacle, Intel Israel came up with the Core micro-architecture to replace it. Since then, Intel has built up a 4 to 5 year buffer of developed silicon so that if any generation or two is worse than their competitors, they won't be caught flat footed & have to pay contra-revenue to incentivize manufacturers to use their chips. Most notably this can be seen in review samples of chips sent out, where AMD and Qualcomm will send out chips dated as being made shortly before being sent per the packaging, Intel will send out chips that are dated 4 to 5 years old, as they are from the first or second run of silicon that Intel did with that chip design.
- sitkack 10y ago
  Isn't that a sign of really really poor competition?
  - trome 10y ago
    It is, hence why they got fined in the EU recently. That being said, so long as AMD & Via are still alive and producing x86-64 chips, they'll avoid the brunt of anti-competitive regulations.
- russell_h 10y ago
  I'm fairly certain this isn't true, do you have any references?
- rl3 10y ago
  >Intel will send out chips that are dated 4 to 5 years old, as they are from the first or second run of silicon that Intel did with that chip design. Fabrication process advancements (i.e. die shrinks) in that time span are enough to rule out what you said with near complete certainty—let alone the notion Intel is somehow shelving architectures for 4-5 years at a time. Architectures may be developed over those spans, sure—but not shelved for that long.
  - trome 10y ago
    I'm not saying that they have 4 to 5 full micro-architectures shelved (that'd be insane), but from talking to Intel Oregon people they do keep a deep stock that will buy them a few years. Think incremental improvements like you see from Intel every year, not 20% or 30% performance improvements.

michaelmrose 10y ago

Not trying to be a jerk but this sounds like a huge misunderstanding of reality. I had understood that new generations of cpu to be years from beginning of development to store shelves.