Penryn is the specific codename a 45nm shrink of the Conroe core, but the codename may also be used to describe the entire product family. Early last year Intel announced it would optically shrink to the next process node every two years. Staggered one year apart, the company would also announce a new microarchitecture. This philosophy of shrink followed by architecture revision will undergo its first real milestone with the node shrink from 65nm to 45nm Penryn. One year after the 45nm Penryn shrink, Intel is also expected to announce its next-generation microarchitecture successor, Nehalem.
Intel claims the upcoming Penryn will fit 410 million transistors for the dual-core model, and 820 million transistors for the quad-core variants -- dual-core Conroe utilizes just 298 million transistors. Intel's 45nm SRAM shuttle chip announced last year had a little over 1 billion transistors and fit on a 119mm^2 package. However, the initial Penryn quad-core processors will use a multi-die packaging, so it's realistic to expect only 410 million transistors per die at launch.
The optical shrink allows the engineers to boost clock speed, but the additional real estate means the company can put more logic on the processor as well. "Most of that transistor savings is spent on increasing the cache over Core 2" added Smith.
Conroe added additional SSE instructions at launch, but Intel claimed at Fall IDF 2006 that SSE4 was specifically reserved for Nehalem. Intel's guidance for Penryn claims the family will feature "New Intel SSE4 instructions expand capabilities and performance for media/HPC applications."
When asked about the effects of SSE4 on Penryn, Smith responded to DailyTech claiming "We're seeing excellent double digit performance [percentage] gains on multimedia applications."
Penryn is still not without its mysteries; a primary concern for enthusiasts is motherboard and socket support. Penryn will launch on Socket 775 meaning existing motherboards can physically harbor the new CPU but electrically might not. "Motherboard developers will have to make some minor changes to support [Penryn]. We can't guarantee that a person could just plug the chip into every motherboard on the market today." However, Smith also claimed the Penryn boot test that grabbed so many headlines last week occurred on unmodified hardware that included a notebook, several desktop motherboards and several server motherboards.
SourceL DailyTech
Intel claims the upcoming Penryn will fit 410 million transistors for the dual-core model, and 820 million transistors for the quad-core variants -- dual-core Conroe utilizes just 298 million transistors. Intel's 45nm SRAM shuttle chip announced last year had a little over 1 billion transistors and fit on a 119mm^2 package. However, the initial Penryn quad-core processors will use a multi-die packaging, so it's realistic to expect only 410 million transistors per die at launch.
The optical shrink allows the engineers to boost clock speed, but the additional real estate means the company can put more logic on the processor as well. "Most of that transistor savings is spent on increasing the cache over Core 2" added Smith.
Conroe added additional SSE instructions at launch, but Intel claimed at Fall IDF 2006 that SSE4 was specifically reserved for Nehalem. Intel's guidance for Penryn claims the family will feature "New Intel SSE4 instructions expand capabilities and performance for media/HPC applications."
When asked about the effects of SSE4 on Penryn, Smith responded to DailyTech claiming "We're seeing excellent double digit performance [percentage] gains on multimedia applications."
Penryn is still not without its mysteries; a primary concern for enthusiasts is motherboard and socket support. Penryn will launch on Socket 775 meaning existing motherboards can physically harbor the new CPU but electrically might not. "Motherboard developers will have to make some minor changes to support [Penryn]. We can't guarantee that a person could just plug the chip into every motherboard on the market today." However, Smith also claimed the Penryn boot test that grabbed so many headlines last week occurred on unmodified hardware that included a notebook, several desktop motherboards and several server motherboards.
SourceL DailyTech
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