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Intel Discrete Graphics Chips Confirmed
Arun Demeure writes "There have been rumors of Intel's re-entry into discrete graphics for months. Now Beyond3D reports that Intel has copped to the project on their own site. They describe it as a 'many-core' architecture aimed at 'high-end client platforms,' but also extending to other market segments in the future, with 'plans for accelerated CPU integration.' This might also encourage others to follow Intel's strategy of open-sourcing their Linux drivers. So, better watch out NVIDIA and AMD/ATI — there's new competition on the horizon."
And if they enter the gaming video market, I can assure you that my next videboard will be an Intel one.
Intel drivers for Linux Just Work(TM). I installed Ubuntu 6.10 on my Acer notebook, with a i915g video adapter, and everything worked without any extra effort. And I'm even able to use Beryl/Compiz as my default window manager, without any stability issues.
Both nVidia and ATI should learn from Intel.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
The Intel GMA950 is the one Apple's using in the Mac Mini and MacBook laptops, and doesn't seem too horrible for an integrated shared-memory GPU; it runs all the spiffy OS X eye-candy nicely, and I've had people tell me that playing games (World of Warcraft natively, or City of Heroes after installing BootCamp and XP) on it is fine.
;-), I imagine the GMA950 chipset (or something newer) would be great for KDE/GNOME/etc. even when they start using OpenGL.
Since gaming isn't really your focus if you're running Linux
Maybe something like Asus' P5B motherboards (P5B-VM and P5B-V)?
(Note an Asus employee or stockholder, just a happy customer of an ASUS P4G8X Deluxe).
- chrish
most people could care less about which graphics card they have
u um.jpg
They could care less? It would only possible do be able to care less if you actually cared.
http://www.impleader.com/photos/blog/caringcontin
The graphics part of S3 was sold to VIA at about the same time as it transformed to SONIC|blue. So the Chapter 11 thing is irrelevant.
As far as I know, the GMA 9xx series is a couple generations behind, performance wise. It should play quake3 and UT2k4 just fine, but it seems to have trouble with the Doom 3 engine, and I suspect the new UT engine will also be unplayable. On the windows side, it doesn't work with halflife2 either. Seems the most likely kind of game to fail is a new FPS. But I hear aero and Xgl/AIGLX work fine, so you may be satisfied with the current Intel offerings. The wikipedia page seems like a good place to start researching if you're still interested.
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Open Source Sysadmin
It works even better than that: if you can reduce the operating frequency of the chip, you can typically affoed to reduce the voltage. Whereas dynamic power usage is proportional to frequency, it is also proportional to the square of the voltage.
The voltage required for a device depends on the device complexity, and the frequency - for every device, you can find a sweet-spot in terms of voltage per unit frequency, after which you tend to get decreasing returns. By selling a device clocked at its "sweet spot," you can deliver high efficiency and decent performance. The 7600 GS, at 1.15v core, is an example of a chip in its sweet spot - at less than 25w, you can have performance for very little power. The 7600 GT, by comparison, offers only %40 more performance for %60-70 more power (~36w), thanks to its much higher core voltage (1.35v).
With every process generation, you can push this sweet spot a little further - for example, the sweet spot of the GeForce 6 series was the 6600, clocked at 300 MHz core. With the move from 11nm to 90nm (6600->7600), we get a more complex chip and a boost to 400 MHz for the same power envelope. I expect to see a similar "sweet-spot" chip available from Nvidia when the 8800 series makes its way to 65nm...probably a cut-down chip with only 48 shader units (8800GTX has 128).
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
The GMA950 is a crap 3D card. Even the most basic google research shows that it is NOT a return of Intel to 3D and no reviewer worth a dam has said the graphics "scream". Poor performance and incomplete 3d support are the hallmarks of the GMA950. If you play nothing but Quake II than yea, the GMA950 is for you.
4 ,00.asp7 &p=3- gma-950-terrible-opengl.html
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,182181
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=242
http://everythingapple.blogspot.com/2006/03/intel
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
MacBooks and MacMinis ship with DVI on board.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.