CPU, APU & Chipsets - Page 211

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.

It looks like AMD is working a little bit harder to appease the overclocking community and have a chip that is supposed to be truly special.

After a nasty round of rumors that AMD was going to lock down the hidden cores on their Phenom II X2 and X3 CPUs AMD has come out and said they are not going to do that.

The unlocking of cores on the Phenom II X3 and X2 has become something of a fad with people buying them in the hopes of having a fully working Quad at the end of the day.

To AMD this is nothing serious as they view the unlocking of these cores as benign. Apparently they do not feel it hurts sales of the true quad core Phenom IIs.

Read more here.