Nehalem is the next microarchitecture from Intel. Although much have been borrowed from Penryn, the overall architecture is new. Over time more and more bits of information have been revealed, we get a better overview of what to expect and in about six months the first benchmarks should start to appear. Until then we will have to settle with the bits Intel supplies us with, and of course the leaks. Over at HKEPC they’ve now published a five page article covering Nehalem; the architecture, the processors and their chipsets.
The Nehalem architecture will introduce several technical innovations not previously available with modern Intel processors, such as integrated memory and PCI Express controllers, the QuickPath Interface (QPI) and the return of HyperThreading (HT). HT has been improved though and will be more efficient than the older equivalent found with high-end Pentium 4 and Xeon processors.
Nehalem-based processors will be available in quad- (Gainestown, Bloomfield) and octo-core (Beckton) configurations. Add HT to that and you realize that the high-end processors will be able to execute up to 16 threads simultaneously. Intel is also planning mainstream quad-cores (Gainestown) with lower frequencies, and only two DDR3 channels, whereas Bloomfield sports three.
There will also be a processor where one of the regular cores have been replaced by a graphics processing unit, code-named Havendale. According to Intel, this will not only save power but also boost the potential performance of the GPU by a two-digit factor, compared to current chipset-GPU solutions. This is of course a solution designed for the mobile market and slated for Q2 2009.
The overall performance improvement ranges from 10-25% in single-threaded applications, and 20-100% in multithreaded applications, compared to Penryn. At the same time it consumes up to 30% less power at the same performance level as Penryn (data from sources at motherboard manufacturers). By the looks of its, Nehalem is all about DDR3, even mainstream processors will have integrated DDR3 controllers. Mainstream also means quad-core, Nehalem is a native quad-core architecture.
The current launch schedule says that we will see Bloomfield and the Tylersburg chipset in Q4 2008. This setup uses Socket 1366, while the performance and mainstream processors arriving Q1 2009 uses Socket 1160 and the Ibexpeak chipset family. The additional pins are most likely due to the additional memory controller. Bloomfield/Tylersburg is not an exclusive enthusiast platform though, Intel will launch mainstream processors for Socket 1366 too.
Additional information on the chipsets and the whole platforms, plus slides, can be found over at HKEPC (translated).
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