WEB SITE Digitimes, fresh from its typhoon traumas, reckons that Intel will highlight a dual core Pentium M codenamed Napa when it heralds its future directions at the Intel Developer Forum in September.
The existence of a dual core Pentium M has been an open secret at Intel for many months - and makes a lot more sense for a desktop than throwing dual core "Smithfield" chips into the frying pan and out of the fire.
We wonder whether a dual core Smithfield will really have what it takes. Even if and when Intel moves to 65 nanometres, we suspect that passive leakage problems will be worse, rather than better.
See Intel dual core chips spring to life and also
this article.
But Intel is so committed to dual cores, particularly as AMD is so far advanced with its plans, that there's probably no stopping it. Just the other day, Intel told the INQ that dual core Itaniums and eventually multi-core versions were on the long term roadmaps.
What's the advantage of a Pentium M? One clear advantage is that the low voltage and ultra low voltage versions consume very little power indeed.
While we've been using a 900MHz ULV Centrino notebook for a year, we still haven't quite fathomed why it seems so much faster than the hulking great noisy thing that doesn't let us hear when the postman knocks on the door.
Intel claimed the original Pentium M was developed from the ground up, but we've always had our suspicious that the ground up included the rather excellent Pentium III-M, which set the gold standard for notebook Intel chips until it was cruelly knocked off its perch by the Pentium M.
Intel's Alviso family of chipsets being moved to Q1 may turn out to be a strategic shift rather than a tactical SNAFU, we suspect.
What a nice prospect. A 64-bittish Pentium M dual core with extra Prescott instructions (harrumph) and maybe a far better enhanced memory and IO system.
It looks like the crusade is finally coming to fruition. But like any crusade, it won't be without its casualties. The wholesale dual core mentality of Intel means that the entire channel including OEMs, system integrators, motherboard manufacturers and the rest will have to start huffing and puffing all over again. Still, they're used to that.
Source:
The INQ!
Linear Mode
