Processors - Page 122

Just yesterday we told you that we felt the news of NVIDIA grabbing up ex-Transmeta employees was all about Tegra and not about an x86 CPU. Well today we hear some more interesting news about Tegra, well more to the point its successor Tegra 2.

With news flying around that NV has a major design win by getting the Tegra into the next Nintendo DS we now hear more about what will be under the hood of the Tegra 2. Of course we have been told a little about the new Tegra 2 and have talked about it before. So the news that there will be at least one ARM Cortex 9 under stuffed inside is nothing new. Where things get interesting is the information we have on the GPU side of things.
As NV pushes Cuda and PhysX we are hearing that Tegra 2 will have Dual GPUs (GeForce 9 based). This will either be for "SLI-Like" performance or as PPU to allow for a mobile PhysX library to be utilized. We feel that latter is more likely. Remember the GF9 series was the first to support Cuda and PhysX on the GPU. In fact at the last press briefing in back in August we were told that Tegra 2 would be capable of 4x the processing power at the same power draw! At the same time the Tegra 2 was listed as launching in 2010 so it looks like things are right on track there.

You know, NVIDIA is a funny company. It was only a couple of days ago that they were complaining that Intel is being anti-competitive with their chipsets and are purposely holding out on putting USB 3.0 in them until 2011 and even claiming that Intel is preventing others from putting it in theirs (NVIDIA and AMD). Yet at the same time they are doing this they are blocking the use of AA by AMD based GPUs through the use of Vendor IDs and now we hear they are going to block the use of the Lucid Logic Hydra chip.

This new chip was set to set the world of multi-GPU technology on its ear. Lucid had developed a chip that would enable multi-GPU performance on any combination of GPUs; even different brands. MSI was going to be the first to have this out of the gate on their Big Bang board.

All of this is in the past now as we hear that NV will block the Hydra Chip at the driver level on their GPUs. They also appear to have exerted some pressure on MSI to delay the launch of the Hydra Sporting Big Bang boards. Considering that there are rumors that MSI has laid off a large number of employees they probably do not want to push NVIDIA too far on this. AMD has not commented on the Lucid and its use with their cards.

Looks like NVIDIA is against Anti-Competition only when it is someone else, but it is all good for them.

Intel has added another model into its lineup of Core i7 LGA-1366 based processors this week; the Core i7 960. This variant comes clocked in at 3.2GHz (24 x 133) with a max Turbo Boost speed of 3.43GHz.

It's been reported today that NVIDIA's chipset development has grinded to a halt due to continuing legal woes with Intel. All chipset development has been postponed until the legal issues have been resolved in court next year.

This is a pretty extreme decision given NVIDIA still has the freedom to innovate in the way of chipsets for AMD, not to mention Intel's four-year agreement with the green giant didn't cover Nehalem or the Core series of processors either.

"We have said that we will continue to innovate integrated solutions for Intel's FSB architecture," Sherbin told PC Magazine in an email. "We firmly believe that this market has a long healthy life ahead. But because of Intel's improper claims to customers and the market that we aren't licensed to the new DMI bus and its unfair business tactics, it is effectively impossible for us to market chipsets for future CPUs. So, until we resolve this matter in court next year, we'll postpone further chipset investments."

Do you remember people giving NVIDIA hell for scheduling an event around the same time as AMD (like the same day)? It was quite interesting to hear people claim that NVIDIA was pulling a low and underhanded tactic to try and take away from AMD's launch of the 5xxx series GPUs.

If that is the case I wonder what people will say about AMD announcing a 6-core consumer CPU the day before Intel's IDF? Yes it is a great announcement and one that has been in the works for some time. It is a move that has been needed. Going back to the A64 days when AMD pulled their desktop CPUs directly from the Opteron line.

But, it is still a little underhanded to do this just before your competitor has an event of their own. It just goes to prove what I always say. No company is above a little dirty pool, there is only how well they spin it afterwards.

As for the new CPU; it will be called Thuban, have clocks lower than current quad core CPUs as well as 3MB of L2 and 6MB of L3 cache. No word on pricing or exact availability just yet.

AMD is working on a six core desktop CPU. This is supposed to be an answer to Intel's Gulftown and, if current CPU marketing is any indication, should also be for future mid-range and low end CPUs.

There is a problem with this new hope for AMD; while the idea of a six core desktop based off of the Istanbul core is nice, AMD is not ready to compete with Intel's just yet.

The first is issue process. Intel will offer Gulftown at 32nm while the new AMD Desktop will be 45nm. As both companies want to stay inside a 130-140 Watt TDP, Intel will have an easier time and be able to clock higher within the same envelope. The advantage here will go to Intel unless AMD can make their CPU more efficient like they did in the Athlon 64 days.

Of course AMD's biggest success in the CPU world was when they setup their Opteron line up to run on the desktop as the Athlon 64. Maybe by AMD doing this with Istanbul will yield a similar result. I hope it does turn out this way and AMD can compete with the current generation Intel CPUs instead of always fighting the last generation like they are now.

AMD just pushed out a nicely priced quad-core CPU. This is the Athlon II X4 and you can get one of these for just under $100 US. Now this is all great, but there are some things going on behind this new launch that are a cause for concern.

You see, back when Hector Ruiz was planning the financial fiasco that would be the ATI acquisition, AMD and ATI were talking about a CPU with a native GPU built into a single die. This new product had the label of Fusion.

Well, AMD is now onto its third version (the last two were cancelled) while Intel in their typical fashion has its own version of this idea ready to launch by the end of the year. This is the same issue we saw with the first quad-core CPUs. AMD expounded on the virtues of having a "native" quad-core CPU, while Intel simply bolted two dual-cores together.

This is an issue that I truly hope AMD can address. They have a bad habit of announcing products and ideas only to sit back and fail to produce them in a timely manner. Fusion is a great idea and one that does have huge merit. But as this "idea" keeps getting delayed and design versions cancelled, it is one that I am concerned may never see reality.

As AMD and Global Foundries talk of 32nm in 2010 Intel is already preparing for 32nm for its coming out party at IDF, which starts today. This new process falls under the general name of Westmere.

The primary CPUs that are being run on this process are the Clarkdale (Desktop) and Arrondale (Mobile). Both will feature a 32nm CPU core with a 45nm GPU bolted right next to it. This is a continuation of the Lynnfield concept which has a PCI Gen 2 controller built into the CPU.

We should start seeing the 32nm Arrondale before the end of the year. This will hurt AMD in a couple of ways, the first problem is that Intel will have taken another AMD idea and actually made it work. The second is that Intel will be ahead in terms of process for the better part of a year while AMD will be struggling to catch up to the Core i5.

Intel should also announce a new High-K Metal gate technology that will help with current leak at the smaller process sizes. This, according to Intel, will put Intel ahead of the game by about 3 years in terms of manufacturing.

And let us not forget that the six-core Gulftown should be 32nm also. Gulftown should see retail shelves late this year or early 2010.

With all of the news about Core i5 and the annoying (to Intel) early sales it is no wonder that they Core i3 (32nm Clarkdale) has not gotten much press.

But, we do hear some interesting news about it. If the information out is correct we should see the 32nm dual-core i3 show up with a clock speed of no less than 2.93GHz in the lowest-end model. The core i3 will fit into the existing 1156 sockets but will not work with the existing P55. The reason for this is the lack of the controls needed to translate the information from the IGP to the VGA/DVI/HDMI connections.

Interestingly the Core i3 530 will only have a 73 Watt TDP. This is pretty impressive when you consider that number includes the IGP.

The IGP will include Intel's Clear Video HD and will run at 733MHz.

There is no official word on when the Core i3 will be ready but it should be either late this year or early 2010.

Despite some nice improvements from the AMD side of the CPU world, Intel is not lying down or indeed planning to slow down at all. Instead they have launched the Lynnfield (Socket 1156 Core i5 and Core i7) and are hard at work on the Core i9.

As things stand now Intel will be demoing their sexa-core Core i9 CPU at the September IDF. This will be a demonstration of not only a six core CPU but also a 32nm one.

Core i9 will be the first of the Westmere CPUs from Intel. Westmere will have the whole range of core potions including native Dual, Quad, Sexa and Octo cored options. The rumored launch date is sometime in Q4, if this is true AMD will have to make some very hard decisions. They will need to push out their version or they will get passed by. If you remember the last time they rushed to catch up to Intel it did not go well. Barcelona was not ready for launch and as a result AMD dropped further behind in the performance world. If the same thing happens again AMD will be in real trouble as they lose not only market share but developer support.

If this happens all the lawsuits in the world won't get that back.

Intel was not happy with recent rumors that popped up about Larrabee being on its fourth attempt. In fact Intel called the rumors and reports "nonsensical rubbish"

The rumors say that Larrabee is having some problems, the first is TDP and the others are software. These rumors all appear to come from nVidia and ATi. So you have to wonder what is going on.

Is this a FUD campaign? Or is this a reality that Intel does not want to get out. If Intel is trying to hide something is there more behind the issue than TDP and Software?

The issue of a redesign is not too big of deal after all. This happens in many products both before and after release. It is why we see so many revision 2/b products. However if there is a larger problem at work here then there is a reason to try and keep it out of the public eye.

Remember this is a new technology and any large scale problems that hit the press before release will affect consumer and OEM confidence. Lack of confidence in a product will kill sales quicker than just about anything else.

We heard the reports and rumors, so this Friday afternoon we visited the Taipei Computer Market and confirmed them for ourselves.

It does indeed look like Intel has broken its own NDA in Taiwan by selling its full range of Core i5 and Core i7 Socket LGA-1156 Lynnfield based processors. And it's not just one shop selling them, literally all of the PC hardware shops are selling them.

Not only that, but we saw a range of ASUS and GIGABYTE LGA-1156 based Intel P55 Express motherboards on sale. Despite the rumours of MSI having a CPU and motherboard bundle deal on sale at the start of this week, we didn't see any MSI boards on sale - but we may just have not seen them, it's a big place the computer market in Taipei.

There you have it - Lynnfield based products on sale in Taiwan almost a full month before Intel officially launching the new platform next month on September 8th. Oops!

The rumors run rampant today, we had some interesting ones now we have one that sounds probably the closest to the truth.

The rumor is about Intel and their 32nm process. According to the latest rumor Intel will start ramping up 32nm production in the fourth quarter of this year. Ok so far it sounds like what we have all already heard and close to the official roadmap.

Next up is that we will see Clarkdale and Arrandale in Q1 2010, again not much that is different from the current road map. Six Core Gulftown should be read by Q2. and we will see both 45nm Nehalem and 32nm Westmere exist at the same time.

This is nothing out of the ordinary for Intel, after all they had different process Core 2 CPUs co-existing so there is no reason not to believe this will be the case.

Either way it does look like Intel will beat AMD to 32nm with volume production this year and volume shipment early next year.

With the recent announcement of the XP Mode for Windows 7 hitting the release candidate stage people are eager to check this out to see what, if any, advantage it will have.

But all is not good for the world as has already been commented on (both for good and for bad) XP mode requires a some form of CPU based Virtualization technology. This comes as either Intel's VT or AMD-V. But no matter the flavor you have to have one or the other. Of course not all CPUs have this. But you can always make sure that the CPU you have does support the virtualization technology.

So what happens when your CPU supports it, but the OEM that built your system has it turned off and does not give you the option to turn it on?

This is what has been happening to a few Sony Vaio owners. It seems that Sony believes turning on Intel VT will open the systems up to malicious code and compromise the systems.

The majority of Sony owners do not seem to care about this but there are a small minority that feels this is wrong on the part of Sony to not allow this feature of the CPU to be supported and are looking for refunds. There is also a small group looking to get a class action going.

If you are looking forward to the six core Gulftown but are concerned that you will need a new socket there might be some good news.

According to a blurb at Tech Power Up the new Gulftowns are seamlessly compatible with the existing X58 chipset. Yep that is right, they are making Gulftown 1366 compatible. This means that many existing X58 based mainboards could support these new CPUs with as little as a BIOS update.

The TDP is also the same as the Core i7 900 series so t should run at 130 Watts. The Gulftown will also be one of the first CPUs from Intel to be made under the 32nm HKMG process. This will be ahead of AMD's entry from Globalfoundries who will not have 32nm HKMG ready until sometime late next year.

When nVidia broke into the netbook chipset market is started a great deal of speculation, chest thumping and even a minor war between Intel and nVidia.

But the one thing it did not do was force a major change in the netbook market. There are a few reasons for it; the first is of course price. Intel typically bundles the chipset with the purchase of the Atom CPU in addition to reducing the price of the Atom when bundled. So to implement ION an OEM would need to pay considerably more.

Granted the ION performs better than the Intel Chipset, but as netbooks are meant to be low cost the price difference hurts adoption and sales. So how does nVidia counter this? They are launching a reduced price/reduced functionality ION platform dubbed the ION LE.

This new ION flavor will not support DX10 or DX11 but remain firmly tethered to the past with DC9 functionality. This means that you are pretty much tied to XP, yes you can run Vista and even 7 on a DX9 GPU but the performance is not great and you lose all the eye candy without at least DX10 support. The question for this new chipset is how long XP will survive.

nVidia, for their part, claims this is only for XP based netbooks. But with Windows 7 just weeks away XP's days could be numbered.

AMD's fusion has been an ongoing project for some time now (actually going back to just after the AM2) but as with many AMD projects and products nothing has been seen on this future advancement.

Of course now that Intel has shown off silicon that features a dual die setup (CPU and IGP) we are starting to hear more from AMD about this.

The latest news is that the Fusion will be ready by 2012 and should hit the stores as a 22nm CPU. This is great news, but I cannot help but wonder if we will see a similar launch like the Barcelona.

If you remember AMD talked up Barcelona because it was a "true" quad core CPU and not two Dies cobbled together like the Core 2 Quad. Now I am seeing a similar pattern. AMD talked of Fusion long before Intel, but Intel is closer to actual launch than AMD is. By the time we see Fusion, Intel will have had their Pineview and Clarkdale CPUs out, in fact with the Tic-Tock method Intel might have a two generation lead on AMD before they get them in the market.

So with all the news about the P55, and the next generation of the X58 (complete with a few USB 3.0 ports) it is nice to get some news on the pending release of the Core i5 and the 1156 Version of the Core i7.

According to some new information we have some specifications and even pricing for the new CPUs.

If the details put together by HKEPC is correct the entry level Core i5 750 will be a little under $200. I will run at 2.66 Ghz, feature 8MB L3 cache, and will have four Cores but will lack HyperThreading.

The entry level Core i7 860 for Socket 1156 will run a cool $284. It will run at 2.8 GHz, feature Four Core and HyperThreading, and will match the Core i5 for cache size.

The top end Core i7 for 1156 will be the 870. This will be a 2.93GHz part that will set you back $562 and should match the other Core i7 for specs otherwise.

All three of these should be out on September 6th.

The question is; will the 1156 socket take off? With the removal of the Marvell SATA 6G controller from the P55 boards, the lack of USB 3.0 and the unknowns on performance over the existing Core 2 CPUs could leave many waiting to buy. We can only hope that the Core i5 and new main stream Core i7 CPUs will have a better acceptance than the original Core i7 did.

Several months ago, stories of unlocking the fourth core in the Phenom II X3 chips through a simple BIOS option were making huge news on the web, and now it looks like there is even more to the story.

AMD has just launched the Phenom II 42 TWKR processor and those looking to get their hands on the chip are going to be quite disappointed.

AMD has hand picked the best of the best chips to bear the TWKR moniker and it seems they will be available in very limited numbers. Initial reports say that there are only going to be around 100 of the chips made available.