Difference between revisions of "Intel Nehalem (microarchitecture)"

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Revision as of 08:14, 10 February 2010

Initial Nehalem processors use the same 45 nm manufacturing methods as Penryn. A working system with two Nehalem processors was shown at Intel Developer Forum Fall 2007, and a large number of Nehalem systems were shown at Computex in June 2008.

The microarchitecture is named after the Nehalem Native American nation in Oregon. At that stage it was supposed to be the latest evolution of the NetBurst microarchitecture. Since the abandonment of NetBurst, the codename has been recycled and refers to a completely different project, although Nehalem still has some things in common with NetBurst. Nehalem-based microprocessors utilize higher clock speeds and are more energy-efficient than Penryn microprocessors. Hyper-Threading is reintroduced along with an L3 Cache missing from most Core-based microprocessors.

The first computer to use Nehalem-based Xeon processors was the Apple Mac Pro workstation announced on March 3, 2009. Nehalem-based Xeon EX processors for larger servers were expected in Q4 2009 based on initial announcements from Intel, but in November 2009 the launch of these processors was pushed back to the first half of 2010.

Mobile Nehalem-based processors were introduced in September 2009.

Technology

Microarchitecture of the quad-core implementation

Various sources have stated the specifications of processors in the Nehalem family:


Performance and power improvements

It has been reported that Nehalem will have a focus on performance, which accounts for the increased core size. Compared to Penryn, Nehalem will have:

  • 1.1x to 1.25x the single-threaded performance or 1.2x to 2x the multithreaded performance at the same power level
  • 30% lower power usage for the same performance
  • According to a preview from AnandTech "expect a 20–30% overall advantage over Penryn with a 10% increase in power usage."
  • Per Core, clock-for-clock, Nehalem will provide a 15–20% increase in performance compared to Penryn.

PC Watch found that a Nehalem "Gainestown" processor has 1.6x the SPECint_rate2006 integer performance and 2.4x the SPECfp_rate_2006 floating-point performance of a 3.0 GHz Xeon X5365 "Clovertown" quad-core processor.

A 2.93 GHz Nehalem "Bloomfield" system has been used to run a 3DMark Vantage benchmark and gave a CPU score of 17,966. The 2.66 GHz variant scores 16,294. A 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo E6600 scores 4,300.

AnandTech tested the Intel QuickPath Interconnect ("QPI", 4.8 GT/s version) and found the copy bandwidth using triple-channel 1066 MHz DDR3 was 12.0 GB/s. A 3.0 GHz Core 2 Quad system using dual-channel 1066 MHz DDR3 achieved 6.9 GB/s.

Overclocking will be possible with Bloomfield processors and the X58 chipset. The Lynnfield processor will use a PCH removing the need for a northbridge chipset.

The Nehalem processors are the first to incorporate the SSE 4.2 SIMD instructions, adding 7 new instructions to the SSE 4.1 set available in the Core 2 series.

Code names

Each combination of a Nehalem/Westmere processor die and package has both a separate codename and a product code. Typically, the same dies are used for uniprocessor (UP) and dual-processor (DP) servers, but using an extra QuickPath link for the inter-processor communication in the DP server variant. Where the Core microarchitecture used four different processor sockets, one for each market segment, Nehalem now uses Socket 1366 for the high-end of both UP and DP machines, and Socket 1156 for the low end UP machines. The name for the UP version of Gulftown is not yet known; its product code is 80613 and can be found in Intel's product database

Mobile Desktop UP Server DP Server MP Server
Dual-Core 45 nm Dual-Channel, PCIe, Graphics Core Auburndale canceled Havendale canceled
Dual-Core 32 nm Dual-Channel, PCIe, Graphics Core Arrandale 80617 Clarkdale 80616
Quad-Core 45 nm Dual-Channel, PCIe Clarksfield 80607 Lynnfield 80605 Jasper Forest 80612
Quad-Core 45 nm Triple-Channel Bloomfield 80601 Gainestown 80602
Six-Core 32 nm Triple-Channel Gulftown 80613 Gulftown 80614
Eight-Core 45 nm Triple-Channel Beckton 80604


Variants

These tables list all the processors of Nehalem microarchitecture to have been leaked so far. The table is ordered roughly by performance, which usually correlates with price and power. Released processors are set in bold.

Notes:


45 nm processors

Codename Market Cores
(Threads)
Socket Brand Processor No. Clock rate Turbo TDP Interfaces L3 cache Release 1k Unit Price