ПРОЦЕССОРЫ

Томас Пабст,  27 августа 2001 Страница:   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Pentium 4's Way Into The Market

When Intel launched its Pentium 4 processor in November 2000 the world wasn't quite sure what to think about this new 'net bursting' and 'rapid executing' CPU. Pentium 4's completely new architecture presented as many highlights as it showed shortcomings and the benchmarks revealed a rather inhomogeneous picture. While Intel's flagship was able to shine in some test applications, it looked pretty sad in others. Overall, it was utterly unable to completely outclass its No. 1 competitor, AMD's Athlon processor.

Pentium 4 Optimized Software

The most important features of Pentium 4's architecture are probably its 3.2 GB/s quad-pumped Front Side Bus, its Instruction Trace Cache, the Rapid Execution Engine and the SSE2-Instruction Engine. Each of those new features requires wisely optimized software to give Pentium 4 a real advantage. The fast processor bus wants to be fed and the trace cache as well as the rapid execution engine with its double-pumped ALUs and AGUs don't fair too well with current software. It goes without saying that SSE2 can only bite once software was at least compiled with a compiler that generates SSE2-instructions.

Intel is of course working hard on pushing software developers into implementing code optimizations for Pentium 4, but those guys don't feel particularly hard-pressed as long as the majority of users is using Pentium III or Athlon processors and only a small minority is owning Pentium 4 machines. Still, Pentium 4 enhancements are slowly finding their way into graphics chip drivers, games and professional applications, so that the future looks bright enough for P4.

feed_id: 6177 pattern_id: 2818

Страница:   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

СОДЕРЖАНИЕ |Одной страницей|Версия для печати

Pentium 4's Way Into The Market Pentium 4 Optimized Software Clock Speed Doesn't Just Sell Well What We Need Is More Than Just Speed The Sense Or Nonsense Of High Speed Processors Improving Pentium 4's Attractiveness VIA - Helping Or Spoiling? Pentium 4 Gets A New Socket Just Around The Corner Benchmarking Benchmark Setup Benchmark Results Pricing [Updated] Conclusion  Обсуждение в Клубе Экспертов THG