Slashdot Mirror
Intel Launches New Chipset
mikemuch writes "The new P35 and G33 chipsets, codenamed 'Bear Lake' are now available. They have a new memory controller that supports DDR3 RAM at up to 1333MHz, a new southbridge, and will support the upcoming 45nm Penryn CPUs. They don't yet have an actually new and different GPU — their GMA 3100 is pretty much the same as the GMA 3000 of the G965 chipset."
For a little more technical info you can also check out the Hot Hardware writeup.
Well, for one, Intel's biggest instruction set change in 5 years: SSE4 extensions, an updated to Intel's SIMD instruction set.
:)
I know. I'm not all the excited, either.
My blog
Voltage is lower. Existing (pre-P35) boards won't support the Penryn.
The Tech Report also has coverage, with full application and peripheral performance testing: http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q2/intel-p35/ind ex.x?pg=1
> You want Intel Graphics as a actual video card? (sic)
Well, not really, no. But huge numbers of run-of-the-mill business PCs, plus the Apple "consumer" line (mini, imac and macbooks), use the standard Intel graphics hardware. It does OK for most people's purposes, and the install base is huge, and for those reasons, a bump in capabilities for the onboard graphics chip would be noteworthy.
"There is no night so forlorn, no mood so bleak, that it cannot be infused with pleasure by tender meat..." - R.W. Apple
I wouldn't go redundant like this but both of the other replies are from ACs and many people will never read them/know they exist.
So far, Intel is the only company with supported OSS drivers. AMD has "promised" to deliver them for ATI cards, but who knows how long that will take? And nVidia has made no such promise.
In addition, if we could get them without shared memory, the performance would likely improve and it wouldn't drag down system performance. So that would be a great thing.
When we get OSS drivers for ATI, it might become possible to use one under Linux (or any other OS but MacOS for which Apple participates in driver development) in a reliable fashion. But ATI's drivers are poop anyway. Regardless, those who want a 100% OSS system can not buy a current nVidia card, as they are unsupported; an older nVidia card still in production is likely to come from one of the least-reputable vendors, so a card supported by the 'nv' driver that's worth using will be hard to come by. Intel is currently the only credible choice for accelerated video with OSS drivers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Wikipedia has a more useful description of SSE4
As far as I know, gcc only supports up to SSE3 intrinsics. Look in pmmintrin.h
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Penryn does C6. I don't know which, if any, requirements are satisfied in current boards.
The subsystems of the board (buses, controllers, GPU, etc.) need to function by themselves while the processor is off. I'd imagine there are also certain hardware requirements to bring the CPU out of C6 that the new boards provide.
The average enthusiast probably doesn't need outstanding battery life, it's just a nice extra. But for business/professional uses, this is a very welcome development.
Why would Intel invest in chipsets and motherboards when the profit margins are slim (as compared to much higher profit margins for a cpu)? For one, the investment in chipsets and motherboards has saved the company from major disasters on several occasions by early detection of obscure bugs. Knowledge of internal problems can allow the company to delay or cancel a product (such as Timna), which is much less harmful to a stock price than shipping a broken product.
By the way, divisions within a company that constitute a material portion of earnings are required to report their revenue. If you want to know whether or not Intel makes money from chipsets, you can look it up in public records.
[quote]In addition, if we could get them without shared memory, the performance would likely improve and it wouldn't drag down system performance. So that would be a great thing.[/quote] I think the shared memory issue is a bit overweighted.
With current memory speeds and dual channel bandwidth, system memory can handle the additional traffic load of the graphic subsystem without suffering that much. And for what concerns 3D graphic performance of those budget cards, that's mainly gpu bound, not memory bound.
I don't think you'd see noticeable improvements in system or graphic performance with discrete graphic memory - while the burden of adding it would hurt the price convenience of the integrate solutions.
Of course, if you have a low specced system, say with 512mb of ram, even those 80mb that the graphic card steal for itself hurts. But a 512mb configuration is quite doomed nowadays by itself.