News for Thursday, 25 August 2005

Two days ago, Intel was presenting its roadmaps for future processors, as well as the new technologies developed to boost performance while reducing power consumption, HyperThreading remains in the dark with no information regarding the future of this technology. As a reminder, HyperThreading (HT) is a trick introduce to mimic a second core on a single core processor. If you are using a HT-enable P4, performances with some applications can be boosted between 10-20%.
If Intel does not mention HyperThreading, probably because the decision ahs already been taken to drop it, it is rather a quite normal evolution. Indeed, HT was introduced as a trick to improve performance of P4 processor at the time Intel was facing issues with power consumption and increasing clockspeed of his CPU. It was msotly a way to compensate the 31 stages pipeline of the P4.
What is making Intel extatic today is Virtualization, and not HyperThreading anymore.

Whilst DDR 2 only just replaced DDR on the market, Elpida and Hynix during the IDF presented their first RAM memories based on DDR3.
Once again, the new battlefront moved way further.
The DDR 3 technology wouldn't actually bring importants performances boosts, but rather optimize the ratio performance/energy consumptions.
Good news for our planet ecology that manufacturers at last seem to care about the energetical cost of the rising performances brought in the computing industry.
Maybe one day, our machines will be considered only according to their MFLOP/W ratio, rather than rough performances.

Intel Developer Forum 2005 has started since 2 days, and major information related to Santa-Clara giant roadmaps, strategies, architectures has already been released.
Couple of weeks ago, Intel had officially announced the EOL status of the Netburst architecture on which the current Pentium 4 are based. Intel has revealed the new technologies supporting the future processors and architectures. As we will summarize afterwards, it is a quite major turn: the MHz myth is dead, and today one should rather consider the ratio between Performance/Power (W) as a new scale to compare and evaluate performance between processors. As shown below, a roadmap for the mobile processor Yonah already displays Power consumption in parallel to CPU clockspeed. This new scale is names "performance per watt" by Intel.

If we look closer to mobile processor roadmap, one can really notice that Intel strategy is based on platforms, each platform featuring one chipset, one processor and one performance level.
Below is the roadmap describing the different technologies associated with different mobile processors that will be released till June 2006.

One can clearly see the transition between the current Sonoma architecture supporting the today's pentium M (Dothan), then it will evolved to the Napa platform with the first dual core mobile processor Yonah (65nm but still based on Pentium II and III technology) before evolving to the completely new architecture, also named "next generation power-optimized microarchitecture", featuring Napa refreshed platform associated with newly designed Merom processor, bringing 64-bit support to Intel-based notebooks.
Regarding desktop processors, Intel will introduce different platforms dedicated to different functions : home or office, desktops or servers.

The first Conroe processor should arrive mid-2006, and will be available on 2 platforms, depending on the targeted market; it will probably be different at the GPU level, either a chipset-integrated GPU, or a third party GPY from ATI or nVidia.
To finish up, one can see below the impact of both 65nm process associated to the new Intel architecture : the photo shows a Pentium 4 D (dual core 65nm) based on Netburst technology (bottom) vs. a Conroe (dual core 65 nm) based on the next generation power-optimized microarchitecture.

The new Intel architecture is a rather radical turn, since we will move from a 31 stages pipeline for the P4 D to a 14 stages pipeline for the Conroe. Such a transition will of course limit the maximal core frequency, but it will ensure a much better performance level and an improved power consumption management. In addition, Conroe core will be wider allowing more parallel design capable of issuing, executing, and retiring four instructions at once (vs three today).
From all those roadmaps, one can draw a better calendar for the future MacIntel, so the first models to appear should be :

- PowerBook based on Merom in June 2006 (possible availability in september)
- iBook based on Yonah in June 2006 (possible availability in september)
- Mac mini and eMac should also shift to Yonah by the end of 2006
- then Conroe should find its way into iMac by the end of 2006
- As expected, PowerMac and Xserve should be the last models to receive x86 processors, probably based on Whitefield by mid-2007, except if Apple is pushed to adopt x86 faster for those models (then probably Conroe) due to the slow down of R&D/production for the PPC970MP.

PS: in case there is a delay in Merom roadmap, Apple will probably launch PB with Yonah inside, then later on, move PB to Merom, while the iBook will receive the Yonah from the first generation PB x86, allowing Apple to save on hardware design.

Mac4Ever, MacADSL, MacBidouille, MacGameZone and MacGeneration are associated one more year during the AppleExpo, offering the opportunity to our readers too meet us and discuss during the AppleExpo. This year we are proposing to Mac-dedicated websites (preferentially french speaking) to meet each others with their readers and visitors at our booth named "Le Pommier" (literally Apple's Tree)
To register or to get information it is quite simple:
send an email to invite@lepommier.info (for french-speaking people). Provide your email address, mobile phone numbers and any other way to reach you as well as the url of your website. We also ask you to provide us any preferences concerning the day and the time . We will try our best to welcome you all.
PS: part of the hardmac team will also be at AppleExpo, if you want to meet us and discuss, please send an email to international@macbidouille.com or to any of the team member present at this event : linathael, kalomir, moose or Cri-cri.

nVidia with the Geforce 7800 has taken back the lead in the GPU war over his main competitor ATI that has been so far unable to release on time his new GPU supposed to replace the current Radeon X800 and X850. If rumors turn true, we should hear some news in the coming weeks. The chinese website HKEPC has published a photo which is supposed to be the first one from the R520 GPU.

But there is no additional info beside the photo, so ATI fans will have to wait longer before getting solid news about future ATI GPU.
All future GPU will probably be only available in PCI Express format, so for your Mac it is quite obvious that we will have to wait for the first MacIntel to see the first PCI Express-based GPU in Apple desktops or notebooks.

ATI has released an update for ATI Displays, now available in version 4.5.5.
This version adds support to the VERSAVISION rotating function with Tiger for the following ATI graphic cards:

RADEON X850 XT (G5)
RADEON 9800 XT (G5)
RADEON 9800 Pro (G5)
RADEON 9700 Pro (G4 FW)
RADEON 9650 (G5)
RADEON 9600 XT (G5)
RADEON 9600 Pro (G5)
RADEON 9600 (eMac)
RADEON 9600 (iMac)
RADEON 9600 (G5)
RADEON 9200 (eMac)
RADEON 9200 (Mac Mini)
RADEON 9000 Pro (G4 Mirrored Door)
Mobility RADEON 9700 (PowerBook)
Mobility RADEON 9600 (PowerBook)
Mobility RADEON 9200 (iBook)
Mobility RADEON 9000 (PowerBook)

One can notice that both retailed and OEM graphic cards are now officially supported without requiring any patches.
macosx-ati-displays-4-5-5.dmg

Fujitsu has announced the first 2.5" HD featuring 160GB storage space. This 4200-rpm 2.5" HD, named MHV2160BT, should be available, in SATA II format only, by the end of the year.
No excuse for notebook manufacturers to delay even longer adoption of SATA format vs the current ATA still found in most laptops.

Toshiba and Sony have officially stopped their discussion in order to unify both standard. Hopeless. So the war for the next generation blue laser-based optical drive is on. According to analysts, one will have to wait till 2007 to know which standard will win.