Enterprise Mac | Tom Yager » Heirs to the G5 throne: First, learn to tell Core from Core

July 08, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Heirs to the G5 throne: First, learn to tell Core from Core

TAGS: Design and engineering

You've seen that Intel is now delivering its new desktop and server/workstation CPUs based on the Core Microarchitecture. "Hey", you say, "Core Microarchitecture...I know that one! That's what Apple's been using to build Intel-based Macs." If that's you, you won't be moving on to our lightning round, but don't fret: you have lots of company. Despite their deceptively similar names, Core Duo (and Core Solo, a.k.a. Tiny Tim) are not built on the Core Microarchitecture. Core Duo is a modified 32-bit Pentium-M, with the primary modifications being two discrete CPUs on one physical package, 3rd-generation streaming SIMD instructions, shared Level 2 cache and virtualization technology (VT). That reads like an overhaul, but the base architecture--execution units, pipelines, registers, level 1 cache and so on--hasn't changed. Core Duo/Solo's cores match those of the Pentium-M. Only Core Microarchtecture, hereafter known simply as Core, has the new Core Microarchitecture core.

All of this coring around would be funny if weren't actually as confusing as I've portrayed it.

For sanity's sake, I'll offer a a couple of tricks that may help you distinguish among Intel CPU types as used in Macs and other PCs. For starters, here's my ranking of Intel's popular shipping CPUs in order of increasing desirability, balancing power consumption, system cost and performance: Celeron, Pentium-M, Core Solo, Pentium 4, Core Duo, Netburst Xeon, Core 2 Duo, Dual-Core Xeon Processor 5100 Series (Woodcrest). I've left off specialty parts like Pentium 4 EE, and you know what the italics in the first sentence are for.

But I think the easiest way to distinguish Core Duo and Solo from Core Microarchitecture is this: Core Microarchitecture is a 64-bit design, Core Duo/Solo is 32-bit. That's not all there is to it, nor is it necessarily the bit that matters most to the broad population of users. Still, I'd like to see Apple use this fact to cut through Core confusion the way it did so effectively with G5. G5 was a wicked chip compared to G4, and Apple bragged about its bus and cache and all, but G5 and 64 shared top billing.

The larger 64-bit Mac issue is one I'm about to tackle. But since Apple hasn't taken to applying its own branding to Intel's CPUs as it did to PowerPC, I'd like to see them do something simple with model names for the purpose of making sure that customers know what they're buying. I'd put "64" in the model names of systems that have 32 and 64-bit implementations, i.e., "iMac 64." There's no need to distinguish the workstation and server. They're 64-bit machines by convention and by competitive necessity.

To re-tease my upcoming post on the subject, Apple has no genuine precedent for a 32 to 64-bit transition. Leopard will be a whole new ball game in that regard, and it's going to rattle the rafters among Mac buyers and developers.

Posted by Tom Yager on July 8, 2006 07:15 AM

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