Max Macri Matthew Hodge Introduction History of x86 ISA Microarchitecture (Nehalem) Features: ◦ Modular Blocks ◦ Pipeline ◦ Memory Subsystem ◦ Cache ◦ Integration ◦ SSE and Hyper-Threading ◦ Turbo Boost ◦ Miscellaneous Features i7 Models Performance Conclusion, The Future Newest High-end consumer processor Outperforms Core 2 predecessor Based on Nehalem Microarchitecture 4004 -> 8080 -> 8086
8086 16-bit ISA (x86-16)
80386 (aka i386) 32-bit ISA (x86-32)
i7 64-bit ISA (x86-64)
Backwards Compatible Core i7 processor based on Nehalem microarchitecture (45nm die) Replacement for Core microarchitecture Implementation of x86-64 ISA Westmere (32nm die shrink) Modular design Easily add/remove components for fabrication ◦ Cores ◦ Integrated graphics ◦ QPI Variants
Integrated memory controller Integrated PCIe Integrated DMI Advantages: ◦ Removes bottlenecks ◦ Reduces latencies ◦ Removes the need for Motherboard based components (memory controller and Northbridge)
SIMD: Single Instruction Multiple Data ◦ Same operation performed on multiple sets of data ◦ Exploits Data Level Parallelism Streaming SIMD Extension (SSE) ◦ Instruction set capable of performing SIMD operations SSE4.2 ◦ Used in i7 ◦ 7 new instructions (from 4.1) Return of HyperThreading!
Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) ◦ Replaces Front-Side Bus ◦ Available in high-end i7 models ◦ Up to 25.6 GB/sec ◦ Competition: Hyper-Transport (AMD) Second Level Branch Predictor ◦ Increases accuracy and performance of branch predictions Second Level Translation Lookaside Buffer ◦ Cache used to improve virtual address translation speed Core i7 Desktop Mobile Lynnfield Bloomfield Gulftown Arrandale Clarksfield (45nm) (45nm) (32nm) (32nm) (45nm) i7‐860 – i7‐920 – i7‐970 – i7‐610LE – i7‐720QM – i7‐880 i7‐975 Extreme i7‐980X i7‐680UM i7‐940XM Extreme 4‐Core 4‐Core 6‐Core 2‐Core 4‐Core 2.8GHz – 2.67GHz – 3.2 GHz ‐ 166MHz – 1.6GHz – 3.07 GHz 3.33GHz 3.33GHz 766MHz 2.13 GHz $279 ‐ $583 $284 ‐ $999 $885 ‐ $999 $278 ‐ $346 $364 ‐ $1096 774 million 732 million 1170 million 382 million 774 million DMI, TB QPI, TB QPI DMI, GPU, IMC, TB DMI, TB
Recap ◦ Great performance ◦ Great power consumption ◦ Can get pricey… ◦ Comes in many flavors!
The Future ◦ Westmere (now) ◦ Sandy-Bridge (end 2010) ◦ Haswell (2012)