Intel's PIII-S Coming?
By Nils Dahl
Date: October 31, 2001
Yes, another cold has gotten me down. Part of my heritage
of immune system weakness that started in pre-school days. And my best friend is
going through work and personal problems that require my support. So I just have
not been able to approach the flaming processor situation with my usual vigor.
One neat point - the first page of Tom's Hot Spot article has a composite
picture of a Hammerdrill - either Hilti or Siemens (both German makes) boring a
deep hole in concrete. The flames are added for effect and are colored green,
typical of copper spectrum when it burns. From this picture, I can read Tom's
intent quite clearly. The entire affair smells of Intel pr work - moderately
inept due to lack of technical background in the individuals guiding the
project. The wording of both articles is full of logical flaws and obviously
incorrect assumptions. A holder of a doctorate in medicine is trained in
critical analysis and should know quite well just how weak arguments or flawed
tests can destroy one's reputation as a researcher, so I assume that the German
partner created and carried out the 'test' - but Tom put his name on the
results. Finally, both articles appear just before the nForce launch in Germany
- timed in a way that is assumed to be useful in attempting to discredit AMD
during the nForce launch.
I could dig up some details of using forward-biased semiconductor junctions for
heat sensing - the books are sitting around. But AMD has that same knowledge and
a highly credible staff to release press statements. Maybe this mess will serve
as a wake-up call to AMD, letting them know just what kinds of sabotage efforts
they are faced with.
Some big news anyway. Intel's server division is releasing that PIII-S (pinout
changed to make it unusable in existing PIII motherboards) with new motherboards
that use QUAD INTERLEAVED ddr sdram. Intel is validating the nForce memory
design and actually so scared of nForce that it has gone one step farther.
Historically, only Apple ever used quad interleaving and only in its older top
of the line designs - and I am not sure of which models featured this extra
boost, maybe the 950. See, interleaving of any memory design significantly
improves the streaming of large files and does reduce latency somewhat - when
properly implemented. Interleaving invariably works best when combined with a
sophisticated backside cache - and currently only Intel's Xeon has such a
design. So I am willing to speculate that PIII-S will appear in Xeon 'blades'
soon and will be matched with QUAD Interleaved ddr sdram also.
Anyway, I am going to let AMD fight this battle. They just might learn something
and begin preparing for even nastier tactics that are sure to come.
nils dahl
just an old man
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