Intel presented many interesting things during IDF, one of the most interesting being a dual quad-core Nehalem system running sixteen threads simultaneously. Nehalem sports the new QuickPath Interconnect interface, Intel’s answer to the HyperTransport interface, and an integrated memory controller. While Penryn was more or less just a die-shrink of the Core architecture, Nehalem is a new microarchitecture, which will bring back HyperThreading, although at a more advanced stage. Bloomfield, the code-name of the quad-core Nehalem, will have an integrated three-channel DDR3 memory controller, and is slated for arrival during the fourth quarter of next year.
What some of you might find surprising is that Bloomfield will actually have less cache than Penryn, but then the entire 8 MB cache of Bloomfield can be accessed by all four cores, unlike the 6+6 MB approach of Penryn, where two cores access one half and the other two the other half.
At the same time, The Tylersburg chipset will replace the coming high-end chipset X48, and the ICH9 with ICH10, which will hopefully put an end to the PATA interface.
