Intel Core i7 Processor
History
•
In the early 1970’s the first Microprocessor was developed by
Intel.
•
It was a 4 bit machine that was named the 4004
•
The 4004 was followed by Intel’s 8008 and 8080, as well as Motorola’s
6800 and 68000
Growth
With
each new generation of processors there were several developments such as:
•
Smaller size
•
Faster
•
Increased heat dissipation
•
Greater Consumption of power
Single Core Performance
On
technique used to increase single core performance was:
•
Pipelining: beginning other waiting instructions before the first
finishes
Another technique was
multithreading
•
Multithreading involves execution of two separate threads.
•
Time is divided and interlaced between the two threads in order to
simulate simultaneous execution
Problems with Single Core
To
execute the tasks faster you must increase the clock time.
Increasing
clock times too high drastically increases power consumption and heat
dissipation to extremely high levels, making the processor inefficient.
Multi Core solution
Creating
two cores or more on the same Die increases processing power while keeping
clock speeds at an efficient level.
A
processor with 2 cores running at efficient clock speeds can process
instructions with similar speed to a single core processor running at twice the
clock speed, yet the dual core processor would still consume less energy.
Multi-Core Advantages
•
While working with many threads, a Multi Core processor with n
cores can execute n threads simultaneously by assigning a core to each thread.
If it must process more than n threads , say x, it can apply multithreading
procedures with each core working with an average of x/n threads.
•
A Single core processor must multithread with every single thread.
History of Processor’s :
• Generally Intel has been the dominant
producer
of microprocessor chips
•
AMD has proven to be a fierce competitor
•
Competition stimulated the industry by
producing new and innovative microprocessors
•
In
the mid-nineties Intel begins to face true competition
•
1980’s-Intel was the only true producer of marketable computer
chips
•
1982-introduce 80286
•
286 was able to run software of its prior microprocessor
INTEL CORE i7 PROCESSOR
A
cpu socket or cpu slot is an electrical component that attaches to a circuit
board and is designed to house a cpu. It is a special type of IC socket
designed for very high pin counts. A cpu socket provides many functions
including providing a physical structure to support the cpu, facilitating
replacement and cost reduction and as an electrical interface both with the cpu
and the circuit board.
Core
i7 uses an LGA1366 socket.(socket B). it is incompatible with the previous
versions. LGA refers to Land Grid Array and is used as a physical interface for
microprocessors of the Intel Pentium 4, Intel Xeon, Intel Core 2 and AMD
Opteron families. Earlier the socket used was the PGA(Pin Grid Array). In LGA
there are no pins on the chip .Instead there are pads of gold plated copper
that touch pins on the motherboard. LGA provides a larger contact point,
allowing for eg higher clock frequencies. It also allows higher pin densities
and thus enables a more stable power supply to the chip
The
memory is directly connected to the processor. The memory is divided into three
channels. Each channel can support one or two DDR3 RAMs. Motherboards for core
i7 have three or six RAM slots.DDR3 RAM is double data rate 3 random access
memory. This is a RAM technology used for high speed storage of the working
data of a computer or other digital electronic devices. The primary benefit of
DDR3 is its ability to run its I/O bus at four times the speed of the memory cells
contained in it. It enables faster bus speeds and higher throughputs than
earlier memory technologies. There is a significant reduction in the power
consumption. It needs only 1.5V compared to 1.8V for DDR2
HOW IT WORKS:
The
instruction decoder has three decoder units that can decode one simple
instruction per cycle per unit. The other decoder unit can decode one
instruction every cycle, either simple instruction or complex instruction made
up of several micro-ops. Instructions made up of more than four micro-ops are
delivered from the MSROM. Upto four micro-ops can be delivered each cycle to
the instruction decoder queue (IDQ).The IDQ delivers micro-op stream to the
allocation/renaming stage of the pipeline.
The
out-of-order engine supports up to 128 micro-ops in flight. Each micro-ops must
be allocated with the following resources: an entry in the re-order buffer
(ROB), an entry in the reservation station (RS), and a load/store buffer if a
memory access is required. The allocator also renames the register file entry
of each micro-op in flight. The input data associated with a micro-op are
generally either read from the ROB or from the retired register file.
The
RS dispatch up to six micro-ops in one cycle if the micro-ops are ready to
execute. The RS dispatch a micro-op through an issue port to a specific
execution cluster, each cluster may contain a collection of integer/FP/SIMD
execution units. The result from the execution unit executing a micro-op is
written back to the register file, or forwarded through a bypass network to a
micro-op in-flight that needs the result. Intel microarchitecture (Nehalem) can
support write back throughput of one register file write per cycle per port.
The bypass network consists of three
domains of integer/FP/SIMD. Forwarding the result within the same bypass domain
from a producer micro-op to a consumer micro is done efficiently in hardware
without delay.
Forwarding
the result across different bypass domains may be subject to additional bypass
delays. The bypass delays may be visible to software in addition to the latency
and throughput characteristics of individual execution units. Intel
microarchitecture (Nehalem) contains an instruction cache, a first-level data cache
and a second-level unified cache in each core. Each physical processor may
contain several processor cores and a shared collection of subsystems that are
referred to as "uncore".
Specifically
in Intel Core i7 processor, the uncore
provides a unified third-level cache shared by all cores in the physical processor,
Intel Quick Path Interconnect links and associated logic. The L1 and L2 caches
are writing back and non-inclusive. The shared L3 cache is write back and
inclusive, such that a cache line that exists in either L1 data cache, L1 instruction cache,
unified L2 cache also exists in L3. The L3 is designed to use the inclusive
nature to minimize snoop traffic between processor cores. The latency of L3
access may vary as a function of the frequency ratio between the processor and
the uncore sub-system
Features and Benefits of the
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor
Quad-Core Processing
Provides
four independent execution cores in one processor package. Four dedicated
processing cores help
Operating
systems and applications deliver additional performance, so end users can
experience better
multitasking
and multithreaded performance across many types of applications and workloads.
Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology3
Delivers two processing threads per physical core for
a total of eight threads for massive computational throughput. With Intel®
Hyper-Threading Technology, highly threaded applications can get more work done
in parallel, completing tasks sooner. With more threads available to the operating
system, multitasking becomes even easier. This amazing processor can handle
multiple applications working simultaneously, allowing you to do more with less
wait time.
Intel® Turbo Boost Technology2
Dynamically
increases the processor’s frequency as needed by taking advantage of thermal
and power headroom when operating below specified limits. Get more performance
automatically, when you need it the most.
8 MB Intel® Smart Cache
This
large last-level cache enables dynamic and efficient allocation of shared cache
to all four cores to match the needs of various applications for
ultra-efficient data storage and manipulation.
Intel® QuickPath Interconnect
Intel’s
latest system interconnect design increases bandwidth and lowers latency, while
achieving data
transfer
speeds as high as 25.6 GB/s.
Integrated Memory Controller
An
integrated memory controller with three channels of DDR3 1066 MHz offers memory
performance
up
to 25.6 GB/s. Combined with the processor’s efficient prefetching algorithms,
this memory controller’s
lower
latency and higher memory bandwidth delivers amazing performance for
data-intensive applications.
Intel® HD Boost
Includes
the full SSE4 instruction set, significantly improving a broad range of
multimedia and compute intensive applications. The 128-bit SSE instructions are
issued at a throughput rate of one per clock cycle
allowing
a new level of processing efficiency with SSE4-optimized applications.
Digital Thermal Sensor (DTS)
Provides
for more efficient processor and platform thermal control improving system
acoustics. The DTS
continuously
measures the temperature at each processing core. The ability to continuously
measure and
detect
variations in processor temperature enables system fans to spin only as fast as
needed to cool the
system.
The combination of these technologies can result in significantly lower noise
emissions from the PC.
Intel® Wide Dynamic Execution
Improves
execution speed and efficiency, delivering more instructions per clock cycle.
Each core can complete up to four full instructions simultaneously.
Intel® Smart Memory Access
Improves
system performance by optimizing the use of the available data bandwidth from
the memory
subsystem
and reducing the effective latency of memory accesses.
The
latest version of Intel Core i7 processor’s is
4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7
Processor
Amazing
performance and stunning visuals at their best. Get top-of-the-line performance
for your most demanding tasks with a 4th generation Intel® Core™ i7 processor.
For a difference you can see and feel in HD and 3-D, multitasking and
multimedia, the 4th generation Intel Core i7 processor is perfect for all your
most demanding tasks.
Effortlessly
move through applications with smart multitasking from Intel® Hyper-Threading
Technology1. Enjoy the thrill of an automatic burst of speed when you need it
with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.02. Experience your movies, photos, and
games smoothly and seamlessly with a suite of built-in visual enhancements—no
extra hardware required.
Click Here to Download the Printable Version :
Vic
