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Intel's Haswell Architecture Analyzed: Building a New PC and a New Intel

60 points by reitzensteinm 14y ago

mtgx 14y ago
Anand is too optimistic about Apple adopting Intel chips in iPads or iPhones in the future. Personally, I don't think that's ever going to happen, and I don't think it makes any sense either. Apple is trying to become an ever more integrated company, and apparently making their own chip is becoming very important to them. And recent rumors start pointing to the same conclusion, although we probably won't see this happening until 2014: http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/apple-reportedly-wants-to-ditch-intel-chips-in-macs-hire-its-own-soc-designer-1101772 http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/apple-reported... From what I hear Haswell will be significantly more expensive than Ivy Bridge, too, so again, to me it looks Intel is becoming less competitive with ARM, not more. But I think having full control over their chips matters more than anything else to Apple, and I think they will move there at least gradually. Apple's A6 is a significant step in that direction, and I don't see them moving back from it.
- reitzensteinm 14y ago
  Where does he say that? He seems to be saying the opposite here, about Apple dropping Intel for laptops: "There's even more reason to worry if the post-Steve Apple/Intel relationship has fallen on tough times. While I don't share Charlie's view of Apple dropping Intel as being a done deal, I know there's truth behind his words."
- bryanlarsen 14y ago
  Anand is probably talking more about Windows 8 tablets. We're already getting Ivy Bridge based tablets, so it's obvious that we're going to get Haswell tablets. The article just shows us how compelling those tablets are going to be, as long as you don't paying a few extra dollars. I suspect that this also means that we're going to get Haswell based Android tablets, which along with initiatives like Ubuntu for Android might be really compelling to a certain subset of HN readers.
bornhuetter 14y ago
I really hope that the threat of Apple switching to ARM causes Intel to push Linux as an alternative to OSX. I'm not holding my breath, but I can only hope.
- chucknelson 14y ago
  While some Linux distributions have come a long way, I still don't think this will happen any time soon. The ease of use is still far behind OS X and Windows in my opinion. Granted, I've only used Ubuntu (12.04 LTS mostly), but that's one of the most user-friendly distributions I think.
  - bornhuetter 14y ago
    For the average user, I think Windows and OS X are easier to use than current Linux distributions, but for a developer Ubuntu is getting pretty good. I disliked Unity at first, but it's really starting to grow on me - especially after using Ubuntu Tweak to change a few things I didn't like. There are some great shortcut keys, like Super-W, Super-S and Crtl-Alt-Arrow to switch between workspaces and windows, that I think are as good as OS X gestures. And the package manager is superior in many ways to the App Store and the Windows 8 Store. Intel have done a good job so far of kicking OEMs into shape over ultrabooks - and manufacturers are finally starting to get it. If they were to make a similar push for linux based developer laptops, where all the drivers work properly, I could see it potentially being very good for the industry.
    - DeepDuh 14y ago
      What you describe sounds good and makes me want to try it as well in the future (there's stuff in OSX, mostly of the recently introduced sort, that really grinds my gears). Then again, I will probably still miss things like Spotlight, Quicklook, Mail.app, PDF print / cut / paste / manipulate with Preview + iWorks too much. How is Ubuntu coming along with such features nowadays? At least in Kubuntu I find that stuff still abysmal.
- tedunangst 14y ago
batgaijin 14y ago
I still can't help but think that the name is a little jab at the added hardware level STM support...
Symmetry 14y ago
Good article. I've always wondered how the bypass network on Intel chips works, though. Is it between the ports or directly between the execution units? I also can't imagine it being fully bypassed in either case, so I wonder what it looks like.
theevocater 14y ago
Intel is making the necessary steps to stay relevant as we see smaller lower power devices become the norm. Ultrabooks (and their silly netbook cousins of the past) are merely stepping stones on the path to more embedded, power sipping devices everywhere in our lives. I'm curious to know what this means for Nvidia. Nvidia is now essentially competing on both big fronts. On one end, nvidia has to stay relevant with its video cards. Things like Tesla are going to be big business, but how do you compete with intel's on chip offering and keep power demands low enough? On the other side of the wall you have Tegra. Intel is a much easier target here as the Tegra is arm based and can already be found in android phones and tablets. And as the article indicates Haswell is still not equipped to truly compete with Tegra at the low end of the power spectrum. Also, and it hurts to mention it, what about AMD? Bulldozer was at best a lukewarm release and piledriver still isn't out. On the other hand, AMD's graphics offerings still compete well with Nvidia. Big box retailers don't offer much in the way of AMD but ATI still sees significant usage. Dell, for example, only offers opterons in its servers, but offers plenty of AMD graphics cards in consumer offerings. But as AMD still has the same problem as Nvidia: this side of the business is being disrupted by things like Ultrabooks and tablets though so its hard to see how this will last. For AMD to compete with intel, it would seem they need to focus on SoC designs. Lastly, one thing I found very interesting was the various winks and nods to the fact that intel creates a lot of interesting features that are more expensive, but only 'one' manufacturer ever uses them with the need for the stick. That manufacturer is clearly Apple. People often like to parrot the meme that Macs are simply more expensive PCs but it seem clear here that other manufacturers require the stick to get them to make improvements to their boards. > Intel gave one example where an embedded controller on a motherboard was using 30 - 50mW of power. Through some simple firmware changes Intel was able to drop this particular controller's power consumption down to 5mW. It's not rocket science, but this is Intel's way of doing some of the work that its OEM partners should have been doing for the past decade. Apple has done some of this on its own (which is why OS X based notebooks still enjoy tangibly longer idle battery life than their Windows counterparts), but Intel will be offering this to many of its key OEM partners and in a significant way. You don't drop power consumption by an order of magnitude that easily unless the original chip was seriously poorly designed.

60 points by reitzensteinm 14y ago

mtgx 14y ago

Anand is too optimistic about Apple adopting Intel chips in iPads or iPhones in the future. Personally, I don't think that's ever going to happen, and I don't think it makes any sense either. Apple is trying to become an ever more integrated company, and apparently making their own chip is becoming very important to them. And recent rumors start pointing to the same conclusion, although we probably won't see this happening until 2014: http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/apple-reportedly-wants-to-ditch-intel-chips-in-macs-hire-its-own-soc-designer-1101772 http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/apple-reported... From what I hear Haswell will be significantly more expensive than Ivy Bridge, too, so again, to me it looks Intel is becoming less competitive with ARM, not more. But I think having full control over their chips matters more than anything else to Apple, and I think they will move there at least gradually. Apple's A6 is a significant step in that direction, and I don't see them moving back from it.

reitzensteinm 14y ago
Where does he say that? He seems to be saying the opposite here, about Apple dropping Intel for laptops: "There's even more reason to worry if the post-Steve Apple/Intel relationship has fallen on tough times. While I don't share Charlie's view of Apple dropping Intel as being a done deal, I know there's truth behind his words."
bryanlarsen 14y ago
Anand is probably talking more about Windows 8 tablets. We're already getting Ivy Bridge based tablets, so it's obvious that we're going to get Haswell tablets. The article just shows us how compelling those tablets are going to be, as long as you don't paying a few extra dollars. I suspect that this also means that we're going to get Haswell based Android tablets, which along with initiatives like Ubuntu for Android might be really compelling to a certain subset of HN readers.

bornhuetter 14y ago

I really hope that the threat of Apple switching to ARM causes Intel to push Linux as an alternative to OSX. I'm not holding my breath, but I can only hope.

chucknelson 14y ago
While some Linux distributions have come a long way, I still don't think this will happen any time soon. The ease of use is still far behind OS X and Windows in my opinion. Granted, I've only used Ubuntu (12.04 LTS mostly), but that's one of the most user-friendly distributions I think.
- bornhuetter 14y ago
  For the average user, I think Windows and OS X are easier to use than current Linux distributions, but for a developer Ubuntu is getting pretty good. I disliked Unity at first, but it's really starting to grow on me - especially after using Ubuntu Tweak to change a few things I didn't like. There are some great shortcut keys, like Super-W, Super-S and Crtl-Alt-Arrow to switch between workspaces and windows, that I think are as good as OS X gestures. And the package manager is superior in many ways to the App Store and the Windows 8 Store. Intel have done a good job so far of kicking OEMs into shape over ultrabooks - and manufacturers are finally starting to get it. If they were to make a similar push for linux based developer laptops, where all the drivers work properly, I could see it potentially being very good for the industry.
  - DeepDuh 14y ago
    What you describe sounds good and makes me want to try it as well in the future (there's stuff in OSX, mostly of the recently introduced sort, that really grinds my gears). Then again, I will probably still miss things like Spotlight, Quicklook, Mail.app, PDF print / cut / paste / manipulate with Preview + iWorks too much. How is Ubuntu coming along with such features nowadays? At least in Kubuntu I find that stuff still abysmal.
tedunangst 14y ago

batgaijin 14y ago

I still can't help but think that the name is a little jab at the added hardware level STM support...

Symmetry 14y ago

Good article. I've always wondered how the bypass network on Intel chips works, though. Is it between the ports or directly between the execution units? I also can't imagine it being fully bypassed in either case, so I wonder what it looks like.

theevocater 14y ago

Intel is making the necessary steps to stay relevant as we see smaller lower power devices become the norm. Ultrabooks (and their silly netbook cousins of the past) are merely stepping stones on the path to more embedded, power sipping devices everywhere in our lives. I'm curious to know what this means for Nvidia. Nvidia is now essentially competing on both big fronts. On one end, nvidia has to stay relevant with its video cards. Things like Tesla are going to be big business, but how do you compete with intel's on chip offering and keep power demands low enough? On the other side of the wall you have Tegra. Intel is a much easier target here as the Tegra is arm based and can already be found in android phones and tablets. And as the article indicates Haswell is still not equipped to truly compete with Tegra at the low end of the power spectrum. Also, and it hurts to mention it, what about AMD? Bulldozer was at best a lukewarm release and piledriver still isn't out. On the other hand, AMD's graphics offerings still compete well with Nvidia. Big box retailers don't offer much in the way of AMD but ATI still sees significant usage. Dell, for example, only offers opterons in its servers, but offers plenty of AMD graphics cards in consumer offerings. But as AMD still has the same problem as Nvidia: this side of the business is being disrupted by things like Ultrabooks and tablets though so its hard to see how this will last. For AMD to compete with intel, it would seem they need to focus on SoC designs. Lastly, one thing I found very interesting was the various winks and nods to the fact that intel creates a lot of interesting features that are more expensive, but only 'one' manufacturer ever uses them with the need for the stick. That manufacturer is clearly Apple. People often like to parrot the meme that Macs are simply more expensive PCs but it seem clear here that other manufacturers require the stick to get them to make improvements to their boards. > Intel gave one example where an embedded controller on a motherboard was using 30 - 50mW of power. Through some simple firmware changes Intel was able to drop this particular controller's power consumption down to 5mW. It's not rocket science, but this is Intel's way of doing some of the work that its OEM partners should have been doing for the past decade. Apple has done some of this on its own (which is why OS X based notebooks still enjoy tangibly longer idle battery life than their Windows counterparts), but Intel will be offering this to many of its key OEM partners and in a significant way. You don't drop power consumption by an order of magnitude that easily unless the original chip was seriously poorly designed.