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Intel is about to roll out some pretty impressive mobile processors, finally bringing its "Nehalem" Core i architecture to the mainstream mobile space. So, what can we expect from Apple?

First, a little recent history. Apple, so far, has elected not to use the Core i7 quad-core mobile processors announced back in September in its MacBook Pro line. Which isn't that surprising. The first crop of laptop i7s barely qualify as mobile processors: they have a desktop-like TDP (thermal design power) of 45 watts that wreaks havoc on battery life.

That said, as an example of what an Apple rival has chosen to do, the Hewlett-Packard Envy 15 now offers both the i7-720QM (1.6GHz, 6MB cache) and i7-820QM (1.73GHz, 8MB Cache)--both quad-core Core i7 processors.

A big imponderable is whether Apple will adopt a future 32-nanometer version of the quad-core mobile i series for the 17-inch MacBook Pro. Presumably, this would have a lower TDP and be more amenable to Apple.

Now, for some armchair analysis. Arrandale: One of the burning questions (at least among some in the tech media) is whether new MacBooks will use Intel's "Arrandale" mobile Core i series of processors. Arrandale is significant for two reasons: it is part of Intel's 32-nanometer chip roll-out and is the first instance of Intel combining the graphics function with the main "CPU" processor. This results in better overall power efficiency and integrated graphics performance that "doesn't suck" anymore, as some observers have put it.

One school of thought is that Apple will not use the processor. If there is any truth to that rumor, that makes for a head-scratching scenario since Arrandale will be the pillar of the mobile Core i3 and i5 lineups. A likely scenario is that Apple--one way or another--chooses to attach Nvidia or ATI discrete graphics processors to Arrandale, or a facsimile thereof.

Nvidia or ATI: And speaking of Nvidia and ATI, instead of trying to second-guess Apple on all of the possible graphics chip permutations, the easier question to ask is: which graphics chip supplier will prevail this time around? Nvidia--despite defects in some of its past offerings--has been dominant over the last year or so across the MacBook lineup. Will this continue? Or will Apple strike more of a balance between Nvidia and ATI?

Remember, that Apple is touting the general compute function of the graphics processing unit, or GPU, in OS X Snow Leopard. "Now a new technology in Mac OS X Snow Leopard called OpenCL takes the power of graphics processors and makes it available for general-purpose computing," according to Apple ad copy. (Translation: using the GPU more like general-purpose CPU.) Are Nvidia and ATI OpenCL equals?

MacBook Air: And what, pray tell, will happen to the MacBook Air? Which is coming up on its second anniversary in January. I won't venture a guess (not yet at least), though I have a personal interest in this subject since I have been using an Air since February 2008.

Blu-ray: And finally, next-generation optical drives. Will MacBook Pros finally get Blu-ray? Maybe. There seems to be some pessimism about Apple adopting Blu-ray, as reader comments (and threads on other forums) suggest.

Apple, in all of its wisdom, will provide the answers to these questions soon enough.

Updated at 6:05 p.m. PST: adding Blu-ray discussion.

On December 17, Intel will preview new processors for laptops, among other chip technologies.

The preview is significant because it will be Intel's first chance to show off its ready-to-ship, commercially viable next-generation 32-nanometer technology. Almost all Intel processors are currently built on a 45-nanometer process. Generally, the smaller the geometry, the faster and more power efficient the processor is.

Intel's Core i series of processors will be the focus of the San Francisco event that will serve as a venue to preview and demonstrate products to be rolled out at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The "Nehalem" microarchitecture that powers the Core i chips was introduced in November of last year and is considered a major step up in performance over previous architectures. To date, Intel has shipped the high-end Core i7 for gaming machines and mid-range Core i5 processors.

Intel is expected to preview the first Core i3 processors--some, including the 2.93GHz i3 530, have appeared on retail sites already--as well as updates to the Core i5 series.

One of the most anticipated processor technologies is "Arrandale." This will be the first mainstream Intel laptop processor to put two processor cores and a graphics function together in one chip package, resulting in better overall power efficiency. And the new built-in graphics technology is expected to offer materially better graphics performance than current Intel graphics.

Arrandale will eventually come under the Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 brands, though initial versions are expected to appear as the Core i3 and i5.

Intel is also expected to make a push to get its Turbo Boost technology into more Core i5 and i7 processors--including Arrandale i5 models. Turbo Boost speeds up and slows down individual cores to meet processing and power-efficiency needs, respectively.

Separately, Intel is also getting ready to roll out new Atom chip technology for Netbooks, commonly referred to as "Pine Trail." That is also happening later this month.

Discontent with Intel graphics goes back a few years. But the unsealing of 3-year-old e-mail exchanges between Intel and Microsoft reveals something about the present, too.

Intel 915 chipset

(Credit: Intel)

First some background. Intel makes integrated graphics silicon--that is, graphics functionality that is built into its chipsets. Performance is not the name of the game for Intel. Delivering power-efficient, adequate graphics that can handle everyday tasks and do basic gaming is the goal. Anything beyond this is left to the high-octane discrete chips from ATI and Nvidia.

"We've always been consistent that high-end gamers should use discrete graphics," said Intel spokesman George Alfs. Intel graphics is also inexpensive and comes virtually free on some PCs.

But Intel graphics silicon is everywhere. It ships in tens of millions of PCs every year. And herein lies the issue. The silicon becomes the lowest common denominator that Microsoft and game developers must write to because it's so ubiquitous.

This is the root of the Intel 915 integrated graphics and the "Vista Capable" controversy. As widely reported, Intel's 915 (which shipped as standard in many PCs) was not up to running Vista's Aero Glass interface (among other features). So, Microsoft dropped this as a requirement.

Reams of material have been released according to this Seattle Times blog documenting the infighting that took place trying to resolve the 915 issue. The documents stem from a lawsuit that alleges Microsoft misled consumers by lowering the requirements so a 915-based PC could be designated as "Vista Capable."

According to an unsealed motion citing e-mail and internal Intel and Microsoft documentation released by U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman, Microsoft objected to an internal Intel link "positioning the 915 GM as optimum for Windows Vista on mobile PCs." The motion states that Microsoft viewed this as "misleading" and "egregious" and that Microsoft asserted that the 915 chipset "should not even be in the list of recommended hardware for Windows Vista" and further opined that the "higher end of the chipset choices" from Nvidia and ATI were more suitable.

But that may not be the whole story. According to an article on Channel Web, Microsoft did not "cave" to Intel and the 915, but rather "it was Microsoft, led by Poole, that initiated that change all on its own." Will Poole at that time was a Microsoft senior vice president.

"We are seriously confused. We believed that 915 is NOT vista ready as it will never have WDDM drivers," according to an e-mail from Intel Vice President Renee James, cited in the Channel Web article. (WDDM stands for Windows Display Driver Model.)

Whatever the case, Intel integrated graphics was so commonplace that it was a big issue.

(For the record, Nvidia had issues with its drivers and Windows Vista too.)

Intel targets graphics
Fast-forward to September of 2006 and the Intel X3000 and X3100 (G965/GM965) graphics. With this silicon, Intel decided it was going to provide a better graphics experience for gaming in particular. The 965 started shipping in September of 2006, but it took Intel nearly a year to write the drivers needed to unlock better performance.

"New drivers for the company's 965GM chipset, found in many notebooks and midrange desktops, still don't deliver the uniform performance increases promised earlier this year, according to testing by CNET Labs," CNET News' Tom Krazit wrote in October 2007.

Intel documentation (here) says that "Intel recently introduced the 15.6 and 14.31 Windows Vista and Windows XP graphics drivers that enables Shader Model 3.0 including support for hardware vertex shader and HW TnL on the Intel G965, GM965, and G35 Express Chipsets."

The document continues: "This capability has shown enhancements in game compatibility as well as game play" and concludes the "Introduction" by saying: "The end result is that Intel is able to deliver the highest possible frame rates by leveraging Intel's world class processors."

Now fast-forward to the present and the MacBook Air. The first version of the MacBook Air was rolled out in a show of great camaraderie with Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Intel silicon all around: not only a special version of the Intel mobile Core 2 Duo was used, but Intel X3100 graphics, too. At that time, Apple CEO Steve Jobs heaped praise on the Core 2 Duo processor.

Then came the MacBook Air update. Intel graphics out, Nvidia 9400M graphics in.

This time Apple stressed the graphics capability of the Air.

Gains and compromises
To reiterate, the issue is not that Intel graphics are horrendous. It's simply that Intel's graphics silicon is so widespread that it becomes an issue for people, for example, who buy a laptop and later decide they want to play games at a certain level or do more high-level graphics.

What do analysts think about the X3100? Jon Peddie says Intel graphics has improved, but he is cautious. (Note that the X3100 has recently been superseded in laptops by the Intel GMA 4500MHD.)

"Whereas it would never be used by a real gamer (of which I like to consider myself) it will allow someone with a tighter budget to have some experience (with gaming on a PC)," Peddie said in response to an e-mail query. Peddie does research and testing of graphics products from Intel, Nvidia, and ATI.

Peddie: "Based on early tests we have run on the X3100, we found it ran all the games we tried, i.e., Spore, Stalker Clear Sky, Crysis, and Far Cry Warhammer, but "mind you we had to use lower resolution than we would normally, and if the game didn't automatically turn off some of the special features, we had to in order to get a descent frame rate."

He continues: "But the fact that it ran at all is I think a major slap on the back for Intel. Turning features off and reducing resolution is a reasonable compromise considering the costs."

But Intel (to state the obvious) is not Nvidia. "Now having said that I also have to say that the Nvidia mGPU 9400 (now used in the MacBook Air) is much more capable and you can run at higher resolutions with more features turned on," Peddie said.

The conclusion. Intel graphics is adequate and probably does more than enough for most users. But the issue will never go away because integrated graphics set itself up as a low-watermark benchmark for competitors (that offer higher-end discrete cards) to surpass. Meanwhile, it forces multimedia and game developers to make their games and applications run in a less-than-stellar way on millions of PC worldwide.

Will Apple's decision to use Nividia chips in its new MacBooks be a catalyst for change?

With all the hoopla surrounding Apple's choice of Nvidia graphics in its new MacBooks fading, it remains to be seen if Nvidia's GeForce 9400M has legs.

Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q708 may presage other designs with Nvidia GeForce 9400M

(Credit: Toshiba)

Intel has a successful integrated graphics franchise and is the leader in laptop graphics. Before I get slammed, let me be clear that I'm not talking about performance. I'm referring to market share. Many laptop suppliers--particularly in the low-cost and ultraportable segments--default to Intel graphics because it offers adequate performance, reasonable power efficiency, and it's cheap (if not free).

The question is, can Nvidia's GeForce 9400M change the industry practice of opting for Intel simply because its solution is adequate and cheap? And, is Apple signaling a sea change? The first indications are that the 9400M offers improvement over Intel's graphics, according to CNET Reviews. (Games and photo editing applications like Photoshop are two obvious areas where Nvidia will beat Intel's newest GM45 integrated graphics.)

And Apple was getting plenty of feedback apparently. Nvidia's recent statement in a conference call may be representative of what other PC makers are hearing from their customers. Apple was getting "a lot of feedback...from the Apple community" who were demanding better graphics, according to Bill Henry, director of notebook marketing at Nvidia.

Nvidia's one-chip 9400M is truly an integrated solution and thereby a direct Intel competitor. In addition to the graphics-dedicated transistors that make up about 70 percent of the die (chip) area, the 9400M chipset includes a memory controller, PCI Express, USB ports, SATA ports, high-definition audio, and legacy support. Importantly, Nvidia said it has maintained the same power envelope of Intel graphics.

But it's not clear whether this will change the dynamics of the market. Whether, for example, the largest vendors that now use Intel integrated graphics in ultraportables will opt for Nvidia as Apple did with its Air. There is a formidable list of vendors that use Intel's GM45. Hewlett-Packard (EliteBook 2530p), Dell (Latitude E4200), Sony (Vaio VGN-TT190UBX), and Toshiba (R600-S4202).

Or maybe a market shift will happen elsewhere. Toshiba has offered a glimpse of what some may do. The high-end Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q708 ($4,199) was announced last week, packing an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300, a 128GB solid state drive, and integrated GeForce 9400M graphics paired with two Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS graphics chips.

The beauty of this design is that a user can switch between the power-sipping 9400M when doing undemanding tasks and the powerhouse 9800 GTS graphics when playing games.

And reports claim that new designs from HP, Dell, and Asus will use the 9400M.

But the jury's out. We'll have to wait to see what other PC makers elect to do over the coming months and whether putting Nvidia graphics in ultraportables and other laptop designs is a new imperative.

Ask Sean Maloney about Intel's biggest challenges and biggest opportunities for growth and he'll mention the same thing: WiMax, the company's chosen broadband technology.

Maloney, an executive vice president of Intel and the chipmaker's chief sales and marketing officer, has seen waves of technology come and go since joining the company back in 1982. Recently, he got the additional responsibility of coordinating company strategy, which he said has "a good deal to do with the rapid pace of our global development."

Sean Maloney

(Credit: Intel)

I had the chance to talk with him last week. Maloney initially touched on how the consumer notebook market is tracking the cell phone market. Just as cell phones are now driven heavily by consumer demand, so will notebooks be primarily driven by consumer demand in the years to come, according to Maloney.

Maloney also discussed how the shift in global notebook sales is transforming Intel into a consumer product company, and how Intel will respond to competitors in China and elsewhere.

Q: What are the biggest challenges for Intel going forward?
Maloney: If you look at the notebook market it's growing very rapidly. The notebook has gone through the same pattern as the cell phone went through in '97, '98. The notebook is becoming heavily driven by the consumer market. The computer industry has largely been dominated by business computing since the 1940s. Consumer is now dominating computing.

The percentage of our business that's in the U.S. has shrunk radically in the last 10 years and shrunk radically in Europe. The emerging markets are now the dominant markets.

We're about 10 years behind the cell phone in that pattern. Where the cell phone is now, it is very much matured in terms of growth in most markets. Even in countries like Angola and Mozambique, there is heavy penetration. The computer industry and the notebook industry is a decade behind that.

Q: In the consumer segment, netbooks (typically ultra-small notebooks priced below $600) are catching on in a big way, what do you see as the reason for that?
Maloney: Previously, someone in an emerging market, just went to a cybercafe. Now they can afford to get online themselves. In the mature markets, (it's people) who can't afford a notebook, like 8-year-olds to 12-year-olds. Or someone who wants to take something out in the evening but doesn't want to drag along a 16-inch notebook. The underlying driver is Web access. People spend much, much more time on the Web every day than they do on their cell phones. And yet you don't have that portability, so that pushes (consumers) in that direction.

Q: How does Intel respond to a chip like the Chinese Godson processor that has government backing?
Maloney: There's a long history of this in Japan, of state-sponsored computer research. And Europe, the same thing. It's not surprising (in this case) because many people see the microprocessor as the essential building block of IT. That's not surprising that governments want to put money in there.

It's potentially a threat. But we're fairly relaxed about it. We don't expect to be the only supplier. On the other hand, we've announced very large manufacturing facilities inside of China. We are a big player in the Chinese market ourselves.

Q: Intel has repeatedly touted WiMax as critical to Intel's mobile future, if not its future overall. So, how important is WiMax to Intel?
Maloney: It's very important to the computer industry, period. Because, if you look at the projections for the industry in the next 10 years, they are heavily predicated upon mobile computing and broadband in emerging markets. And even in the U.S., you still have sizable percentages of the population who still don't have broadband. In countries that are going to generate growth in the industry in the next decade, you don't have copper, you don't have fiber. So, you've got to have a way to get low-cost broadband. That was the design goal of the program. It was to be a low-cost, high-speed broadband network.

If broadband doesn't happen...industry growth will eventually slow down. If it does happen, growth will continue and new services will come along. It's an old story. Back in the '80s, we spent a decade trying to get Ethernet established. (As a result) we got client-server computing. We did the same thing with Wi-Fi, 1999 through 2002. There's been a long history of the computer industry needing standardized, high-speed communications. It's been a big piece of the computer industry's history.

Q: Intel said that WiMax has to deliver from 5 to 10 times the performance over existing products in the market to be successful, but mobile WiMax doesn't necessarily do this.
Maloney: The performance--I disagree about this. And you'll get to find out about that very soon because the network is going to start to roll out very soon. And you're going to see extremely good performance. And I'm certainly confident we're going to hit the design goals on performance. So, the argument on that one is going to get resolved real soon.

On the time it's taken...Actually, 16e (802.16e)--the global standard for mobile WiMax--was finalized at the end of 2005. We're now in 2008. So, it's a relatively quick period of time for this revision. 16d, which is the previous standard, is an older, slower technology, which didn't have as broad support. 16e has very broad international support. Subsequent to the standard being finalized, it's actually moved along pretty quickly.

We have over 200 networks in trial or being deployed. And we're very comfortable with the progress.

(Regarding) LTE (Long-Term Evolution, a competitor to WiMax). LTE is pretty similar technology (to WiMax) in many, many ways. It's some way off. We'll see what happens with that. As far as EV-DO is concerned, it's not a technology that's available in Europe or Africa or pretty much anywhere in South America and very little in Asia. Wideband CDMA is generally available but much slower.

All these technologies are useful. If I can't get a signal, I love EV-DO, I use EV-DO, I use all these things. But we're comfortable that WiMax is going to augment these things by being a lot quicker. We still feel comfortable it was the right program and we're making progress on it.

Q: Intel has been successful at integrating key technologies, such as Wi-Fi and graphics into its chipsets. What's the next big step in integration?
Maloney: More shorter term, the industry's concerned about multicore and integrating more of the conventional I/O and graphics capabilities. I think people are going to tend to keep the radio (Wi-Fi or other wireless communications technologies, including WiMax) discrete (as separate silicon) for a little while longer. But I think it's more of a business decision not a technology decision.

On the (current) 3G services, the attach rate on notebooks is very low. Actually, low single digits. The computer industry has a history of only integrating things when you get up to 50 percent or 60 percent or 70 percent of people wanting the feature. We are there with Wi-Fi now. (Editors' note: As to why Wi-Fi is still discrete, Maloney repeated that it's a business decision, not a technology decision.)

I don't see one technology replacing another. You're going to want to use whatever technology is available. Certainly, we're confident that there's going to be a big build-out of WiMax over the next three years. But people are going to carry on using the 3G infrastructure where it is. Or 2G infrastructure. Nobody rips these communications (infrastructures) and throws them out. They carry on being used.

The traffic growth is very, very high. We're still looking at 50 percent per year traffic growth. Those are really big numbers and we're going to need a lot of bandwidth and a lot of technology to supply that."

Update at 11:45 a.m. with additional information about Intel blogger.

Aaron Brezenski, the blogger, states the following in describing his posts: "Aaron Brezenski has been at Intel (Chandler, AZ) since 1995 and has been a product engineer for most of that time. He currently manages a team of product development engineers in STTD, but his nefarious purpose in (Intel Software Network) Blogspace is to highlight Intel Integrated Graphics in the Home Theater PC space from an end-user perspective."

An Intel engineer has posted a discussion about performance issues with its newest Centrino 2 graphics silicon.

HP dv5t series notebook with Intel Centrino 2 graphics

(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)

The blog, posted Thursday, is focused on a critical feature of the latest generation of integrated graphics: the ability to handle high-quality video streams. Intel is the world's largest supplier of graphics silicon because its integrated graphics (which is provided via the chipset not on a separate graphics card) is shipped with tens of millions of PCs every year. (See this Intel Web page that lists "HD video playback with full hardware decode" as a feature.)

In the blog, Aaron Brezenski, an Intel product development engineer, first takes issue with an "AMD Intel Mobile Challenge" video.

"Our competition (Advanced Micro Devices) threw together a demo booth which stated baldly that HP laptops with the (Intel) GM45 (chipset) did not accelerate Blu-ray at all while theirs, naturally, did," he wrote. "It was clearly not an apples-to-apples comparison."

The demonstration compares an HP Pavilion dv5z series notebook using an AMD Turion X2 dual-core mobile processor and ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics silicon with an HP Pavilion dv5t series notebook based on an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500. No processor specifics are given.

A person demonstrating the two systems in the video says that "on the Montevina (Centrino 2) system, you'll see the CPU utilization gets pegged up at 95 to 100 percent, where the CPU utilization on the AMD system will be half that." High utilization of the CPU (central processing unit) means that the system will not have the capacity to do other tasks in the background (such as a virus check) and may result in jerky, uneven video.

Brezenski states, however, that there were positive results with the Arcsoft Total Media Theater player, according to the blog. "On the plus side, use of the Arcsoft Total Media Theater player yielded immediate results. Blu-ray CPU utilization on a Core 2 Duo was lower than 20% on all material: a clear indication that hardware acceleration is working properly."

Further down in the blog, Brezenski cites testing done by ExtremeTech: "They, too, did not see hardware acceleration on G45 Blu-ray playback," he writes. However, "they updated this a couple of days later with a correction...showing the acceleration working now, but a less-than-stellar benchmark (the only one they ran) remains: on the HD HQV test, Intel scored a paltry 30 out of 100." HD HQV stands for high-definition Hollywood quality video.

The blog continues: "While I question the value of some of the HD HQV tests when evaluating Blu-ray (a topic for another time), they are in fact valid tests. My sources...tell me that Intel's less than stellar scores are due to a player software issue: properly configured advanced de-interlacing will result in scores 20+ points higher. Still not perfect scores, but coming within the realm of workable, and my hope is that subsequent driver tweaks will improve this even further," he writes.

Other issues addressed include the fact that current G965 and G35 (pre-Centrino 2 integrated graphics) "suffered from stuttering every 15 seconds or so at 24 Hz display refresh rate on Blu-ray...(and) the issue is still there on G45 (Centrino 2)."

Regarding an issue with HDCP (High-Definition Content Protection) TV, the blog states that the end user sees "our competition's graphics working flawlessly with their software player on their shiny new Onkyo or Yamaha receiver, and Intel's failing."

The MacBook might be getting changes inside and out in the next several weeks.

(Credit: Apple)

Apple might have decided its partnership with Intel doesn't mean it has to use all of Intel's products.

AppleInsider reports that Apple could be using a chipset from a different company--or even an internally developed one--in the next iteration of the MacBook, expected to arrive in the next six or eight weeks. Like other notebook vendors, Apple had been using Intel's mobile Centrino chipsets in its MacBook line ever since 2006 but it's going to pass on the Montevina version of those chipsets this time around, according to the report.

Intel has done an excellent job reinventing the company around mobile processors, starting with the original Pentium M design back in 2004 and carrying forward to today's Core 2 Duo. But it has done a much less stellar job with the integrated graphics chipsets that connect those processors to the rest of the system, such as the memory chips and hard drives.

Most notebooks use integrated graphics chipsets over discrete graphics chips to cut down on power consumption, but the graphics performance of Intel's chipsets leave a lot to be desired. Microsoft was less-than-thrilled about the performance of the chipsets that were scheduled to arrive with Windows Vista, and Intel has had problems getting other chipsets to live up to their promise.

If it's an internally designed chipset that Apple has in place for the new systems, history would be repeating itself at the company, which used to design much of the internal hardware that went along with IBM's PowerPC chips back in the day. Apple recently acquired a passel of chip designers from P.A. Semi, but Steve Jobs has said those folks are working on future chips for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

AppleInsider thinks Apple might have contracted with Advanced Micro Devices or Via for the new chipsets, but offers no details on what might actually be inside the new systems. Given Nvidia's huge mobile chipset problem this summer, it is probably not in the running if Apple's looking at other suppliers.

In other pending MacBook news, Computerworld reports that the new systems will arrive in September with glass touchpads, which seems a bit curious. Glass might allow for all kinds of trackpad-oriented multitouch goodness, but it seems like a warranty nightmare to me.

The new notebooks are expected to borrow design cues from the MacBook Air and bring the aluminum casing on the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air to the MacBook.