The Dothan is no doubt a good CPU clock-per-clock, in general matching or exceeding what the 512KB L2 cached XP64's can do. However I do see this as a definite apples/oranges comparison.
Dothan has a 2MB L2 cache. The Dothan is top-ending at ~2.4GHz. The Dothan does not run hot, and due to this one can speculate that there is minimal overclock overhead to be gained with cooling short of chilling (phase-change/TEC). What is missing from the tech-report review, which they admit, is the Dothan with dual-channel memory bandwidth performance, but also at 2.4GHz the Dothan's FSB is already overclocked and giving it a substantial speed boost even though it's single-channel.
This, to my mind, raises just as many "what could be?" questions with respect to the CPU's pitted against it. What if the P4's all had 2MB of L2 cache? What if their FSB's were oc'ed by 50%? The same questions apply to the AMD CPU's too.
The Dothan does not strike me as a glittering diamond that Intel have overlooked, but rather as simply an alternative, not without its quirks, and with even less MHz headroom than even the relatively immature 90nm Winchester A64's. Power/heat-wise the Dothan kicks butt, and it is primarily for this reason alone that Intel will have to abandon the Netburst architecture as it is unsustainable to continue down that road.
Like both the XP64 and the Netburst P4's, there are things that it's good at, and things which it isn't. Aside from the heat/power issue it doesn't seem particularly compelling in terms of offering a clear and distinct marketable advantage over the competition.
Really, I don't see what all the fuss is about. It's new, and that makes it exciting I guess, but it's hardly kicking butt. The next spin of A64's with more cache, and if Intel does decide to do it one last time, Prescott, will see much of Dothan's perceived superiority disappear.
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