Anything new looming on the horizon?

[Gunner]

I've got a upgrade craving and I'm looking at the q6600 G0 but some people are talking about new penryn chips that are allegedly coming out in November. I think they're xeon server chips :/

Anyway is there anything coming soon that I should hold out for instead of the q6600?

 

[Sedako]

The first Penryn, the QX9650, is supposed to release sometime in November. This will probably become their new "Flagship" chip, and will be quite pricey. I believe the rest of the Penryns won't hit shelves until early 2008, and that's when you'll see a price drop with the earlier chips.

On the AMD side of things, their 3-core Phenoms have a projected release date of Q1 2008. I don't think we'll be seeing 45nm AMD chips until late 2008. It's either upgrade now, or wait until early 2008 for any significant lineup/price changes.

 

[Gunner]

Interesting stuff, I googled the QX9650 and found some info on intel's 2008 lineup:

Entire remaining processors wolfdale and Yorkfield, which includes seven models, will be announced in the beginning of January 2008. This Family will include three four core processors :

* Q9550 – 4 cores, frequency of 83 GHz, system bus 1333 MHz, L2 cache 12 Mbytes, TDP 95 W;
* Q9450 – 4 cores, frequency 2.66 GHz, system bus 1333 MHz, L2 cache 12 Mbytes, TDP 95 W;
* Q9300 – 4 cores, frequency 2.5 GHz, system bus 1333 MHz, L2 cache 6 Mbytes, TDP 95 W.

And four dual cores processor :

* E8500 – 2 cores, frequency 3.16 GHz, system bus 1333 MHz, L2 cache 6 Mbytes, TDP 65 W;
* E8400 – 2 cores, frequency 3.0 GHz, system bus 1333 MHz, L2 cache 6 Mbytes, TDP 65 W;
* E8300 – 2 cores, frequency 2.83 GHz, system bus 1333 MHz, L2 cache 6 Mbytes, TDP 65 W;
* E8200 – 2 cores, frequency 2.66 GHz, system bus 1333 MHz, L2 cache 6 Mbytes, TDP 65 W.

FSB 1333mhz hmm, might as well hold off and upgrade the mobo along with it too.

 

[theotherguy]

Will these be true quadcores, or dual dual-cores?

 

[Sedako]

Will these be true quadcores, or dual dual-cores?

Penryn will not be true quad core. However, the difference between true quad core and dual dual core has yet to be seen. Could be a huge difference, but most likely there won't be any substantial differences.

 

[theotherguy]

Well, valve said the new quad core technologies they were working on would only be compatible with true quad core systems

so I dunno.

Real-time raytracing will also only work on a true quad core.

 

[Asus]

Where did you hear about Valve saying new tech they are working on will only run on true quad core systems? They did that multi-core presentation at the same time Intel Kentsfield quad core chips were released. And didn't they buy a ton of Intel quads for their office when they were first released because they were very impressed by them (which are dual core 'glued together').