We've heard a lot about Intel lately, since lots of big news has come out of them at their yearly conference. Shop is closed up now and Intel heads back to work, hopefully to deliver on the promises they sold during the past few weeks. Here is a wrap-up of the going-ons and things to expect from Intel over the next year. To summarize it a bit more, here's what you can look for:
1) A new, shared architecture for all their microprocessors, from server Xeons to mobile Pentiums, that have a low-power, high-efficiency goal in mind versus the past decade of "More MHz please". This includes some interesting features such as shared L2 cache on dual-core cpus, dual-core mobile processors, hyperthreading being done away with and a high end P4 with a TDP of 65W instead of today's insane 130W
2) Improvements in Centrino labeled mobile units, including the mobile 945Ex chipset that supports FSB of 667Mhz and beyond, LCDs that auto adjust power consumption based on ambient lighting, and Pentium Ms that use as little as 10W of power.
3) Asynchronous clockspeeds for multi-core and multi-cpu systems, allowing for extremely intelligent load balancing and dynamic speed regulation. Imagine a system where you have 3 CPUs running at 1.5Ghz for the majority of simply, quick tasks, then a very beefy 3Ghz CPU for more intensive tasks.
Not all of this may come to fruition in the road map given to us by Intel as often technology runs into a wall, however overall the improvements Intel is discussing are things sorely and greatly desired by their customers. Intel is beginning to realize that "Smarter MHz" are better than "More MHz", and this will push AMD and the market in general to innovate as well.