Post #242,363
1/24/06 8:54:50 PM
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Ouch!
[link|http://geek.com/news/geeknews/2006Jan/bch20060123034350.htm|http://geek.com/news...0060123034350.htm] Still, the Core Duo and Core Solo processors are just out of the gates, and this high number of immediate errata should leave one a little chilled, I'd say. Releasing a brand new processor with 34 known errors seems almost criminal to me, especially with some of the more obnoxious ones highlighted above. Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #242,501
1/25/06 9:11:43 PM
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The number of "show stoppers" is disgusting!
Shame, Intel, shame!
Alex
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell
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Post #242,504
1/25/06 9:18:56 PM
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Shame on Apple too.
They should have gone with AMD for multiple reasons.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #242,511
1/25/06 9:55:30 PM
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AMD has issues too
[link|http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/25759.pdf|60+ Errata] for the Athlon 64.
Darrell Spice, Jr. Trendy yet complex\nPeople seek me out - though they're not sure why\n[link|http://spiceware.org/gallery/ArtisticOverpass|Artistic Overpass] [link|http://www.spiceware.org/|SpiceWare]
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Post #242,512
1/25/06 10:03:19 PM
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Over what period of time?
The Intel has power consumption, heat, and cost issues as well.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #242,513
1/25/06 10:08:51 PM
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In laptops?
I haven't done much reading on this recently, but my gut feeling is that AMD is still catching up with Intel on laptop CPU power consumption, chipsets, and functionality. Laptops are very important to Apple, so it's not surprising that they went with Intel (notwithstanding AMD's desktop performance and headroom advantages at the moment).
[googlie-goo]
[link|http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28624|Charlie seems to agree.]
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #242,514
1/25/06 10:11:17 PM
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True, I was thinking more of the desktops.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #242,555
1/26/06 12:27:59 PM
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The way I've heard it...
...is that Apple is more interested in Intel due to the chips Intel makes that are used in the IPod - that those represent a much more lucrative market than Apple's computers do.
When somebody asks you to trade your freedoms for security, it isn't your security they're talking about.
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Post #242,586
1/26/06 3:35:12 PM
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Your sources are dreaming
and need to do some real research.
I don't know of any Intel chips that are currently used in the iPod. First, this doesn't make sense: the only thing Intel currently makes that might be used in an iPod is the Xscale processor, which is frankly overkill. No surprise, iPods don't use XScale, and probably never will.
Second, tear down analysis shows no sign of any Intel chips:
[link|http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=172303152|http://www.eetimes.c...ticleID=172303152]
[link|http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=171100335|http://www.eetimes.c...ticleID=171100335]
[link|http://www.eetimes.com/news/design/technology/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=171100127|http://www.eetimes.c...ticleID=171100127]
[link|http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=60403270|http://www.eetimes.c...rticleID=60403270]
The only chips likely to go into future iPods are flash memory from the joint Micron/Intel deal (which Apple prepaid something like $1.25 billion), and there's no reason for Apple to use Intel x86 processors just to get (currently non-existent) Intel NAND flash, which Samsung and Toshiba are quite happy to supply.
--Tony
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Post #242,525
1/26/06 1:46:00 AM
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34 is pretty low, actually.
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
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Post #242,531
1/26/06 8:24:06 AM
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Immediately after release?
Because that's the crux of the article: not that the number is high, but that it's that high only 20 days after the chip was first released.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #242,547
1/26/06 10:55:01 AM
1/26/06 10:55:51 AM
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before, actually
from the [link|http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/24/1537231|discussion at /.] it appears that the errata is found before hand by Intel so the compilers and/or microcode can have the "work arounds" built into them. 20 days?
(Score:5, Insightful)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24, @10:32AM (#14548983)
It's a little disohnest to use the phrasing "Core Duo chip has 34 known issues found in the 20 days since the launch of the iMac Core Duo."
Most of these bugs were found well before the release of Core Duo. Many of the bugs are listed as having been observed by Intel only. That means the verficiation teams did hit these issues, either with very bizarre code setup, or doing something that's probably not technically legal anyway. Odds of seeing most of it in an end-user platform are very unlikely.
It's normal to not fix silicon bugs
(Score:5, Informative)
by Theovon (109752) Alter Relationship on Tuesday January 24, @10:48AM (#14549160)
As an ASIC designer, I have produced my fair share of silicon bugs. Chips are expensive to produce, making bugs expensive to fix. As a result, chip designers (even ones with deep pockets like Intel) do not look at bugs as something to FIX, but rather as something to MASK. I don't mean to hide it from people (although that does happen), but to make it not a bug by working around it.
Unless the bug is so fatal that you can't work around it, or the bug could potentially cost lives, the primary solution is to work around it. Either you write driver code to avoid the bug, or you find some other cheap solution. Sometimes, it's a simple matter of removing a feature from your marketing literature.
Intel's typical means to mask processor bugs is microcode. This hurts performance, but they can typically create a workaround that routes everything around the bug. I can't read the article (it's slashdotted), but I'm sure that by saying they won't fix some bugs, they're saying that they won't respin the silicon but rather mask the bug in some other way.
Listing the bugs (and not fixing them in this version) is an appropriate thing for Intel to do.
(I'm no Intel fanboy. I think they're bastards. But this is NOT an example of them being bastards.) Darrell Spice, Jr. Trendy yet complex\nPeople seek me out - though they're not sure why\n[link|http://spiceware.org/gallery/ArtisticOverpass|Artistic Overpass] [link|http://www.spiceware.org/|SpiceWare]
Edited by SpiceWare
Jan. 26, 2006, 10:55:51 AM EST
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