Intel Nehalem - just the facts ma'am

In case you have just awakened from a deep coma, I'm guessing you have by now heard some noise about Intel's new processor microarchitecture - "Nehalem".




There has been a little bit of confusion about these new CPUs so I wanted to put up some facts:

• "Nehalem" is Intel's internal codename for the latest "microarchtecture" on which all of it's new CPUs are based. Intel's codenames for their products while underdevelopment typically are forgotten and supplanted with the retail product names given them by Intel after they are released to the market. But "Nahalem" seems to be sticking around as the popular streetname for Intel's new family of chips. This is causing a little confusion...
  

• Core i7 is Intel's official product name for the "desktop" variant of Nehalem. All Core i7 systems are "single socket" computers that have only one CPU. The Core i7 product line is aimed squarely at consumer PCs and "entry level" graphics workstations. Core i7 replaces the "Core 2" (including "Duo" and "Quad" and "Extreme") product line. Its Intel codename designation is (was?) "Bloomfield". Core I7 CPUs come in several different speeds and all are "quadcore" parts.
  

• As in years-past, Intel Xeon continues as the company's official product name for their workstation and server-oriented CPUs. Xeon is sold both as the single-socket Xeon 3500 series (also codenamed "Bloomfield" - same as Core i7) as well as dual-socket Xeon 5500 platform (codename "Gainstown"). These CPUs replace the previous generation (Xeon 3300 and Xeon 5400 product lines) and are the newest high-end offerings based on Intel's Nehalem technology. Sold at different speed "bins", Xeon CPUs are sold as quadcore processors*. (*there is a dual-core variant but it will not likely be used for graphics workstations)

• The new CPUs are priced about the same as the CPUs they are replacing.

• Core i7 systems are available pretty much everywhere. On April 1st, many PC manufacturers will begin shipping new workstations based in the new Xeon 5500 series CPUs. (Apple began shipping Nahelem-based workstations in March.)
  

OK. Now that we've got that straight, let's get a little more specific about what these new processors mean for digital artists and content creation in general.

For most digital artists, Nehalem-based systems can be expected to allow their software apps and utilities to perform between 20% to 80% faster than they would on "old" intel Core 2 and Xeon 5400 equivalent CPUs. By "equivalent" I mean to to say - running at the same "clock speed" (which indicates the basic speed of the CPUs internal circuitry).



In contrast to most "consumer" software applications such as gaming and office productivity, programs used for 3D design, image rendering and other content creation-related tasks are typically "CPU intensive". This means that their performance is limited by the capability (processing speed and capacity) of the host computer's CPU.
These applications can also be "memory intensive" -meaning that their performance can be limited by the capacity (the speed and/or the amount) of RAM in the host computer.

With this being the case, digital artists will benefit enormously from the new capabilities and features of the Nehalem-based CPUs.

The most important features to understand are these:

Feature: Hyperthreading
This is a standard feature on most of the new i7 and Xeon processors. Hyperthreading allows the CPU's 4 cores to each process two streams of simultaneous computing tasks. Consequently, a quadcore CPU will present itself to your operating system and applications as having 8 available cores.

Benefit:
While the extra "virtual" cores made available through Hyperthreading won't come anywhere close to doubling the speed of your system, they do provide between 20% to 40% additional performance for highly "threaded" processes. This can greatly reduce the time required for 3D raytraced rendering, transcoding, etc. Likewise, multitasking and background processing can be maintained with very little impact on interactivity for the user.



Feature: "On-die" Memory Controllers
Compared to earlier Intel processors, the new Nehalem microarchitecture employs a radically redesigned approach to controlling the shuffling of data between the CPU and the system's RAM. Instead of residing on the motherboard, the memory controller circuitry is now inside the CPU. Without getting too technical, this simply allows for a much more efficient (faster) flow of data to and from the CPU's processing cores and data caches. Memory bandwidth for Nehalem chips is up to 350% higher compared to earlier designs.

Benefit:
Improved memory bandwidth won't do much for 3D rendering speed or most other "CPU-bound" operations. However, for "memory-bound" tasks such as 2D compositing, fluid simulation and video encoding, users will see a marked jump in interactivity and processing speed. Performance improvements for this type of computing will be anywhere from 30% up to well over 100% over the previous Intel CPUs.


There are several other new features in the Nehalem generation of CPUs that can and will positively impact the "user experience" for artists working with high-end design applications.
I consider these as secondary compared to the ones I highlighted above, but I'll briefly list them here.

QPI - Quick Path Interconnect
This is a new high-speed "data bus" that connects the CPUs and other primary motherboard components to the "outside world" via the external ports and add-in cards. These include USB, firewire, audio, Ethernet, GPU (graphics), etc.

Turbo Mode -
This is a feature on most Nehaem CPUs (but is not available on the entry-level) that allows the cpu's cores to automatically run at slightly higher speeds. This isn't likely to be something that you will necessarily notice as a user, but it can provide a slight extra "bump" in performance when you need it.


So...

The long and short of all this is: Nehalem = more flexibility for digital artists.

The extra speed gains in the new line of Intel Nehalem CPUs will translate to better performance working with most digital content design applications and suites from Autodesk and Adobe, etc. Artists will enjoy an immediate boost in productivity which will allow for more "ideation", experimentation and creative flexibility. This will, in turn, allow artists to produce higher quality work -or at least get more work completed in the same amount of time...

oh, and all your games run really well on these new machines too.

;)