What do you guys think about nahalem. I don't know, but i feel like this processor wont really do much for gaming compared with already available processors. 8 cores will be overkill. What exactly does the memory controller do for the processor anyway?? It will come with HT too. It sounds good, but will it be any good. If it is so, then expect the prices to be very high.

Well, an integrated memory controller should improve memory performance, but as we already see that doesn't help AMD processors much in games.

I think it will be good. Intel is biting off a lot here, but they'll pull it off. I wouldn't expect a P4 => Core 2 jump, but it should be decent.

As for prices, I could see them being high, especially early on with the first releases.

6Agreed. Im interested more in the OCing ability than the IMC and QP (QuickPAth smiler to HyperTransport) and HT (Remember P4 HT?)

Actually, the IMC helps gaming a lot with K8, compare it to K7 which was the last FSB based AMD CPU, gaming performance is much improved.

Core 2 performs so well in games due to its massive cache, as well as having higher IPC. Would it perform even better with an IMC? You bet.

Intel is actually touting Nehalem as a bigger leap over Core 2, as Core 2 was over P4. This is under multithreaded performance, there are claims performance is 40 - 100% better, which would be incredible if even half true.

I hope your right epsilon, I actually dont expect to see any great OC results. I mean what more do u want the E2100 can overclock by almost 100%. I mean a full Ghz speed increase is very common, while AMD struggles to ass just 100mhz to their CPUs. I wonder why Intel doesnt do like nvidia and play dead for a while.

No more FSB, that seems it could provide a lot better bandwidth options.

I dont see the FSB on current core2 arch as a limiting factor. Although sythetic benchmarks show that AMD usually comes out on top in memory bandwidth Intel's arch still comes out ahead on everything else.

Unless programmers start producing better multicore software i cant see Nehalem being that much more over the current Core2. However, if all software by that stage is highly optimised for multicore of course Nehalem will kill anything else out there.

As for Intel playing dead... who said they wont? Current 45nm Quads didnt seem to hit the market with the quantities that the previous gen, and they still have plenty of time to delay Nehalem if they want to.

at " accient FSB architecture of intel is somehow the only hold back in the memory subsystem.but in game and many application the memory bandwidth is already good enough.but i wonder if that will effect the overclocking of the CPU as everything is integrated into 1 chip as heat would be a problem.

also another thing i worry about is that would it be mature enough at the 1st generation.but the ist gen or Core 2 is very successful!hope that will continue.i wonder what the AMD Shanghai core is like!

how the overclocking would be done?would it be like the AMD's?different multiplier for CORE,"HT LINK",MEMORY many interesting thing to find out!

Multithreading is SLOWLY getting here (in some areas more than others). The new AMDs and Intels will be so similar now. Maybe they will make a unified socket

Bring back socket 7!

I'm thinking the IMC will help them more in the massive multi-processor server arena, especially with the planned 8 cores handling 16 threads via Hyper-Threading that Nehalem is supposed to have. As for gaming, I doubt it will help at all, since games don't seem to take advantage of multi-cores well yet.

if Hyper threading is successful this time round and games and OS can take full advantage of it.then games could have much more physics in them as the CPU is able to process more data.but more then 2 core is still not much of a advantage at this time.

hope things will change sometime soon.

I think it will help games in the long run because if Intel supports it, they will come. I say that as an AMD fan. Developers develop for the lowest common denominator and then work up from there, which is why we've seen several developers kvetch about Intel's IGP failures.

Intel sure hasn't failed on the CPU front lately, so I expect games to eventually benefit more from an integrated memory controller. As for "8" cores, hyperthreading can be turned off if it impacts a game's performance. Presumably, there will be dual core versions of Nehalem, and if yields aren't perfect, maybe triple cores as well, so hyperthreading can be useful at the low end.

If I remember right, a dual core gave a 10% performance boost in Oblivion framerates when it arrived, and hyperthreading gave a 5% boost. I remember that from dev discussions on Bethsoft's own boards. So, some games of recent years have benefited from hyperthreading on the old single core CPU's. It can't hurt with dual, triple and quad cores as well.

I look forward to Nehalem, even if I go Deneb. It's a step in the right direction for Intel. Ideally, they should have gone with an integrated memory controller on their consumer CPU's years ago because the number one company should be a leader in technology and not just follow once they feel that the market is there. Note for fans of old Intel projects, I'm talking consumer CPU's here, not anything on the drawing boards not brought to market or implemented outside of a specialized or server environment. I know Intel conceived of many things first, but they let the market wallow with an attitude that "they don't need this now". Sort of reminds me of Microsoft on the OS front.

They did before, but you'd have to remember low insertion force sockets. I forget what the pin count was.

The single threaded performance will be the 100% gains and the multi threaded should be about 40%. But remember that this is not just a Core2 with a IMC slapped on it. Its a whole new architecture. The reason single threaded apps may see a big boost is b/c of the dynamic OC'ing Nehalem is supposed to have.

That means that when a single thread is being run other cores will under clock and the core processing the thread will overclock to attain maximum single threaded performance. So games could see a bigger boost than you think.

I would only hope this would go for the dual core optimized apps and games. Imagine having 2 cores at 2GHz on a 3GHz CPU and the other 2 at 4GHz just for that game like Crysis.

Personally I think it will turn the tables on AMD. AMD will no longer have the Nitive Quad or IMC bit. It will be whatever performs better on an IPC and price level.