Posted 08/06/2008 at 04:24:55pm

It is interesting to note that for all the hype and high prices, the Intel X38, X48, and P45 chipsets have shown only marginal performance gains over the aging P35. There are three possible reasons for this: (1) unimaginative platform design, (2) marketing manipulation, or (3) the core technology has truly reached its limits. Likewise, pushing quad core and octi core is a joke when almost no software uses more than two threads. Why burn 135W when a 65W E8400 processor costs only a fraction, has the same real-world performance, halves the heat dissipation, and lowers the electric bill? Similar problems afflict DDR3. High cost, high latency, and for what? The theoretical bandwidth produces almost no real-world result except an empty pocketbook and a sluggish feeling desktop. It’s like starting up a locomotive to move one kid across the playground. Sometimes a bicycle just makes more sense.

Now, along comes Nehalem. Will putting an integrated memory controller onboard the CPU die revolutionize computing? Not likely. It didn’t do much for AMD. But something else might: OPENING IT UP! The brilliant discoveries of overclocking have not come from Intel’s marketing department, but from the OCer Community at large. Despite a decade of Intel’s foot dragging and disapproval, the OCers have persisted and experimented and discovered the hidden treasures of clock timings, voltage manipulation, and even graphite pencil traces on the mobo. Intel and other hardware manufacturers now sell hundreds of thousands of “Enthusiast” units based on their ability to be “tweaked” and “pushed” and “hacked”.

So here’s the bottom line, Intel. Keep your new architecture and bios as open and flexible as possible. Unlock those multipliers. Expose every setting. The "Nehalem System Interconnect" and "Simultaneous Multi-threading" are only the weapons of the war. What you need are the warriors. To get them, you need to add something else: a connector and a jumper.  It’s that simple. Put a connector on the mobo that provides a readout of every temperature sensor, clock cycle, millivolt, and fan speed so OCers can put dashboard gauges right on the front of the case. The second thing needed is a jumper—one simple jumper on the mobo with two settings: (1) Locked and (2) Open. “Locked” is for the everyday consumer and the corporate enterprise. “Open” is for the OCer. No restrictions, no guarantees, no warrantee; set it at your own risk. Flip that jumper and every setting in the CPU, Chipset, and RAM is exposed in all its glorious nakedness. Wake up Intel. One connector and one jumper and you will have hired thousands of developers around the world for free! Tap into that vast reservoir of OC geniuses and let them do your R&D.  With one connector and one jumper, Intel will be the enabler of an evolutionary new technology, and no longer the prison warden of the old.  Imagine the innovation, the benchmarks, the forums, the web communities. Imagine the sales!