Recent history of CPU

[IHAVEAQUESTION]

I am trying to catch up to what most of you might have known. I followed hardware development right up until AMD released Athlon 1.2Ghz. As you can tell, many moons have passed between then and now. I know the Core 2 duo just came out a few days ago, and that have rekindled my interest in CPU development. I just need someone to tell me what happened between Athlon and just before Core 2 Duo. I know there is Pentium 4 and Pentium M, but I want to know in more detail. Thanks to anyone who cares answering.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Well.....AMD held both the best bang for the buck and top CPU honors for quite a while. Then Conroe appeared. Now everyone is waiting for chipsets, options, and bioses to best take advantage of the new architecture. Seriously, the only value technology has is what you can DO with it. The history of CPU development is only interesting if it will get you a free beer playing trivia with other IT nerds.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Pentium 4 Willamette (original P4) debuts the same time as the Athlon 1.2GHz in 2000.

Athlon XP Palomino debuts in late 2001 and brutally smashes P4 Willamette.

Early 2002, P4 Northwood (far more superior than the Willamette) released and eventually regains performance crown from AMD at 2.4GHz. AMD counters with higher-clocked AXPs, but not enough to match with the P4s.

Late 2002, P4 3.06 with hyperthreading released and owns AMD on all fronts.

Early 2003, Northwood with 800MHz FSB and hyperthreading extends the ownage even further. Pentium M Banias released and surprised everyone with it's low clock speeds but yet great performance .

Late 2003, Athlon 64 FX and A64 S754 released. A64 more-or-less equal to the P4 but wins it in gaming apps.

Early 2004, Intel debuts a P4 blunder called Prescott. Runs lot hotter and overall performs slightly worse than Northwood. Intel hands performance crown back to AMD and won't regain it until July 2006.

Early 2004 to Early 2005. A64 gets a new Winchester core and hogher clocks, P4 gets a new socket 775, even higher clocks, even higher heat and moves to DDR2. Dual-core Pentium D Smithfield released, much improved multitasking performance over single cores but due to low clock speeds runs single-threaded stuff slower than single core CPUs. Smithfield is the hottest PC desktop CPU ever released. Pentium-M 90nm Dothan released in Mid 2004 with bigger cache and higher clocks.

Mid 2005. Just as the Pentium-D about to get a foothold, AMD counters with the excellent dual-core A64 X2. P-D relegated to budget dual-core chips from now on. Single-core A64 updated to Venice core with better integrated memory controller, SSE3 support and higher clock ceiling.

Late 2005. P4 die-shrink to 0.065nm Presler core. Runs a lot cooler than the ultra hot Smithfield and overclocks very well.

Early 2006. Intel Core Duo released, can be described as a two 0.065nm Pentium-Ms slapped together. Socket AM2 for A64/A64 X2 released in March, basically an AMD's move to more widely-supported DDR2.

Mid 2006. Intel Core Duo 2 Conroe (C2D) debuts and brutally slays AMD.

That's all.

 

[harpoon84]

Nice summary dude.

 

[IHAVEAQUESTION]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
Pentium 4 Willamette (original P4) debuts the same time as the Athlon 1.2GHz in 2000.

Athlon XP Palomino debuts in late 2001 and brutally smashes P4 Willamette.

Early 2002, P4 Northwood (far more superior than the Willamette) released and eventually regains performance crown from AMD at 2.4GHz. AMD counters with higher-clocked AXPs, but not enough to match with the P4s.

Late 2002, P4 3.06 with hyperthreading released and owns AMD on all fronts.

Early 2003, Northwood with 800MHz FSB and hyperthreading extends the ownage even further. Pentium M Banias released and surprised everyone with it's low clock speeds but yet great performance .

Late 2003, Athlon 64 FX and A64 S754 released. A64 more-or-less equal to the P4 but wins it in gaming apps.

Early 2004, Intel debuts a P4 blunder called Prescott. Runs lot hotter and overall performs slightly worse than Northwood. Intel hands performance crown back to AMD and won't regain it until July 2006.

Early 2004 to Early 2005. A64 gets a new Winchester core and hogher clocks, P4 gets a new socket 775, even higher clocks, even higher heat and moves to DDR2. Dual-core Pentium D Smithfield released, much improved multitasking performance over single cores but due to low clock speeds runs single-threaded stuff slower than single core CPUs. Smithfield is the hottest PC desktop CPU ever released. Pentium-M 90nm Dothan released in Mid 2004 with bigger cache and higher clocks.

Mid 2005. Just as the Pentium-D about to get a foothold, AMD counters with the excellent dual-core A64 X2. P-D relegated to budget dual-core chips from now on. Single-core A64 updated to Venice core with better integrated memory controller, SSE3 support and higher clock ceiling.

Late 2005. P4 die-shrink to 0.065nm Presler core. Runs a lot cooler than the ultra hot Smithfield and overclocks very well.

Early 2006. Intel Core Duo released, can be described as a two 0.065nm Pentium-Ms slapped together. Socket AM2 for A64/A64 X2 released in March, basically an AMD's move to more widely-supported DDR2.

Mid 2006. Intel Core Duo 2 Conroe (C2D) debuts and brutally slays AMD.

That's all.

Exaaaaaaaaaactly the information I was looking for. Thanks. Btw, do any of you know what x86 the Core 2 duo would be? I am guessing maybe 886 or 986? Yeah, I know it's pointless to know but I want to know

 

[BassBomb]

0.065nm? i think you mean 65nm

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
Early 2003, Northwood with 800MHz FSB and hyperthreading extends the ownage even further.

Over three years later, I still love this baby.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
Pentium 4 Willamette (original P4) debuts the same time as the Athlon 1.2GHz in 2000.

Athlon XP Palomino debuts in late 2001 and brutally smashes P4 Willamette.

Palomino's were on par with Willamettes on release.

However, time has passed, and Willamette > Palomino as SSE2 flags are more commonly used.

 

[kamel]

Wow...does that summary seem Intel biased to anyone else? Reading it, you would think that Intel processors have been better for the last five years.

 

[Zebo]

Early 2002, P4 Northwood (far more superior than the Willamette) released and eventually regains performance crown from AMD at 2.4GHz. AMD counters with higher-clocked AXPs, but not enough to match with the P4s.

Late 2002, P4 3.06 with hyperthreading released and owns AMD on all fronts.

Yea right you better go back and read the articles

Tbreds owned Northwood A's and Bartons and Northwood Bs were even... it was'nt until the real slim shady article, Northwood C, jul 2003 intel could claim superiority. And only because A64 was really late.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=1783&p=30

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: IHAVEAQUESTION

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
Pentium 4 Willamette (original P4) debuts the same time as the Athlon 1.2GHz in 2000.

Athlon XP Palomino debuts in late 2001 and brutally smashes P4 Willamette.

Early 2002, P4 Northwood (far more superior than the Willamette) released and eventually regains performance crown from AMD at 2.4GHz. AMD counters with higher-clocked AXPs, but not enough to match with the P4s.

Late 2002, P4 3.06 with hyperthreading released and owns AMD on all fronts.

Early 2003, Northwood with 800MHz FSB and hyperthreading extends the ownage even further. Pentium M Banias released and surprised everyone with it's low clock speeds but yet great performance .

Late 2003, Athlon 64 FX and A64 S754 released. A64 more-or-less equal to the P4 but wins it in gaming apps.

Early 2004, Intel debuts a P4 blunder called Prescott. Runs lot hotter and overall performs slightly worse than Northwood. Intel hands performance crown back to AMD and won't regain it until July 2006.

Early 2004 to Early 2005. A64 gets a new Winchester core and hogher clocks, P4 gets a new socket 775, even higher clocks, even higher heat and moves to DDR2. Dual-core Pentium D Smithfield released, much improved multitasking performance over single cores but due to low clock speeds runs single-threaded stuff slower than single core CPUs. Smithfield is the hottest PC desktop CPU ever released. Pentium-M 90nm Dothan released in Mid 2004 with bigger cache and higher clocks.

Mid 2005. Just as the Pentium-D about to get a foothold, AMD counters with the excellent dual-core A64 X2. P-D relegated to budget dual-core chips from now on. Single-core A64 updated to Venice core with better integrated memory controller, SSE3 support and higher clock ceiling.

Late 2005. P4 die-shrink to 0.065nm Presler core. Runs a lot cooler than the ultra hot Smithfield and overclocks very well.

Early 2006. Intel Core Duo released, can be described as a two 0.065nm Pentium-Ms slapped together. Socket AM2 for A64/A64 X2 released in March, basically an AMD's move to more widely-supported DDR2.

Mid 2006. Intel Core Duo 2 Conroe (C2D) debuts and brutally slays AMD.

That's all.

Exaaaaaaaaaactly the information I was looking for. Thanks. Btw, do any of you know what x86 the Core 2 duo would be? I am guessing maybe 886 or 986? Yeah, I know it's pointless to know but I want to know

It would be the 986.

 

[pxa270]

Btw, do any of you know what x86 the Core 2 duo would be? I am guessing maybe 886 or 986? Yeah, I know it's pointless to know but I want to know

Many would consider every Intel x86 after the original 1995 Pentium Pro a 686, with the possible exception of the Netburst CPUs, see e.g. www.sandpile.org.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: kamel
Wow...does that summary seem Intel biased to anyone else? Reading it, you would think that Intel processors have been better for the last five years.

Nope, seems alright to me.

Athlon/Athon XP -> Willamette P4
Northwood P4 -> Athlon XP
Athlon 64 -> Northwood/Prescott P4
A64 X2 -> P4-D
C2D -> A64 X2

I think he got it spot on.