Intel reveals Penryn performance figures

But the chip maker warns that prototype silicon may not give an accurate indication of what will be achievable by the shipped product

Intel today fleshed out performance expectations for its next-generation 45 nanometer “Penryn” processor architecture, but warned that prototype silicon may not give a wholly accurate estimation of what can be achieved by the shipping product.

Compared to quad-core Xeon chips currently shipping, the new chips will deliver a performance boost of up to 45 percent in high-performance computing (HPC) environments and 25 percent for Java applications.

Penryn desktops will see performance increases of about 15 percent for image-related applications and over 40 percent for video encoding using Intel’s SSE4-optimised video encoders, added the chip maker, which demonstrated what it calculated to be the fastest desktop PC in the world at its latest Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Beijing.

“Early performance results for systems based on two next-generation quad-core processors running at 3GHz apiece indicate that performance improvements of 25 percent are achievable for server-based Java applications, while high-performance computing and bandwidth-intensive processes are boosted up to a whopping 45 percent,” said Pat Gelsinger, general manager of Intel’s digital enterprise group.

Stephen Smith, Intel vice-president and director of business operations for the digital enterprise group, warned that Intel’s preliminary figures were not guaranteed, however, and added that it was also too early to assess specific voltage specifications or power consumption figures for prototype Penryn systems.

“This is early silicon showing measured performance data, which should be credible but it is not necessarily the final benchmarking figures,” Smith said. The tests were based on pre-production 45nm Xeon processors using a 1600Mhz front side bus for workstation and HPC, and a 1333MHz bus for servers, compared to today’s quad-core Xeon X5355 chips also running on a 1333MHz bus.

The increases in performance derive from fundamental improvements in architectural design rather than faster processor clock speeds. Other new Penryn features include High-K Metal Gate transistors that deliver faster switching speeds and increased instructions per clock; lower leakage and power-down technology to reduce system electricity consumption; larger 6MB to 12MB caches; and 47 new instructions designed specifically for media streaming.

Intel is confident that it has the manufacturing capacity to make server, workstation, desktop and notebook chips available in volume, relying partly on the new facility it plans to build in the Chinese city of Dalian.

“We will have two 300mm fabs running 45nm processes online this year, and two more next year. We definitely have the capacity to ramp on these products,” Smith said.