Platform Trends: Intel Goes To New Extremes

Intel is certainly turning the screws on AMD. This week, the processor colossus launched a double-barreled assault on the desktop and mobile markets, with two CPUs that set new performance records in their market segments -- and hit AMD as the underdog grimly enters its ninth month without a quad-core competitor, with the Phenom still months away.

The Core 2 Extreme QX6850 hikes quad-core desktop performance to new heights, while the Core 2 Extreme X7800 brings Intel's Extreme brand's enthusiast mindset to high-end notebook designs. Both products are impressive in their own right, but the main point is that Intel continues to push its market advantage and widen the performance gap between the fastest AMD and Intel processors.

Extreme, But Not Extremely Portable

Intel introduced the Extreme -- formerly Extreme Edition -- label as a method of differentiating its fastest flagship CPUs from the AMD competition. The brand began with the Pentium 4, followed by a few Pentium D-based models, and Intel has maintained its presence in the Core 2 Duo era.

The first Extreme Edition processors featured a modified design that included a Level 3 cache, but more recent models have stuck with their siblings' base architecture while ramping up clock speeds (as AMD has done with its Athlon 64 FX series). Price is one of the more notable constants in the Intel Extreme line, as each desktop chip has debuted at over $1,000 retail (typically $999 for OEM quantity buyers), with some reaching well into four figures.

The fact that the Extreme line has hitherto been solely for desktops makes the announcement of the Core 2 Extreme X7800, or what Intel bills as the world's highest-performing mobile processor, an intriguing development. The Core 2 Extreme X7800 is a dual-core CPU with a clock speed of 2.6GHz, an 800MHz front-side bus, and 4MB of shared L2 cache. True to the Extreme tradition, this 65-nanometer-process CPU will give speed freaks total freedom to overclock, without the limiting locked ratios found on other Core 2-based processors.

The option to overclock sounds good on paper, but its applicability in the notebook world is questionable. This particular processor is already running at 2.6GHz, so would pushing it to 2.7GHz or 2.8GHz truly be appealing in a power-conscious, heat-fearing laptop market? And that's not even bringing up the fact that the graphics subsystem, not CPU power, is still the performance bottleneck in current portable gaming PCs. The retail price isn't exactly low, either, although the Intel 1KU price of $851 is a bargain compared to previous Extreme models.

In some ways, this announcement is bit of flash and dash. Intel already offers a 65-nanometer Core 2 Duo T7700 mobile processor at 2.4GHz, using the same 800MHz bus and 4MB of cache. The company sells the T7700 for just over $500, marking a cost difference of over $300 for the extra 200MHz and overclockability of the Core 2 Extreme X7800. Price aside, this CPU makes absolutely no sense for conventional notebooks, but might find a home in 17-inch gaming behemoths such as the Dell XPS M1710. These desktop-replacement leviathans have the real estate and custom hardware necessary for such a heavy-duty CPU, with heavy price tags to match.

An Extreme Step Above the QX6800?

Intel has been very prolific in pumping out Core 2 Extreme models. The new Core 2 Extreme QX8850 marks the fourth such foray into the desktop hardcore market in a year, and the third quad-core model. It follows the initial 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo X6800 and the 2.66GHz and 2.93GHz Core 2 Quad QX6700 and QX6800, respectively. Quad-core is where the enthusiast action is right now, so Intel continues to emphasize its Extreme brand over the tamer, mainstreamer Core 2 Quad.

As you can infer from its model number, the QX6850 is not a quantum leap over previous models. The base architecture is consistent with previous quad-core LGA775 chips, with two "Conroe" cores including 2x4MB of Level 2 cache on a single processor substrate.

The new top of the line's 3.0GHz clock speed is barely higher than the 2.93GHz of the Core 2 Extreme QX6800, but that's only part of the story: The processor bus speed has also seen a boost, from the 1066MHz of previous models to a full 1333MHz. This naturally translates into higher performance, as processor bandwidth jumps significantly as theoretical memory bandwidth does.

This is what is referred to as a "free upgrade," where the processor is virtually equivalent to existing models but the platform itself accounts for higher performance. In this case, Intel's planned transition from DDR-2 to DDR-3 system memory starts to make more sense at 1333MHz than at previous processors' 1066MHz.

A higher processor bus speed means additional requirements for memory bandwidth, and although dual-channel DDR-2/800 will still suffice at this level, high-speed DDR-3 does offer higher performance as bus speeds increase. Another advantage to keeping the same clock speed is that thermal and power requirements remain consistent: The 3.0GHz Extreme QX6850 has a thermal design power of 130 watts, exactly in line with the 2.93GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6800.

Just the Tip of the Iceberg

These Intel announcements arrive on the cusp of another major shift in processor and platform architectures. Intel is expected to release an even faster Core 2 Extreme notebook processor when introducing its 45-nanometer-process "Penryn" line of dual- and quad-core CPUs. For its part, AMD has set August as the date for its quad-core Opteron debut, with the Phenom quad- and dual-core desktop models hopefully not far behind. These are exciting times -- overall price/performance ratios are exceptional right now, and should only get better throughout the rest of 2007.