Intel will focus on next-generation laptop technology that combines graphics functions with the main processor, in the wake of the cancellation of its initial "Larrabee" graphics processor.
Intel's next-generation graphics due for introduction at the Consumer Electronics Show.
(Credit: Intel)Despite the market-rattling news from Intel late on Friday--which pushed rival Nvidia's stock up more than 12 percent on Monday--Intel still remains the leader in the high-volume "integrated" graphics market.
And the world's largest chipmaker is about to up the ante in this market for low-cost graphics technology, which many consumers opt for instead of high-performance chips from Nvidia or Advanced Micro Devices's ATI unit.
Later this month, Intel will unveil the first product, codenamed "Pine Trail", that puts the graphics function directly onto the same piece of silicon as the main "CPU" processor, a major departure from current technology which puts the graphics in a separate piece of ancillary silicon called the chipset.
This will be followed quickly by a CPU-graphics combination chip for laptops dubbed "Arrandale."
Integrating the graphics function onto the CPU is a feat that AMD--despite its purchase of graphics chip giant ATI in 2006--has yet to achieve.
"This is the next logical step in further integration brought to us by Moore's Law," said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, which tracks the graphics chip market.
"This is where the volume of sales are," said Peddie, referring to the segment of the market that the processor targets. Arrandale is expected to be rolled out at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
As a new feature, the chip will be able to accelerate so-called "drag-and-drop transcoding" in Windows 7. Transcoding converts, for instance, a movie on a PC to a format that makes it viewable on an iPhone or iPod. This won't be available immediately, however, Intel said Monday. It will come soon after the introduction of the processor as a "driver update."
The Arrandale chip will not support Microsoft's DirectX-11 mutlimedia acceleration technology for Windows 7. At least not right away. "It's on the roadmap," according to Intel. But this technology is not widely supported across product lines by any graphics chip supplier currently.
Intel also said Monday that it will continue development work on future standalone graphics products. "We haven't stopped investing in many-core graphics architectures," an Intel spokesperson said.
Advanced Micro Devices is laying claim to the world's fastest graphics card at it continues an assault on Nvidia at the high-end of the graphics chip market.
HD 5970 packs two fast graphics chips
(Credit: Advanced Micro Devices)As teased last week by AMD senior vice president Rick Bergman at a financial analyst meeting, the "Hemlock" graphics card--now officially called the ATI Radeon HD 5970--is AMD's top-of-the-line graphics product.
"It's in production. You'll be able to buy it at e-tailers around the world...Five Teraflops out of this baby," Bergman said last week. A teraflop is a trillion floating point operations per second, a key indicator of graphics performance.
Review site Tom's Hardware called it the "fastest discrete (standalone) card in the world."
The card integrates two graphics processing units (GPUs) for a total of 4.3 billion transistors. It also boasts 3,200 stream processing units and 160 texture units--tiny individual processors for accelerating graphics. And it supports Microsoft's DirectX 11 for speeding up graphics in Windows 7.
The 5970 will ship in Area-51 ALX and Aurora desktops from Dell's Alienware unit and allow "massive overclocking," according to AMD. Overclocking allows users to ratchet up chip speeds beyond the card's specified rating. "The unrivaled overclocking capabilities of the ATI Radeon HD 5970 are enabled by the unique design of the card, which features advanced fan and vapor chamber technologies and a fully vented exhaust to keep the card cool and ensure overclocking headroom using ATI Overdrive technology," AMD said in a statement.
A maximum resolution of 7680x1600 is achieved by driving up to up to three displays at once.
AMD cited games that will benefit from the card such as Electronic Art's Phenomic's BattleForge, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (GSC Game World), Battlefield Bad Company 2 (EA Dice), DiRT 2 (Codemasters), Aliens vs. Predator (Rebellion), and the update to The Lord of the Rings Online (Turbine).
Though prices will vary, some retailers are currently listing the price at $599.
SAN FRANCISCO--Heads up, Nvidia. Intel demonstrated its Larrabee graphics chip for the first time Tuesday at the Intel Developer Forum.
Larrabee will be Intel's first discrete, or standalone, graphics processor in about 10 years and is expected to compete with graphics chips from Nvidia and AMD's ATI unit. The demo used an early "stepping," or version, of Larrabee, which is expected to come out commercially sometime next year.
Larrabee will be targeted initially at the gaming market. The demonstration was based on the game Enemy Territory: Quake Wars from Splash Damage (See video.)
"This is a ray tracing demo," said Intel senior research scientist Bill Mark during the demonstration. "We took the content, the textures, and geometry, pulled it out of that game and put it into our ray tracing engine."
Mark described ray tracing technology as allowing "you to simulate the interaction of light with matter in a way that's accurate and makes it really easy to get effects like light and shadows."
"If you look at the water. That's done with only 10 lines of...code," he said. The demo was written in C++.
Mark said the same thing can be done on a standard multicore Intel processor but with Larrabee there is more parallelism--or the ability to do more things at the same time.
On Thursday, AMD demonstrated graphics chip technology that the company says approaches the arc and clarity seen by the human eye.
Eyefinity is a multi-display technology that will be part of future Radeon graphics chips designed to use up to six connected high-definition displays that can achieve "up to 12 times 1080p high-definition resolution, which approaches eye-definition optical clarity," the company said in a statement.
The goal is to create virtual environments so detailed that they seem optically real to the human eye. In a single PC, this yields a resolution of 268 megapixels, roughly equivalent to the resolution of a 90-degree arc of what the human eye sees, AMD said. By comparison, an average 19-inch LCD display today delivers a resolution of about 1 megapixel.
Here, ATI Eyefinity multi-monitor technology drives an immersive, panoramic gaming experience: Tom Clancy's Hawks at 5760x2400 resolution spanning six monitors employing the Display Port 1.1 interface.
(Credit: AMD)In a blog, Simon Solotko, a senior advanced marketing manager at AMD, described three "new use models availed or expanded by" Eyefinity.
"The first I call immersive, panoramic computing. Many displays for one person," Solotko wrote. The user is surrounded with many displays creating an immersive reality or information environment--only possible previously on high-end workstations or simulators, according to Solotko.
The second model is many users using a single computer with multiple displays. "For example, one user enjoying dual monitor productivity, and a second user or group of users enjoying a movie or game on a third or fourth screen," he wrote. The basic premise is that it is a single session. One person is controlling the visual environment--one keyboard, one mouse. "Kind of like a...DJ who can launch applications for many to see," Solotko wrote.
When each screen has its own I/0 (mouse, keyboard, or motion controller) and supports a separate user session, this defines the third mode, according to Solotko. "A computer of the future with panoramic 3D gaming, multiple video playback, and access to 'cloud-based' resources on the internet on multiple displays," he wrote.
"Dad can be in the den playing Tom Clancy's Hawks (against his son) while his daughter is doing homework in her room and mom is managing finances in the office, all on the same, centrally managed PC."
Intel and Microsoft will hold an event next week to discuss collaboration on improvements to Windows 7.
The event, on September 1 in San Francisco, will "share how the two companies collaborated on key enhancements during the development of Windows 7," according to Intel. Steve Smith, vice president and director, Intel's Digital Enterprise Group Operations, and Michael Angiulo, general manager of Windows Planning and PC Ecosystem at Microsoft, will talk at the event. Microsoft plans to launch Windows 7 on October 22.
Windows 7 collaboration will be demonstrated by engineers from both companies, according to Intel. Not surprisingly, Microsoft is working closely with Intel, whose chips will power the vast majority of PCs running Windows 7.
In a blog posted in July, Intel described how Microsoft and Intel "saw unique opportunities to optimize Windows 7 for Intel processor technology" in the areas of performance, power management, and graphics.
The blog discusses improvements to multitasking based on "SMT Parking," which provides additional support to the Windows 7 scheduler for Intel Hyper-threading Technology. With Hyper-threading, the operating system sees a single processor core as two cores (i.e., a dual-core chip becomes a virtual quad-core processor), thus potentially improving multitasking--or doing tasks (threads) simultaneously.
In addition, improvements over Vista for boot and shutdown times have been implemented during the Windows 7 development cycle, according to the blog.
And on Intel's Web site, the chipmaker lists desktop motherboards and associated drivers that have passed logo certification for Windows 7.
Another beneficiary of improved Windows 7 technology: Intel solid-state drives, which are typically faster than hard-disk drives and gaining ground in niche markets such as high-end laptops, gaming PCs, and servers. SSDs will be able to take advantage of Windows 7 technology called the Trim Command. Trim will allow blocks of data to be freed up for reuse to better maintain the performance of the SSD.
Windows 7 will also do more than previous operating systems with graphics via DirectX 11. Advanced Micro Devices has described DirectX 11-related technology that enables games developers to create smoother, less blocky and more organic looking objects in games. And, beyond games, Windows 7 has the potential to turn a graphics processing unit (GPU) from AMD or Nvidia into a general-purpose compute engine, used to accelerate everyday computing tasks like a central processing unit, or CPU. Specifically, "the compute shader" can be used to speed up more common computing tasks. The buzz word used to describe this technology is a mouthful: GPGPU or general-purpose graphics processing unit.
Windows 7 will be more than just a better interface. Under-the-hood changes will allow chips from Intel, Nvidia, and Advanced Micro Devices to ratchet up Windows 7 performance above previous Microsoft operating systems.
Microsoft on Wednesday said it has finalized the code for Windows 7, set to ship with new PCs starting October 22. Improvements will include how Windows handles multitasking, graphics acceleration, and solid-state drives.
Windows 7 will enable better performance for multitasking, graphics acceleration, and solid-state drives.
(Credit: Microsoft)Microsoft is working closely with Intel, whose chips will power the vast majority of PCs running Windows 7. A July 22 post from Intel's Joakim Lialias, Alliance Manager responsible for Microsoft, described how Microsoft and Intel "saw unique opportunities to optimize Windows 7 for Intel processor technology" in the areas of performance, power management, and graphics.
In his blog, Lialias focused on improvements to multitasking based on "SMT Parking," which provides additional support to the Windows 7 scheduler for Intel Hyper-threading Technology. With Hyper-threading, the operating system sees a single processor core as two cores. For example, a quad-core system would be seen as having eight cores, thus potentially improving multitasking--or doing tasks (threads) simultaneously.
Hyper-threading is back in vogue at Intel after being pulled from Intel Core 2 chips (it debuted in the Pentium 4 processor). Nehalem Core "i" series processors use Hyper-threading, as do Atom chips. Intel, in fact, now includes Hyper-threading as part of a chip's core specifications. The Core i7-975 processor, for example, is listed as "4 Cores, 8 Threads."
Lialias also mentioned enhancements to boot and shutdown times. "Our mutual goal was to provide the most responsive compute experience possible." (Lialias' blog was cited in a PC World article.)
Windows 7 will also do more than previous operating systems with graphics--and here, DirectX 11 stands out as the most highly anticipated technology. A recent AMD blog describes a "beast called the tessellator...which enables games developers to create smoother, less blocky and more organic looking objects in games." The blog discusses how DirectX has been redesigned "to ensure that it is much more efficient" at using multicore processors, such as the AMD Opteron chip.
Beyond games, Windows 7 has the potential to turn a graphics processing unit (GPU) from AMD or Nvidia into a general-purpose compute engine, used to accelerate everyday computing tasks like a CPU. Specifically, "the compute shader" can be used to speed up more common computing tasks. The buzz word used to describe this technology is a mouthful: GPGPU or general-purpose graphics processing unit.
In an April interview, Sumit Gupta, product manager for Nvidia's Tesla products, described GPGPU in some detail. "What that essentially means to consumers is, if your laptop has an Nvidia GPU or ATI GPU, it will run the operating system faster because the operating system will essentially see two processors in the system. For the first time, the operating system is going to see the GPU both as a graphics chip and as a compute engine," he said.
Gupta gave an example of launching an application. "For example, when you launch (Google) Picasa, that is completely run on the CPU. (But) the minute you choose an image and apply a filter, that filter should run on the GPU," he said.
Another beneficiary of improved Windows 7 technology: solid-state drives, which are typically faster than hard-disk drives and gaining ground in niche markets such as high-end laptops, gaming PCs, and servers.
SSDs will be able to take advantage of Windows 7 technology called the Trim Command. In a recent interview, Troy Winslow, marketing manager for the NAND Products Group at Intel, explained the significance of the Windows 7 Trim Command, which clears up free area on a solid-state drive.
Even when blocks of data get deleted on a solid-state drive, the drive still looks like it's full, according to Winslow. "Trim allows you to release those blocks for reuse and maintain the performance. Every drive will degrade somewhat over time. With Trim, you're able to stay more in that the virgin state," he said.
Updated at 11:10 a.m. PDT: adding Walmart dv2 laptop information.
Concerns about Advanced Micro Devices' future are being aired as the company celebrates a chip milestone.
HP Pavilion dv2 packs a low-power AMD chip. Can AMD compete effectively with Intel-based ultra-thins?
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)The chipmaker said Wednesday that it has shipped 500 million x86 (Intel-compatible) processors since the company's founding in 1969. And to celebrate, AMD is giving away four Hewlett-Packard dv2 ultra-thin notebooks based on its low-power Athlon Neo X2 chip. But the laptop giveaway, ironically, underscores one of AMD's challenges.
Doug Freedman, analyst at Broadpoint AmTech, said in a research note earlier this week that the dv2 laptop has "failed to ramp," meaning it has not gained much traction in the market. Best Buy, for example, though offering a range of other HP dv series laptop models, has not offered the dv2 to date. (Update: However, Walmart offers the dv2 laptop.)
But Freedman's comments are mild compared to what some other analysts are saying after AMD posted disappointing financial results Tuesday.
A blog on ZDNet Wednesday cited a few of the most negative comments. "AMD's tepid top-line results/guidance and weak margins suggest continued execution issues and potential share loss," said Goldman Sachs analyst James Covello.
And J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Danely said: "We believe AMD is losing share to Intel due to inferior products and is being hurt by lack of a Netbook processor...We would note Intel processor sales outgrew AMD by 13 percent during 2Q09 and are expected to outgrow AMD by another 3 percent during 3Q09."
And, as the ZDNet blog points out, maybe the most damning comments come from JMP Securities Alex Gauna: "Another disappointing quarter from the perennial CPU also-ran," he said, referring to AMD's business of making central processing units (CPUs).
Gauna added that ARM chip technology may make AMD even less competitive down the road as future devices adopt these chips. ARM is a low-power chip design used by Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Apple, Samsung, and others.
Of course AMD doesn't see it this way. Dirk Meyer, AMD's president and CEO, said in a statement Tuesday that "new platform, microprocessor, and graphics introductions planned for the second half of 2009 position us well to improve (profit) margins and meet our financial goals for the year."
AMD also said Tuesday that during the second quarter Dell, HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems announced new servers based on the six-core AMD Opteron processor and that the ATI graphics unit introduced the first 40-nanometer desktop graphics processor, the first 1GHz graphics chip during the quarter, and held the first public preview of working silicon and drivers supporting Microsoft's upcoming DirectX 11 technology featured in Windows 7.
An Eee PC Netbook based on a Qualcomm processor that runs Google's Android operating system looks promising as an alternative to the millions of Netbooks out there tethered to Intel Atom processors and Microsoft Windows.
An Asus Qualcomm-based smart-book is a promising alternative to Windows-Intel Netbooks
(Credit: Asus)Asus was showing a Netbook at the Computex conference in Taipei running the Android OS on top of Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor, according to this TweakTown video.
When Asus plans to ship a Netbook based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor isn't clear and Asus is not disclosing its plans (later this year?), but it becomes even less clear when you add Google's Android operating system to the mix. Michael Rayfield, an Nvidia executive, doesn't expect Android Netbooks to appear commercially until next year.
What is clear, however, is that these Netbooks are different from the Windows-Intel variety. Qualcomm is calling them "smartbooks" rather than Netbooks to draw attention to the fact that they will operate more like smartphones: standard 3G connectivity, always-on, and all-day battery life.
And what makes this Asus demonstration at Computex interesting is that all Asus Netbooks to date have run on Intel processors. Obviously, Asus thinks the Snapdragon technology is different enough to warrant a separate design.
Other specification for the Netbook include a 10-inch screen, a built-in Webcam, and a universal 3G radio that supports UMTS and CDMA networks on all frequencies used globally, according to an IDG News report.
Qualcomm said Sunday that it is adding new Snapdragon silicon to its series of chips for Netbooks and other small devices while it showcases devices at the Computex conference in Taipei.
Snapdragon-powered devices will come in various designs
(Credit: Qualcomm)The San Diego-based company announced that it is expanding the Snapdragon chip platform with a next-generation chipset that uses the 45-nanometer process technology to provide faster processing, significant battery life improvements, and other enhancements.
The chips are targeted at smartphones and so-called smartbooks. The latter is a category of small devices that, in some cases, will be similar in appearance to Netbooks but will emphasize 3G connectivity and be sold through telecommunications companies. Netbooks are small laptops typically powered by Intel's Atom processor.
The new Snapdragon QSD8650A chipset, scheduled for sampling before the end of 2009, runs a 1.3 GHz processor, achieving 30 percent higher performance as well as enhanced multimedia and 2D/3D graphics, Qualcomm said. Current Snapdragon silicon runs at 1GHz. The chip uses a manufacturing process based on the same 45-nanometer geometries that Intel currently uses for its processors.
"Utilizing 45nm technology also allows power consumption improvements such as up to 30 percent lower dynamic power (over) previous-generation Snapdragon products and an unmatched standby power of less than 10 millwatts," Qualcomm said.
Qualcomm also said that the company's device manufacturing partners will be showcasing devices powered by Snapdragon chipsets. The company will hold a press conference to highlight these new devices and discuss its smartbook strategy on Monday at Computex.
Demonstrations of Snapdragon-based devices will include Asus, Compal, Foxconn, High Tech Computer (HTC), Inventec, Toshiba, and Wistron.
"We feel the Snapdragon platform from Qualcomm holds great promise, and look forward to collaborating on groundbreaking new consumer products that redefine what is possible on a mobile device," Peter Chou, chief executive officer of HTC, said in a statement.
"Thanks to the unprecedented performance of Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipsets, we look forward to delivering a new type of user experience to the market," Alan Tsai, the senior vice president of Business Group 2 of Quanta Computer, said in a statement.
CARLSBAD, Calif.--Qualcomm and Freescale Semiconductor are ready to begin pushing a category of devices that they say are cheaper, lighter, and more connected than Intel-based Netbooks.
And just to make sure that the difference is crystal clear, both companies are calling the category "smartbooks."
"We are relabling with the term 'smartbook.' We are joining others in using this term," said Glen Burchers, director of global consumer segment marketing at Freescale, in a phone interview Thursday. "The manufacturers that are using ARM-based devices are cooperating in using this terminology," according to Burchers.
"The smartbook is the smartphone experience on a larger form factor," according to Luis Pineda, vice president of marketing at Qualcomm's CDMA technologies division, speaking during a teleconference on Thursday.
So, what makes a smartbook different from the Netbooks being sold by companies like Dell and Hewlett-Packard? Netbooks use an Intel Atom processor and, typically, Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. Smartbooks will use processors based on an ARM design and the Linux operating system. And 3G connectivity will be standard--like a typical smartphone.
ARM chips offer better power efficiency than Atom processors and ARM-based devices come with virtually no cost overhead for the operating system. "The primary distinction between them (smartbooks) and the existing crop of Netbooks will be longer battery life--eight-hour battery life--slimmer form factor, and lower price point," said Burchers.
One Snapdragon-based prototype uses a tablet motif. Both Qualcomm and Freescale say that the term smartbook will encompass multiple designs. 3G connectivity--the standard for smartphones--is key.
(Credit: Qualcomm)Other distinguishing features are "instant-on" and "persistent connectivity," according to Burchers. "The idea is that the device is intelligent enough to go fetch your emails and your messages automatically. And this is what you'd expect from a smartphone," he said, trying to emphasize that the device would operate in some ways more like a smartphone than a Netbook.
Qualcomm, for its part, has a Web site dedicated to smartbook prototypes and concept devices and lists standard features such as 3G mobile broadband, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, and HD video. Qualcomm hosted a dinner at the The Wall Street Journal's "D7: All Things Digital" conference, where company executives discussed the smartbook strategy.
Qualcomm's smartbooks will be powered by its Snapdragon processor, while Freescale's chips use an uncatchy "i.MX515" moniker. Both companies license the basic chip design from U.K.-based ARM. In Qualcomm's case, it has an ARM architecture license which allows the San Diego, Calif.-based company to do major modifications to the basic chip design.
Another Qualcomm prototype is a classic clamshell design. Some Freescale-based devices will also be clamshell designs.
(Credit: Qualcomm)The first smartbook devices are appearing from so-called original design manufacturers or ODMs, which typically don't market under their brand name but supply devices to large PC makers which then slap on their brand. Wistron and Pegatron, both ODMs, will be showing Freescale-based 10-inch clamshell devices at the Computex conference, Burchers said. Computex starts next week in Taipei.
"These are the first near production-ready devices that we expect to find a home at OEMs (brand-name device makers) before Christmas time this year. We should definitely be able to hit the $199 retail price," according to Burchers.
Nvidia--while not tying itself to the smartbook nomenclature--is also expected to show devices based on its ARM-based Tegra processor at Computex. Nvidia has been touting a $99 "HD mobile Internet device" that telecommunications companies would offer with subscription plans--the route that devices based on Qualcomm and Freescale chips are also expected to take.
Netbooks, by contrast, are typically priced between $300 and $500.
One the challenges facing all ARM-based device makers is the lack of a Windows operating system--a problem that XP- and future Windows 7-based Netbooks don't have. Freescale and others are looking to Google's Android OS, due commercially in devices next year, to counter the marquee draw that Windows has.
"The potential that Google has--this has got everybody's attention," Burchers said. "One thing that's driving that is the Google brand. The second thing is that finally there's one-stop shopping for an operating system that is an alternative to Windows. Linux (generically) is an alternative to Windows but it is fragmented. There are too many derivatives," according to Burchers.
Until the potential of Android in smartbooks is realized, the lack of a Windows operating system will always pose a problem for some consumers, especially in laptop-like clamshell designs.
"The biggest inhibiting factor is that it doesn't have any legacy (established PC) operating system compatibility because Microsoft is unlikely to provide native support for it near-term," said Ashok Kumar, an analyst at investment bank Collins Stewart. "For the mainstream market, unless they get Microsoft compatibility it's going to be a long road," Kumar added.
