Intel delivers numbers for Kentsfield, Merom and Woodcrest

IDF IS UPON US once again, sunny SF calls again, but personally I am off to snowier climes instead. Luckily, as happens every spring, the moles have been singing their hauntingly beautiful mating call, a ditty that sounds eerily like the Haliburton company song, but that is neither here nor there.

The main points of IDF will be a four pronged attack on the senses, with chipper Intel staff singing along even if Eric Kim vetoed the mole hats, a big mistake in retrospect.

The first part will of course be the next gen cores, Merom, Conroe and Woodcrest. We have told you all about them previously (In no particular order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), so there is not much more to know other than performance. Let's just start out saying it is really good. Mooly Eden has been running around saying that he thinks that Intel will have a 20% speed advantage on the desktop for the rest of the year, and he is right. The problem is he doesn't mention servers.

The things you have all been waiting for are hard numbers, and Intel will be tossing those around all next week. We, being the precocious mole song interpreters that we are, have deciphered the codes, and can communicate with them in their own language. They sing to us that Woodcrest will hit 2800 in SPECint2000 and 2500 SPECfp2000. Conroe, with the higher clocked XEs will almost pip 3000 on a warm day, but on the desktop, the FP numbers will suffer from sick-bus syndrome. These chips are really going to be monsters.

So, what will they do to top that? Quad cores of course. They did the Clovertown song and dance last week to great effect, so IDF will most likely showcase Kentsfield, the desktop version. The message here is 'we are first for once, nya-nya'. Moles get that way when in love.

The next drum to bang is CMT or Chip Multithreading. They spent the last four or five years saying HT was the thing to have, it attracts moles like no other, and then they have a lineup that features zero HT parts. Ooops. So now CMT is it. The old king is dead. Long live the new king.

Then there is Viiv, this is when Intel will bang the drum, show the parts, and do the happy dance. Colour me still unimpressed, every OEM we talk to loves the money they get from the programme, but can't really put into words why anyone would want one. Either way, look for the logos everywhere.

So, four main themes, lots to do, and a new era is dawning. In four weeks to 45 days, there will be another crop of things for the moles to talk about, and their lovely song will echoing through the concrete canyons of their home city. Me, I am off to CeBIT. µ