To our surprise the future Nehalem processors with four cores and eight threads will have 8MB of cache memory. Yorkfield has 12MB, or should we say two times 6MB, as this is still a dual chip stitched together. Each core in Yorkfield has 3MB cache and it looks that Nehalem will have 8MB.
We don't know how this new CPU handles the cache, but we guess that Intel couldn't put more cache and the support for multi-thread processing and stay at the reasonable chip size.
AMD’s K10.5 will be up for a tough ride as AMD quad core supports quad threads and now it is far too late to redesign it to fight Intel’s new creation. If all goes well AMD should have its K10.5 CPUs in the second half of 2008, even though Dirk Mayer suggested that 45 nanometer production will start even earlier.
Published in
PC Hardware
Nehalem, Bloomfield has 8MB of cache
Roadmap: The quad core part