EggXpert

Hey guys,

Intel has agreed to answer questions from the Xpert community & we’re psyched!
We know you guys have some questions you’re curious to ask, so feel free to post ‘em up here. Similar to the nVidia interview, they can’t talk about specific products that haven’t been released yet, but they can talk about the underlying technology, etc. To make this interview successful, we’d love to hear your voice on this. Keep in mind, we’ve only got about a week (two weeks tops) to compile your questions, so post asap to make sure yours will make the cutoff!  I'll post an update at the cutoff, so you guys know.

PS – Thanks again to those who participated in the nVidia interview by submitting questions.
Part 1 can be viewed here, and Part 2 will be posted at the end of this month.

Try to keep this thread about Intel...if you have nvidia-specific comments, make sure to post in the nvidia thread.

Thanks guys! 

EDIT:  Ok guys, the open questioning session has officially ended. 
Stay tuned for the interview! 

-ning 

Wow!  Awesome!

I'll have to think up of some questions as I don't have any right now.... 

What are their thoughts on the future? 8 or 12 cores or are they thinking that they will improve the current technology before going to core #

EDIT:

Also, what technologies are they looking into to over come the current limitations of their hardware. Could we eggxpect photon cores (using light instead of electricity) or are they thinking along the lines of using different materials?

 

Here's mine:

With ATI now a wholly owned subsidiary of your single notable competitor in the CPU market, why has your company continued to produce chipsets compatible with CrossFire instead of starting towards a collaborative relationship with nVidia? Basically, why continue to hand revenue to your competitor when both nVidia and Intel make better products than AMD/ATI? (this is my humble opinion)

Could you also explain why Ron Fosner seems to have no understanding of how modern graphics cards work?

Ron Fosner:

“The fact of the matter is that you’re going to have one graphics card, you may have a dual graphics card, but you’re not going to have a four graphics card or eight graphics card system,”

The latest nVidia card, the 9800GTX, has 128 discrete processing "cores." I know y'all are trying to hype Larrabee, but this is silly.

Number 3: Why does Intel believe that moving into 8 virtual cores and then presumably 16 virtual cores over the next few years is going to allow the CPU graphics ability to jump ahead of nVidia, whose many-core GPUs are already highly adaptable and programmable? Do you expect nVidia to be unable to incorporate ray-tracing elements into their GPUs as the technology becomes easier to manage? I understand you can't answer specifics about Larrabee, I'm really just wondering why I should be so impressed with this.

ps: I love my Q6600 and you guys make the best CPUs on the market for the gamer/enthusiast. I'm just highly skeptical about this little foray into the graphics market  when your current IGP offerings are, well, pretty much useless for modern games and 3-d applications.

Why is there such a rush to make multi-core processors when there is no software out at the moment that can utilize more than one core? I've got a Q6600 myself, but only because I figured the software technology for it would've caught up sooner. Why not work on destroying AMD for a while until software catches up?

Also, have you put any consideration into purchasing AMD? 

Are you considering making Tri-Core processors or looking into highly OCable processors?

Um, just too note, there are actually a few hundred multi-core applications out there...All of which can fully utilize more then one core...

Respectfully,

PROACEX1

We don't need details, but how will Intel ever get a processor to run graphics like a graphics card. Even 8 or 16 cores running at a high speed can't compare to running 128 stream processors on a GPU. This articlel from Tom's Hardware describe an event where a Nehalm demo was compared to one run by Nvidia.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-gpu-physics-engine-running,5194.html

 

Yeah, I got a question for Intel. Can they push the production of Larrabee up to early 2009 so I can get a Bloomfield with Tylersburg and Larrabee.  nVidia is really getting arrogant.  In my humble opinion, nVidia should beg Intel for forgiveness.  :)  Seriously nVidia's CEO is just asking for bankruptcy.    Anyways, I really hate how nVidia won't give Tylersburg Sli support.  It sort of makes us all depend on nVidia's crappy chipset designers for a motherboard.  I guess I'll have to look for some sort of single card solution to replace my sli set up huh.  I'm fed up with nVidia.

I would like to know if intel is going to yet again follow amd and if they are going to go to a native 4 core processor instead of just poping 2 dual cores togather like they do now?

 

I have a couple of questions. I want to know how are they preparing for the Nehalm chips. Will it make me upgrade my still new Q6700? What software will support it? Is it going to me more expensive? Also I my second question is for the workstation line of motherboards. I like the motherboard that is in the Apple Mac Pro because of the adjacent PCI-e slots (good for Pro Audio DAWs like Pro Tools HD systems that has cards that needs to have at least three adjacent slots to each other). Does Intel has plans to release a similar motherboard for the DIY market. It not, can you guys consider it. I really would like to see this happen.

 

PS good job Intel. Keep up the good work.

wow, that is cool.

i do want to know more about its 32nm cpu  and its gpu-in-cpu chips. when will it be available ?

Nice, an interview with Intel!

My question:

 

Your recent Skulltrail platform looks great! Will any type of Quad or Tri-Socket Platform be an option to enthusiasts down the road? 

I’m still enjoying my q6600 in the mean time! 

 

idk if this has been asked already and i dont feel like looking through all of these responces,

Are there any plans to make a platform similiar to AMD's Spider Platform where the Processor, GPU and the Motherboard are manufactured by Intel...and unlike skulltrail will it be affordable to the average gamer.....and going off of that are there any intentions of Intel making there own GPU's other than ther IGP's?

I've got another one:

What do you think it would take to get nVidia to pony up SLI compatibility specs so your much more talented motherboard chipset designers can make native SLI motherboards? Would you be willing to pay that price or do you think it would hurt your business producing Larrabee chips?

I find it odd that we are being really cruel to Intel while there were so many softball questions thrown to nVidia. KC sent them a couple of easy ones, of course, the first of which I bet they will respond to by saying "no, we don't intend to produce broken quad-core CPUs and then sell them for higher prices."
 

Will I have to buy a new motherboard if I upgrade to a Nehalam processor or will a Socket 775 that's compatible with a Q6600 work?

Keep the questions coming guys.  

With Larabee coming up in 2009, do you plan on continuing afterward and becoming a GPU creator aswell? Or possibly competing with NVidia and ATi by combining both, yet actually have high end graphics capabilities as opposed to your current IGP?

Here's a few on current tech that that might be informative: (I feel like I should pitch a few softballs)

Could you give us a quick run-down on the difference between base FSB and rated FSB, and why is it that you use rated FSB as a specification for the interface with the motherboard when base FSB and total mhz reflect something closer to how the chip is actually operating?

What exactly is a stepping architecture, and what made the G0 Q6600 so much more efficient than the B3 model?

My CPU is pretty important to me, and I like to keep it in safe temperature zones. It seems to me that Intel's integrated digital thermal sensor is probably more reliable than the sensors on the motherboard, but I'm not sure how to get the most accurate reading from it. Is there a program that Intel recommends that will identify the correct temperature from the DTS?

Here's a question

Intel how does your multi-core architecture differ from AMD, what makes your cores better to purchase? Is software coming out to have extra cores that are not being used in an application to be put to somewhere else on the system?

Dear Intel: why is everything associated with your products so expensive?

 

Question:

What is Intel doing to advance and support the development of multithreaded apps including video games?

 

first and foremost...are you hiring?

second...would you be willing to give a burnout such as myself an emplyment opp?

and lastly not to beat the dead snake but i'm curious as to why your company is focusing more on multi-core rather than higher speeds untill more software can benefit from 4 or even 8 cores

*Cough* Seeing cincyguy's post leads me to elaborate a bit more on his third question... *Cough*

Ok, long before the golden age of Conroe's, you guy's had something known as the Netburst architecture, which is what the P4's were based off of...Way back then, Intel's P4's were always achieving ever higher stock gigahertz, and it kept on going faster and faster...The downside of this is that it also got hotter and hotter, even when the P4's got a die shrink (First Willamette, then Northwood, then Prescotts [Prescott and Prescott 2M], and even Ceder Mill)...The issue of this is that a single core could become extremely fast, and it's gigahertz could increase, but even with an ever on going die shrinks and new technological innovations, you guy's (Intel) ran into the same problem IBM did years before when they took the same route...Moore's law states that "the number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit is increasing exponentially, doubling approximately every two years" and IBM essentially tried this thread and couldn't continue with it, just like Intel did with the P4, but the issues here aren't just heat, or are they?

Other things speculated to be limitations is material used in building the processer (Silicon is ineffecient, essentially), or it requiring to much wattage for the performance, and many other supposed issues...So what does Intel say about this issue?

Also, back during the day's of the P4, Intel tried something known as "Hyperthreading" which is essentially splitting a core's processes so that it can concentrate on two task at once without needing another core...This eventually led to Intel following the same route as IBM did way back, and now we're going multi-core instead of higher processing speed (gigahertz)...How is incorporating Hyperthreading into Nehalem CPUs going to actually help with the performance, when multi-core is already so much more effecient? (This is much along the same lines as Root's question)

Also, why isn't Intel able to split up the individual processing cores into more then just two threads? Why not three, or four, or five?

Next question(s): Intel's upcoming ultra-low power x86 processer codenamed "Silverthorne" known formally as Atom, will be used inthe next generation of subnotebooks (dubbed "netbooks"); the issue is, how will it compete with VIA's Isaiah processer, and exactly how is the new design going to help it do this? Also, any hints as to whether it'll be a fully operational CPU like it's Conroe cousin, or will it be cut down (or will it be more like VIA's Isaiah, with superscalar pipelines, virtualization extensions, a fast FPU, speculative execution, ect?) compared to desktop CPUs? Is it a completely new design, or is the architecture just a tweaked Conroe design?

I'm looking forward to the answers to these questions, along with many others here, especially MrMonroe and Root's questions...

Respectfully,

PROACEX1

I share a lot of the same considers that MrMonroe has in regards to the Intel/nVIDIA relationship and put simply I want to know what Intel wants. I does Intel want to work with nVIDIA to bring great products to consumers or fight nVIDIA for it's market share? Something to consider before you (Intel) answer is I plain to make sure that this same kind of question is asked of nVIDIA and if you both say that you want to work with each other that would raise a lot of questions about why you (Intel) have never worked that well with nVIDIA (we will start wondering who is lying).

Yet please don't get wrong Intel, you make awesome products and the reason why I emphasis these questions is as a consumer I'm considered for your standing because if you (Intel) take a major blow in the end consumers will to. This being said if you (Intel) fight nVIDIA to much for the gamer market neither you (Intel) nor nVIDIA will get the gamer market, AMD/ATI will and that would be a real waste of your time as well as the consumer's time.

Reactor89