Nehalem - Everything You Need to Know about Intel's New Architecture
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 3, 2008 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Turbo Mode
This last feature Intel actually introduced with mobile Penryn. The idea was that if you have a dual-core mobile Penryn only running a single threaded application, one core is completely idle, and the total chip TDP is lower than what it was designed for. Intel sought to use these conditions to actually increase the clock speed of the active core by a single speed bump. Unfortunately on mobile Penryn the performance benefit of Turbo mode just wasn’t utilized, for one, Vista always bumps a single thread around on multiple cores so the idle core always alternated between the cores on a chip.
The other issue was that it’s rare that you only had a single thread running on your machine, Vista would always spawn additional threads that would keep your mobile Penryn from entering Turbo mode.
Nehalem does things a little better. Not only can it enable Turbo mode if all cores are idle but it can also enable Turbo mode if only some of the cores are idle, or if all cores are active but not at full utilization.
All Nehalem processors will at least be able to go up a single clock step (133MHz) in Turbo mode, even if all cores are active, just as long as the PCU detects that the TDP hasn’t been exceeded. If the TDP levels are low enough, or the cores idle enough, Nehalem can actually increase clock speeds by more than one clock step. Right now it looks like the only bump you’ll see is 266MHz, which is still quite mild, but Intel appears to have lofty goals for Turbo mode with Nehalem.
Future versions could increase the amount of “turbo” you could get out of Nehalem, and you can imagine situations where it would increase its clock speed more than just 266MHz. The idea is that Intel could actually capitalize on how overclockable its CPUs are and safely increase performance for those who aren’t avid overclockers.
Don’t worry though, Turbo mode can be disabled completely if you’d like.
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qurious69ss - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
You sound like one of those sad fanboys from amdzone. Tell dimentia to get a life.X1REME - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
wow, this whole cpu is a copy of a amd cpu and you expect amd fan boys to not get amd with you, secondly this fantasy is baseless until you can compare it to an offering from the AMD team (Shanghai & Deneb). AMD is still KING with there OPTERON and most likely will be in the future with there new cpu coming soon for the server and also for the desktop.DigitalFreak - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
Learn to spell, you goober.X1REME - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
OK DORK, am sure you have never made a mistake (there=their) Duh. I bet your some kid all hyped up for the i7 who wishes Xmas comes early lol. Anyway it’s not a desktop chip, it’s a sever chip DUH. It’s meant to compete with the AMD Opteron chip (the best). Although Opteron will lose its crown, it won’t be to i7 but to Shanghai (AMD new latest and greatest). And like I said b4, Deneb will clear anything up out of place.The reason amd does not grab a microphone and star shouting at the top of their voice is because amd doesn't have the resources and money in comparison with Intel. If it reveals too much about its future strategy and Intel likes that strategy (like the Opteron, HT, On-board mem etc) there is a big theoretical chance that Intel could take this idea and deliver a product well before AMD. So it’s not over until amd says its.
snakeoil - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - link
nehalem fails,it was supposed to be superior to core 2, intel was against the wall this time, why?, because, the old front bus architecture was lagging more more in the server arena and becoming a bottleneck ,compared to hypertransport, so intel is forced to abandon the front side bus, but the strong point of core 2 is that because you don't have and integrated memory controller you can stuff the processor with a huge L2 cache.so, nehalem sucks in gaming,there is no way that the enthusiast is going to pay more for a processor that produce less fps that they actually have.
and the hyperthreading is a risky move, hypertrheading is known por being power hungry, and although produce gains in some applications,some servers applications actually runs slower, so in many cases the old hyperthreading had to be disabled.
nehalem is crippled for the enthusiast,and the regular user.
nuff said.
AssBall - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - link
You musta missed where Anand says several times its not intended for better gaming? It will be significantly faster than Penryn for multithreaded applications. I guess I don't see how this makes it "fail". Maybe in your fantasy world where 90% of the CPU market are "enthusiasts".snakeoil - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - link
enthusiasts drive the market you fruityassUnlimitedInternets36 - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - link
LOL this year Satan err Santa is going to take away your PC because you don't deserve to have one anymore You Jaded nerd.Gasaraki88 - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
Thanks! I never knew there was a expert on CPU design in the house. I've learn so much from your well researched, tested and thought out comment...pool1892 - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
first of all the enthusiast market is a very tiny niche, it would not kill intel if you were right.but you are not. the L2 of penryn (and banias) is much more like the nehalem L3 than the nehalem L2. and if you have a single threaded game it now has 8mb at similar latencies, but with a second buffer, the 256k L2, and a MUCH smaller cache miss penalty.
concerning hyperthreading: please read the article first. nehalem switches off what it does not need, powerwise. and about fiftytwo other very vaild arguments.