Posted by malebolgia on 21 February 2005 - 15:15 · 47 comments & 5653 views
Intel introduced a line of Pentium 4 desktop chips Sunday that contain 2MB of secondary cache, twice as much as current Pentium 4s, as well as technology from its notebook line that's designed to cut power consumption. Larger caches, a pool of memory located on the processor, generally improve performance. The four chips included in the new 600 series of Pentium 4s range in speeds from 3GHz to 3.6GHz, and all of them feature an 800MHz bus. The top-of-the-line 660 Pentium 4 sells for $605 in quantities of 1,000, while the 630 sells for $224.

News source: C|Net News.com


Opera is making headway into the home media market with their Web browser solutions and powerful HTML and JavaScript-based presentation engine. The voice-enabled EPG is a multimodal (or multiple forms of input and output such as speech, keyboard or handwriting) project aimed at increasing awareness in the consumer electronics sector of the benefits of voice-enabled Web technologies.

"Opera is a leading player in making technology easy and accessible for people in their everyday lives, and the voice-enabled EPG is not science fiction, but a compelling demonstration of what you can do with Web technologies for home media," says Igor Jablokov, Director, Multimodal and Voice Portals, IBM Software Group. "We are excited to continue our relationship with Opera to help set the standards for a voice-enabled Web."

"Opera's Web-based presentation environment is ideal for applications like EPGs, Video-on-Demand, Web browsing, and other interactive services because of its speed, standards-compliance and easy customization," says Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. Operators can brand and specialize their offerings, and end-users can customize the appearance and functionality to their liking. The integration of voice with data is a natural evolution, and has enormous potential in the integrated home media market. Through our efforts with IBM(R), we hope to enable operators and OEMs to quickly get their HTML and Javascript-based applications talking."

Opera's voice-enabled EPG announcement was made just weeks before Opera rolls out their new voice-enabled edition of the Opera browser for PCs.

The voice-enabled EPG is written in XHTML+Voice or X+V multimodal programming language and is available in English with initial targets aimed at enterprise customers and developers. For a demonstration of X+Vmultimodal speech applications, visit: www.ibm.com/pvc/multimodal. Opera's Software Development Kit is based on the IBM(R) WebSphere Multimodal Toolkit, with its IBM WebSphere(R) Everyplace(R) Multimodal Environment, that includes IBM Embedded ViaVoice(R) and allows developers to easily build multimodal applications for devices ranging from low resource set top boxes to high-end Digital Video Recorders using the industry standards-based X+V markup language that combines XHTML and VoiceXML.



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(2 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #1 Posted by willvg on 21 Feb 2005 - 15:17
so whens the pentium 5 gonna be out
Quote this comment #1.1 Posted by divertom15 on 21 Feb 2005 - 20:55
never the dual-core will still be p4 rofl
Quote this comment #1.2 Posted by sphbecker on 21 Feb 2005 - 22:15
When you compare the current P4 to the original 1.2GHz (I think that was the speed) P4 you see very few similarities. The problem is the Intel keeps doing minor updates to the P4, none of which have been earth shattering enough to warrant a P5 name, but when you add them all up we should really be at the P6 by now. My guess is that Intel is not ever going to make a P5, they will drop the number all together at some point (they already did with the P5-M, I mean the P-M).
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #2 Posted by kezzzs on 21 Feb 2005 - 15:17
wayhey. now i just have to get a computer rather than my laptop!
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #3 Posted by Fonze on 21 Feb 2005 - 15:22
I was really looking forward to intel releasing these chips, but after seeing the benchmarks I'm somewhat less enthusiastic
(3 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #4 Posted by neufuse on 21 Feb 2005 - 15:32
arn't the 6xx line of P4 supose to be 64bit EM64T enabled? I thought I read that on intel's site before in a PR announcement, but this article says nothing about it.
Quote this comment #4.1 Posted by cooldude7273 on 21 Feb 2005 - 16:11
Exactly what I was thinking!
Quote this comment #4.2 Posted by sphbecker on 21 Feb 2005 - 22:16
They already have it on their Xeon's, so it souldn't be long before it hits the desktop processors.
Quote this comment #4.3 Posted by neufuse on 21 Feb 2005 - 22:41
QUOTE
They already have it on their Xeon's, so it souldn't be long before it hits the desktop processors.


yes, but Intel themselves said the 6xx line when it comes out would have EM64T on chip... yet the article says absoutly nothing about it
(5 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #5 Posted by BeyondGodlike on 21 Feb 2005 - 15:36
why wud u spend 2x as much when you can an amd for 1/2 that thats faster for gaming and almost the same for everythin else..
i dont understand it..
Quote this comment #5.1 Posted by imtoomuch on 21 Feb 2005 - 15:40
Why would somebody waste even a minute of their time to troll. I don't understand that.
Quote this comment #5.2 Posted by rIaHc3 on 21 Feb 2005 - 15:49
QUOTE
why wud u spend 2x as much when you can an amd for 1/2 that thats faster for gaming and almost the same for everythin else..
i dont understand it..


Almost is the keyword. Intel is better at multitasking and video much applications. So maybe the user wants it for that instead of games.

Please stop trolling.
Quote this comment #5.3 Posted by threedaysdwn on 21 Feb 2005 - 16:28
Er.. multitasking? No.

Video encoding, yes, somewhat. Though the difference is rather small.
Quote this comment #5.4 Posted by bucko on 21 Feb 2005 - 16:45
QUOTE

Almost is the keyword. Intel is better at multitasking and video much applications. So maybe the user wants it for that instead of games.

Please stop trolling.


Very true! I have an AMD Duron 1.8Ghz PC at home and at college we have P4 2.4Ghz (I think) pc's in our class room.

Obviously the extra cache helps but it just seems faster with Photoshop than on my AMD PC. Multitasking is very responsive to.

It will be interesting to see if P4 is still good at multi tasking when I get my AMD64 laptop (to compare them).
Quote this comment #5.5 Posted by BeyondGodlike on 21 Feb 2005 - 17:14
weird i never see lag in multi tasking
i use photoshop all the time intensely..never find it slow
maybe for professional uses where every second counts it would be good
(2 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #6 Posted by EnIgMa-PenGuIn on 21 Feb 2005 - 15:49
I seriously need to see some benches of a chip with the 2mb of cache vs the old chips at that speed bin
Quote this comment #6.1 Posted by divertom15 on 21 Feb 2005 - 21:10
Im sure you know that cache makes little of a difference. Its noticable alright but its still minor and cache rases the price significantly.
Quote this comment #6.2 Posted by Octol on 21 Feb 2005 - 23:33
http://www20.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050221/index.html
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #7 Posted by mattisking on 21 Feb 2005 - 15:49
We're seeing the end of Intel's regular clock speed improvements. I wonder if the "Pentium 5" will really ever exist. The chip makers (it seems particularly Intel) have been starting to hit a wall with current technology in terms of miniaturization which has been the largest driving force behind the CPU speed up that's been going since the early 90's. AMD seems better positioned than Intel in making the next generation CPU's... I think they made some better architecture choices. However, I think both chip makers are in trouble from chip makers like IBM, Motorola, etc. These guys took a whole different direction. I'm very excited to see what this "cell" chip is capable of. Sure, I'd like to have a Playstation 3, but I'm more interested in seeing what the "hackers/modders" come up with when they try to put Linux on it.

It should be an interesting few years to come. I wonder if x86 is finally going away.
Quote this comment #7.1 Posted by Jstphish on 21 Feb 2005 - 17:36
QUOTE
I wonder if x86 is finally going away.

That would be a blessing.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #8 Posted by willvg on 21 Feb 2005 - 15:55
i heard a while back that once intel is finished with the p4 that the next generation would have the mobile technology built in
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #9 Posted by todd` on 21 Feb 2005 - 16:06
Were'nt these 6xx processors with 2MB L2 cache already out? Newegg has had some for a little bit now.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-116-195&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-116-196&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-116-197&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-116-198&depa=1

And that's strange.. it added me as the first post, but i posted after like.. 10 people. My post was at 11:06, and the post below me is 10:17. Oh well.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #10 Posted by FuricTrax on 21 Feb 2005 - 16:17
I think Intel are trying to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the Pentium 4 as it has not seen the considerable performance increases over the previous revisions for some time (as in the past).

Looks like my P4 3.0C is gonna last me longer than anticipated
(2 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #11 Posted by SVT on 21 Feb 2005 - 16:19
About time. Intel is far enough behind IBM in the desktop CPU market that it was starting to get embarrassing:

http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html

And Itanium2 vs. POWER5 benchmarks are even worse for Intel!

SVT
Quote this comment #11.1 Posted by threedaysdwn on 21 Feb 2005 - 16:39
Intel needs to ditch the P4 completely and focus on Pentium-M designs. Netburst is trash.
Quote this comment #11.2 Posted by tiwaris on 21 Feb 2005 - 19:21
QUOTE
Itanium2 vs. POWER5 benchmarks are even worse for Intel

Could you provide the link for it. It will help me plan my next rig.
Thanks
Tiwaris
(7 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #12 Posted by Jstphish on 21 Feb 2005 - 17:34
Their still going with the 800MHz Bus!? What's wrong with them? Boosting the FSB will result in much greater performance than a 200MHz jump (if it can be called that) in CPU Clock Speed.
Quote this comment #12.1 Posted by King Rilian on 21 Feb 2005 - 17:39
I figured YOU'd post about the FSB, punk.

JK
Quote this comment #12.2 Posted by ev0| on 21 Feb 2005 - 19:07
raising the FSB has reached the point of diminishing returns. They just need to put a memory controller on die, it's not that hard, i don't know why they haven't done it yet.
Quote this comment #12.3 Posted by icebrain on 21 Feb 2005 - 20:32
But having the memory controller on die won't make the mobos supporting this processor (on-die controller) not BTX-compatible?

[i ask this question because i have the impression that AMD64 mobos are not BTX compatible because of the missing controller. If i am wrong sry ;-) ]
Quote this comment #12.4 Posted by Octol on 21 Feb 2005 - 23:14
QUOTE
Boosting the FSB will result in much greater performance than a 200MHz jump (if it can be called that) in CPU Clock Speed.


At this point the real performance increase is due to the extra L2 cache rather than any increase in clock speed. Intel will shortly be coming out with an Extreme Edition version of this processor that will support the 1066MHz FSB.

Last edited by 22045 on 21 Feb 2005 - 23:47
Quote this comment #12.5 Posted by Radium on 21 Feb 2005 - 23:36
BTX makes it hard to place the memory modules close the CPU.
Quote this comment #12.6 Posted by Help on 22 Feb 2005 - 01:56
QUOTE
Their still going with the 800MHz Bus!? What's wrong with them? Boosting the FSB will result in much greater performance than a 200MHz jump (if it can be called that) in CPU Clock Speed.


lol... this is the over-statement of the week...
They already have 1066 mhz FSB processors out (not p4, but p4 ee) and here's what they said...

So there you have it folks - the 1066MHz FSB does absolutely nothing for performance.

Source


QUOTE
At this point the real performance increase is due to the extra L2 cache rather than any increase in clock speed. Intel will shortly be coming out with an Extreme Edition version of this processor that will support the 1066MHz FSB.


It's already out.
Quote this comment #12.7 Posted by Hills420 on 26 Feb 2005 - 15:14
thats kind of surprising...
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #13 Posted by iomayho on 21 Feb 2005 - 18:00
the thing is that intel as a business, has realized that PC components (processor) is no longer going to help them with the revenues and profits. Therefore, they switched their strategies, and are focusing more and more on developing whole platforms rather than single cpus, which has been successful with the centrino.
Quote this comment #13.1 Posted by divertom15 on 21 Feb 2005 - 21:13
and amd with flash memory.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #14 Posted by Nelsinho on 21 Feb 2005 - 18:07
hmm, good news but very expensive yet, waiting benchs to compare with another chips
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #15 Posted by tiwaris on 21 Feb 2005 - 19:37
I am not impressed.
Quote this comment #15.1 Posted by divertom15 on 21 Feb 2005 - 21:13
im not either with these awful prices intel wants to chage.
(4 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #16 Posted by SquareSoft0 on 21 Feb 2005 - 23:28
This was the boost they needed to pull up to a level playing field. Now that there's friction in the performance ring, AMD and Intel will have to pull another boost to compete. I expect to see another leap in the near-future; whether it be the dual-core chips or something else intermediary it will always end up well for the consumers. Why no mention of the EM64T technology though? I've been waiting forever for Intel and AMD to get an x64 desktop chip out the door.

Last edited by 46870 on 22 Feb 2005 - 07:55
Quote this comment #16.1 Posted by Octol on 22 Feb 2005 - 06:00
http://www20.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050221/index.html:

QUOTE
Thanks to the doubled L2 cache, the new 600 series Pentium 4 has a unique selling point that AMD won't be able to counter, at least for the time being. What is more important, though, is that Intel's 600 series finally incorporates several features that AMD has been offering for more than a year. This includes the 64 bit extensions called EM64T, paving the way for RAM totals over 4 GB and Microsoft's x64 edition of Windows XP. Enhanced SpeedStep is also available now, reducing power consumption by dynamically adjusting voltage and core clock speed. While Enhanced Speed Step will remain an exclusive 600 series feature, EM64T is available for the 500 series in selected models.
Quote this comment #16.2 Posted by SquareSoft0 on 22 Feb 2005 - 07:54
That doesn't mean it's an x64 chip. AMD Athlon-64 is x86-64 and this new Intel P4 is x86 + EM64T.
Quote this comment #16.3 Posted by Octol on 22 Feb 2005 - 16:31
QUOTE
This includes the 64 bit extensions called EM64T, paving the way for RAM totals over 4 GB

It has been my understanding that P4s have been 64-bit capable (but disabled) for quite some time. I am assuming—maybe incorrectly—that the 64-bit extensions will take advantage of that capability.

If this processor will, for example, enable support for >4GB RAM and other 64-bit functionality, what would be the practical differences between x86-64 and x86 + EM64T in terms of performance?
Quote this comment #16.4 Posted by SquareSoft0 on 23 Feb 2005 - 01:25
Very little, it all goes down to the same brand differences that people base their choice on. Either way, a native x64 chip, like the Itanium2 will be my only choice for a 64-bit processor. Apparently the 32-bit socket-775 Pentium 4 processors actually have EM64T, which can be enabled by a simple edit.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #17 Posted by jon86 on 22 Feb 2005 - 17:18
I fail to see how home users are going to care whether they can stick more than 4GB of RAM in their computer. Most fairly high spec OEM computers for 'home use' only come with 512MB - 1GB RAM at this present time.
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #18 Posted by goatsniffer on 22 Feb 2005 - 21:30
2MB on pentium 4 architecture = longer pipeline = overall loss of performance unless doing system intensive tasks like audio/video/instruction optimized games.
Quote this comment #18.1 Posted by Coolme on 23 Feb 2005 - 19:42
That's right... also the L2 cache has higher latencies. (slower)
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