Grazing Hitbox

Intel's Slipping Tick-Tock Schedule

2011-01-03T03:04:00.002-06:00

So Sandy Bridge's NDA lifted today and I'm reading the review (even though I should be sleeping so I can wake up for my flight tomorrow), and I saw that there would be no enthusiast parts until Q4, which hasn't happened for a "tock" since Intel adopted the Tick-Tock schedule. So I'm gonna take a look at history and see if I can spot a trend.

The story began in 2006. Intel's Pentium 4 was losing to AMD's Athlon 939 series on the desktop side, but was enjoying success with the Pentium M/Core Duo line on the mobile side. As a reaction to how power hungry the Pentium 4's were, Intel decided to abandon the Pentium 4 line and instead evolve the Core Duo line to serve both desktop and mobile markets. In July 2006, Core 2 Duo(Conroe) was unleashed to the world. It was epic pwn, and marked the start of the Intel's new Tick-Tock schedule.

The schedule was put to test a year later with the 2007 tick; a 45nm shrink. Penryn/Wolfdale was not release until October, a 3-month delay. Negligible, I thought, blame it on the difficulty with the shrink or whatever. Next year's release should be closer to the July time frame.

July 2008 came, and the much anticipated Nehalem tock was nowhere to be seen. October came, and there was still no tock. It wasn't until November did Nehalem come out. At this point it became obvious that Intel wasn't keeping a strict one-year release cycle. And why would they? There was no market pressure. Since being beat by Conroe in 2006, AMD had not been able to keep up with Intel. Athlon's successor, Phenom, was delayed way too much due to the technical difficulty of it being the first monolithic quad core. When Phenom did come out, midway through the Penryn lifecycle, it merely equaled the performance of Penryn's quad-core variant, Yorkfield. So at this time Intel had already dominated much of the market for 1.5 years, except for one segment, the HPC/Server market. In the high performance market, AMD's processors, with its high memory peformance thanks to the integrated memory controller, has kept itself relevent, trading blows with Intel's processors depending on the type of workload. This was actually the focus of the Nehalem release. Intel added an integrated memory controller to Nehalem to help it capture the HPC/server market, and the first models of Nehalem's released were the enthusiasts/HPC/1P/2P models.

Wait, what? A different die for the high performance segment? Didn't Intel just say they were keeping one architecture for the entire line-up back in 2006? Well, architecturally the cores are the same, but the rest of the dies varied between the server and consumer versions. The consumer version of Nehalem, with Intel still not feeling any market pressure in that space, did not see the light of day until 10 monthes later. But all is well as far as the enthusiasts are concerned; we got our processors during the initial release.

When's the tick for 2009? Did not happen until December. With this release, Intel focused on the mobile segment. There were no enthusiast part, no mainstream part, just the dual core mobile part. Intel's dominant market position allowed it to not only not keep the yearly tick-tock, but also initially release models in only the market segment of interest. 32nm shrink lowered power consumption, and the mobile segment could use the lower power consumption. The 6 core server part would be released some time later, but no enthusiast or mainstream part was ever planned. It was okay though, I thought. Ticks aren't exciting anyway; as long as we got our enthusiasts parts during Tocks then we're happy.

That brings us to now, the 2010 Tock. But wait, Intel actually waited till January 3rd 2011 to lift the NDA. So any illusion of an yearly release schedule is gone now. It was obvious from the previous 3 years, but I held out hope that Intel would not miss the Christmas shopping season. The thing I did not see coming, which is less surprising now that I typed out this post, is the lack of enthusiasts models until Q4. This Tock was for the mainstream and mobile market. The mainstream was skipped over last time so a new model was long overdue. And the mobile market can really use the improved integrated graphics performance. The enthusiasts? Well, we were never important to begin with. We got our parts in 2006 and 2007 because Intel had just one die for the entire family. We got our parts in 2008 because Intel was attacking the HPC/server market. We didn't get our parts in 2009, and we're not getting it now in 2010/2011.

In conclusion, we have 3 trends from Intel: 1) Longer than 12-month Release cycles, 2) diversification of feature set in different dies, and 3) targeting certain market segments during each initial release. Honestly though, only the hardcore enthusiasts should be affected this time around. Most enthusiasts (me included) should be fine with the mainstream Sandy Bridge parts, which has plenty of performance. The only thing I don't like is the fact that it contains an integrated graphics cores that we'll never use because despite performance improvements it's still way slower than a dedicated graphics card, so it's kind of a waste of space/transistor/money. Looking forward, the 2012 Ivy Bridge Tick will probably happen around February or March. There will still be different dies containing different feature sets. But which market Intel will target initially isn't as easy to predict, though I suspect it will be the mobile segment again, as it had been the past 2 years.

J.C. Staff and Kugimiya Rei

2009-02-22T12:13:00.002-06:00

So I'm watching Toradora! and on the second episode Taiga went "Urusai urusai!" and I went "Is that Kugimiya Rei?" and sure enough it is. Sometime later I was curious about which studio is doing this and it turned out to be J.C. Staff and then I went "wait, didn't they also do...?" and they actually did Zero no Tsukaima, Shakugan no Shana, and Hayate no Gotoku. Seems like J.C. Staff is just picking up adaptations that they can cast Kugimiya Rei as the wrathful loli in. Which is win. WIN I tell you. Now back to Toradora!...

Nehalem prices

2008-11-16T23:08:00.002-06:00

Newegg just listed Nehalem related parts:

CPU: $320 for 2.66GHz, 20x multi (+2 for turbo)
Motherboards: we have ONE at $220, then they're $280~$400
Ram: 2GB $70+, 4GB $115+, 6GB $250+

So with cheapest motherboard and cpu and 4GB ram we're already looking at $655. Add case ($50), heatsink($50), power supply($100), and hard drive($50) it'll be around $900.

Now I don't feel like buying anymore. Let's wait for some of these prices to drop and people to report their overclocks.

Wikipedia is teh win

2008-11-12T22:27:00.001-06:00

Mao-HiME

2008-11-10T21:12:00.003-06:00

Nothing that was related to Mai-HiME that's not Mai-HiME has been good, and the bad name doesn't instill confidence. Coming next season.

Chihiroooooooooooooooooooo

2008-11-05T22:51:00.003-06:00

=DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Economy Update

2008-11-04T23:39:00.004-06:00

$150 now buys you 1.5TB hard drive. This works out to be the easy math of 10 cents per gigabyte. So now it's easier than ever to determine what hard drive prices are good. I still remember the time when a good deal was 40 cents per gigabyte, when 250GB for $100 was the deal to get (yes yes I'm a noob).

Nehalem NDA lifted yesterday, performance advantage over Penryn was about 30% overall like the abundance of leaks we've seen for quite a while. We will still need more time, however, to see what the prices will look like. Nehalem isn't even available for purchase yet, motherboards prices rumors aren't optimistic, and DDR3 combined with triple-channel kits will certainly be a new market.

AT&T joins Time Warner and Comcast in trying out the bandwidth cap thing. So um... I think that covers all the high speed internet providers...

In other news, Obama wins teh presidency. The popular votes are still very close: 51% to 47%. But what was so differently this time compared to the past to that made the electoral votes a landslide 338 -156? Boggle.

Tales of the Abyss was teh fail, despite epic op. =(

New season update

2008-10-25T17:44:00.000-05:00

Shikabane Hime licensed, oh wellz.

Menclave did pick up A tale of Melodies, so I did too. It looks just like the first season, and for that I am giddy. But after the second episode, I noticed that we're only following 2 couples this time. Last season we had 3, and Chihiro was one of them. I don't know if this season can be good with just 2 couples, and without Chihiro. On another note, the raw looks like analogue capture because it halo's a lot.

Clannad After Story 1 widescreen finally came out today whereas 4:3 version is already at episode 4. We continue where we left off from the first season and not much has changed. The new OP sounds cool at the end, and follows the same format the first OP... wait... where's Fuuko!? Nooooo. ;_; ED was pretty fail; nothing interesting like Dango Daikazoku. Seriously why does everyone hate Fuuko? Hopefully she'll come back at the end like Makoto and it'll be good. Yeah why does everyone hate Makoto too!? Her arc was teh best.

For the actual first episode, the lolz from first season continued in full swing. And I'm not sure if this season can succeed, we seemed to have already fully developed all the characters in the first season. I guess we'll see how much tear I'll shed, and if they'll start up some interesting plots. The first episode was just a reintroduction of all the characters (MINUS FUUKO >=( ).

Lucky Star OVA - looks like a.f.k. debanded, so I'm going to watch the only subbed version out there, now. And well, it's the same hit and miss comedy with hit and miss references as the series. But seriously, they gave the fans what the fans raged about on the internets. Especially Kagami, poor Kagami. And an extended live-action lucky channel

Wagaya no Oinari-sama finished, overall an enjoyable series.

I also picked up Xam'd, which started last season, and I would've picked it up last season, except I didn't know it was being subbed. The pictures are really clean, animation is good, with the first 2 episodes featuring way too much animation. The story so far is alright, it's like Eureka 7.

Other than that, Bleach is out of fillers, Detroit Metal City continues to be teh funny. Chiko gets a cool weapon out of no where in Daughter of Twenty Faces 20 that allows her to become batman and fight robots and make swishing sounds and look cool. But it broke at the end of the episode.

I forgot to watch the debate =(

2008-10-16T00:36:00.001-05:00

Instead I was shooting bullets all night, like I've been doing all week.

I picked up Shikabane Hime: Aka, mainly because it was GAINAX's first new show after Gurren Lagann. The first episode showed that it had inherited some of Gurren Lagann's physics. The second episode revealed the OP, which promised epicness. Although the actual second episode made it clear that this anime will be full of emo, it also flaunted some high quality animation. Definitely going to keep watching this, hoping for epic Gurren Lagann physics in high quality animation, and we'll see if it's got high quality emo too while we're at it.

Tom Brokaw Town Hall

2008-10-07T21:30:00.000-05:00

8:00: I didn't even check the time for this. 9e/8c seems to be a magical time. This "town hall" format appears interesting. This talking directly to the people thing should be right up Palin's alley.

8:07: McCain's just getting right into this guy's face. And I thought Obama got into his face.

8:08: Tom Brokawwwwwwwwww joins the discussion!

8:11: McCain's already touting his suspension of campaign to work on the bailout package.

8:13: McCain referred to the first questioner's name. Impressive.

8:16: Tom Brokaw is so cool

8:18: Wow this is a really negative questioner

8:24: The candidates are still confused that they are to answer 2 questions in a row then switch instead of after each question.

8:32: As is tradition here on Grazing Hitbox, Obama continues to wear his American flag pin, and McCain continues to not wear a pin.

8:45: McCain appears to be winning with his passionate tones. I guess he is good at town halls.

8:47: McCain is using a Sharpie. He was holding a sharpie last debate too. McCain endorses Sharpie.

8:50: All these poor folks asking well thought out hard questions that are getting dodged.

8:54: McCain slipped a plug for Arizona XD

9:00: All four corners of the Earth?

9:01: Obama is now very apparently getting pwned trying to defend himself while going overtime and not answering questions.

9:24: McCain isn't talking to his microphone. So again the microphone is just for show. Whyyy?

9:25: More profuse love for Israel going around

9:30 closing statements

New Season Anxieties

2008-10-07T19:51:00.002-05:00

No Lucky Star OAV sub
No ef - a tale of melodies sub
No Clannad After Story widescreen
No Thin-slicing post
=(

There's so much good out there, but I can't get them! I think after I finish Wagaya no Oinari-sama and if ef hasn't been subbed I'll break down and start trying out some shows.

Auto-merged Quadruple Post

2008-10-04T19:43:00.000-05:00

Princess Rondo ended today. This season was blah. Maybe because I marathoned it, I thought season 2 was way better.

Clannad After Storyyyyyyyyyy came out today (to the disappointment of all Haruhi fans), and unfortunately like the first season we must wait two weeks for the widescreen version. Maybe this season will finally bring us the tear-jerking?

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki I torrented this because it looked like fun, but it looked boring, until they showed the OP. The OP bumped up my first impression by 2 grades.

The rest of the first episode was pretty boring, so I'm not watching this. The plot could be good, but there won't be much of it, and I'm not interested in all the nonsense.

Wagaya no Oinari-sama I picked this up since this was the other Static series I don't know about. This got worse ratings on ANN than the above so I was not expecting to like it. But I do, so I'm gonna go for a few more episodes.

Vice Presidential Debate 08

2008-10-02T21:31:00.000-05:00

7:59: NBC has it right?

8:00: yayyy

8:01: Tom Brokawww!

8:01: I like how they have the script rolling on the stage background so the moderator can recite it.

8:03: "Can I call you Joe?" I like how they have the mic's hooked up, and still have mic's on the podium.

8:04: To the obvious bailout bill question, Biden's first answer is sounding like a speech.

8:05: Palin's frameless glasses isn't working out too well because the lack of frame makes the weird lighting being cast through the glasses stand out. Her answer is even more speech looking. She appears to be staring into space.

8:09: "Darn right" I think I'm going to keep quoting Palin being cute. The speeches continue.

8:11: Biden's better at sounding not like a recital.

8:12: McCain learned from his lack of American flag pin: Palin has a big fancy American flag pin. Biden has the same one as Obama's

8:15: Palin seemed to also have prepared transitional sentences to dodge question into one of her prepared blurbs.

8:20: Biden pointed at me! Oh man it's me that John McCain's taking money from!

8:22: "Characterize"! and the light blinks when time's up

8:23: Palin very obviously sidetrack topics into a prepared speech. At least she's coherent within a speech.

8:31: Climate Change!

8:33: Palin doesn't want to argue we caused climate change, but says we need to change to change climate. Biden says we caused it.

8:36: Well, Biden just came out and say "Global Warming".

8:45: another nuclear shocker? Pakistan already used it? wiki wiki

8:52: What is with Palin's profuse love for Israelis? She uses it like it's supposed to be a emotional appeal. Does America really believe Israel == awesome and Muslim == terrorists?

8:56: "George Bushes"!

8:57: "Barack-O-Bama"!

9:09: "Heaven Forbid"! I guess we're going for 1.5 hour again? I thought it'd end in 1 hour since we have less time to answer questions.

9:11: The people of your neighborhood == Democrat?

9:11: "Hey Joe there you go again!"

9:12: "Here's a shout out to all the third graders in {place} you get extra credit for watching this debate."

9:16: I'm starting to be able to pick out Palin's accent and yes, it's adorable.

9:21: Joe choked up!? Was a a political stunt?? I was looking up wiki on Biden's broken family and had to do a double take when there was suddenly a awkward pause.

9:27: that's a nice thought Joe shared. He doesn't question other politicians' motives; they're all here trying to do good; he question their judgements.

9:31: No major slip up from Palin, paused a couple times, but she had enough material to recite through (as did Joe). Boring =(

Never use Magic Numbers

2008-10-01T20:02:00.002-05:00

Unless it's 0x5f3759df

(Other punchlines considered:
Unless they actually work
Unless you're John Carmack
Unless they are magical
Unless Lelouch vi Britannia commands you)

What do synchronized functions mean exactly?

2008-09-29T20:57:00.003-05:00

I was trying to write thread-safe code on Java 1.4 with its pre-JSR 133 broken memory model and everything, and I thought synchronized function just synchronized that function, but it doesn't! Synchronized function synchronizes across all synchronized functions of the same instance.


synchronized void function()
{
   int two = 1+1;
}

is really just short for


void function()
{
   synchronized(this)
   {
      int two = 1+1:
   }
}

same thing with synchronized static functions, except they synchronize on Foo.class

Code Geass 25

2008-09-28T13:56:00.002-05:00

The final episode was going pretty good, and this scene was pretty serious, but it didn't take me more than a second to be reminded of this:

AoMM: Impalement! Friends running oversized novelty swords through friends never happens in a Sunrise series! Never!

And this, of course

Letterman minus McCain

2008-09-27T22:08:00.002-05:00

September 24th

September 25th

Macross Frontier 25

2008-09-27T16:17:00.003-05:00

Macross Frontier ended today, and it really felt more like a tribute than an ending. Highlights include:

- Michael cameo played by micronized Klan
- Visor-shattering burning shounen passion
- Double Minmay defense singing Frontier OST megamix
- Missile contrails
- Asymmetrical Docking

Everybody except Leon and Grace are happy at the end, even the Vajiras. And Sheryl just didn't die.

Live Debate Analysis

2008-09-26T21:42:00.002-05:00

8:00: well I didn't find PBS, but apparently NBC has it, in HD!

8:01: Jim Leher's got pretty shiny eyes

8:02: No applause, good, I hated applause taking up damn time.

8:03: Whoa, we're just starting the debate right away, no opening statements

8:04: Obama looks blacker than normal?

8:07: McCain coughing sure isn't boosting confidence

8:08: I wonder how this talking to each other thing will work out. Obama is still addressing Leher atm.

8:14: Rheeeeeeeeeeetoriiiiiics. What did I expect. I think they're both wrong and the government needs to keep its hands off the economy. Not that I know, but I think it sounds good. Capitalism should work itself out.

8:22: The dynamics of the debate is frankly more interesting than the substance. Lehrer's trying to get them to talk to each other, and they're still taking turns with monologues, and Obama likes to motion to Lehrer for his turn to talk.

8:29: there should be no subsidies, let capitalism decide

8:37: This ORGY of spending? hahahahaha (Obama's words)

8:41: THERE IS NO EXIT STRATEGY

8:42: Obama has a US flag pin, McCain doesn't. Hard hitting analysis from Grazing Hitbox

8:45: lawl WMD

8:50: no commercial break, I guess I'll go microwave dinner now

8:59: McCain speaks slower than Obama, that's why McCain seems to be getting less time.

9:00: McCain: "I got a bracelet!" Obama: "I got a bracelet too!"

9:04: McCain has now paused twice before answering a question. Haven't prepared enough because he suspended his campaign?

9:07: "Democracists" instead of "Democrats", discuss.

9:11: North Korean got nukes? Is that proved? wiki wiki.

9:33: I've lost interest in paying full attention to the debate. Lego Batman? These Lego games are, um, odd ideas. I heard the star war ones were good, but the premise of Lego is still weird.

9:37: Debates's over, McCain's wife's hot too? At least well-decorated.

What do I want to write about?

2008-09-26T19:05:00.001-05:00

Bleach anime is taking 2 weeks break again!? Bleach chapter 327 didn't have much in it.

Looks like we'll have a presidential debate after all. Trying to find out what channel it's on at what time. Surely it's televised. I have a feeling it'll be on PBS, let's just go to their website. Yep, PBS 8pm central. Maybe I'll blog it real time. Saw this National Budget flash game on PBS's website , seems like it's trying to tell me budget management is hard stuff, which I already agree, so I'm not playing it.

arbitrary post dttm test

2008-09-26T18:34:00.000-05:00

And can I set my time zone?