Intel has upstaged Advanced Micro Devices at DreamWorks Animation. The movie studio has decided to drop AMD and go with processors from Intel, citing better performance and a more promising roadmap.
DreamWorks specifically mentioned Intel's upcoming Nehalem processor and Larrabee graphics chip as reasons for the switch.
Intel and DreamWorks announced Tuesday that they had formed a strategic alliance for 3D filmmaking technology. DreamWorks plans to produce all its feature films in stereoscopic 3D--which requires the viewer to wear special glasses for enhanced 3D--beginning next year. Intel will provide DreamWorks with "the latest high-performance processing technologies, including future chips with multiple processing cores," the companies said.
This is a setback for AMD. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chipmaker rolled out its quad-core Barcelona last year at George Lucas' Lucasfilm campus in San Francisco to make a point: Barcelona would be big player in the movie industry. But a series of delays related to a processor bug put a damper on the high expectations for Barcelona.
"AMD maintained a long and fruitful relationship with DreamWorks Animation, beginning in early 2005. Earlier this year, AMD and DreamWorks decided not to extend our marketing and technology relationship. However, DreamWorks Animation is still an important and respected AMD customer and we look forward to having the opportunity to work with them again in the future," AMD said in a statement.
Essentially, DreamWorks looked down the road and liked what it saw coming from Intel better. "When we look at the Intel roadmap, it is more closely aligned with our needs," John Batter, president of production at DreamWorks Animations, said during a conversation with Nanotech: The Circuits blog. "The rendering times have been going up because of the complexity and richness of the images. Then you layer on top of that 3D. Something that's already growing--and doubling it."
Intel had the best technology, Batter said. "You need a lot more horsepower. On Intel's upcoming generation, the number of cores is going to help us satiate the big spike in our needs."
DreamWorks had been in a three-year partnership with AMD, Batter said.
He explained that Intel is also helping DreamWorks to redesign its animation tools. "Our animation tools are all proprietary here. Intel is rearchitecting our software tools...to take advantage of multicore and make our renderer highly scalable as well as making our character animation tools highly scalable."
DreamWorks uses rendering farms with as many as 5,000 cores to create animation and its tools need to be adapted to the increasing number of processor cores, Batter said. The Nehalem chip, for example, is expected to integrate as many as eight cores. Currently, Intel offers no more than four cores per chip. Larrabee is expected by many to offer as many as 32 cores.
Intel Nehalem architecture
(Credit: Intel)Batter specifically mentioned both Nehalem and Larrabee as a reason for the switch to Intel. He said that Larrabee would be "complementary" to Intel's general-purpose CPUs.
Nehalem is due in the fourth quarter of this year and Larrabee is expected in the 2009-2010 time frame.
The first Intel-Dreamworks release will be Monsters vs. Aliens, which is slated to hit movie theaters in March 2009.
Nvidia has posted a video that involves the new GTX 280 chip, overclocking, lots of liquid nitrogen, and the Nvidia labs. Oh, and no quad-core processor. Get the point?
Nvidia NForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
(Credit: Nvidia)"A lot of people believe you need an Intel quad-core or Intel quad-core Extreme to build an extreme PC," says the post by "Steffee" on the Nvidia Web site. "Today I'm going to build a gaming PC using the Intel Core 2 Duo. That's duo. Got that? Duo, two cores."
I think the point the blogger is trying to make is that the test system has only has two cores, though I could be mistaken.
Here's an excerpt from the blog: "Think you need a quad-core CPU for an extreme gaming PC with impressive 3DMark Vantage numbers and gaming performance?...I overclocked and hyper-cooled an SLI gaming rig using two of our latest and greatest GPUs--GeForce GTX 280...and a sub-$200 CPU."
Intel, of course, has a different take on this. "Most of what people do today with their computers requires powerful processors. Examples of processor-intensive applications include: creating content, viewing/editing high definition video, using social media sites, office tools, downloading music, and editing photos," Intel said in a statement.
In the test, the blogger uses an NForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard, Intel core 2 duo E8400, in addition to the GTX 280 graphics card.
With the single GTX 280 board, the score is a 3DMark Vantage "X4796."
Then the blogger (an Nvidia employee) takes a hike to the Nvidia lab. "Now we're going to take a field trip to Nvidia labs to do some serious overclocking," she says. After adding what seems to be prodigious amounts of liquid nitrogen and adding another GTX 280 SLI board, the 3DMark score jumps to "X10,282."
Intel could respond (which it hasn't) by saying that the E8400 is not a slow processor: it runs at 3.0GHZ and has 6MB of cache. And overclocked with liquid nitrogen, it would probably get some pretty good scores too. And then, of course, it might be simpler to just get a quad-core Extreme CPU.
In the test, the Nvida GTX 280 core clock was overclocked to 727MHz and the shader to 1458MHz. The core clock is normally 602MHz and the shader clock 1296MHz.
System specifications:
--2× NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 graphics cards running in SLI nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
--Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU
--4 GB SLI-ready Corsair DDR3 memory
--PC Power and Cooling TurboCool 1200W power supply
--Windows Vista 32-bit operating system
Intel Xeon processors--particularly the "Harpertown" variety--dominated the top 500 supercomputer list. But IBM's Power chips made a strong showing as usual at the very top of the list. AMD's Opteron processor landed in the No. 1 and No. 4 ranked systems.
Top 10 processors in Top500 supercomputer list
(Credit: Top500.org)The Top500 List--updated twice a year--of supercomputers was released Wednesday. Intel's Xeon, AMD's Opteron, and IBM's Power chips vied for most of the spots in the list.
The most dominant chip was the Intel Xeon E54xx series "Harpertown" processor. Appearing in 116 systems for 23.2 percent of the total. The largest for any single processor model.
The Xeon 53xx series "Clovertown" processor was next, appearing in 92 systems for 18.4 percent of the total. Following Clovertown was the Xeon 51xx series "Woodcrest" processor with 18.2 percent of the total.
Harpertown and Clovertown are quad-core processors, Woodcrest is dual-core.
In the No. 4 slot was the AMD Opteron dual-core chip (8.4 percent), followed by the X54xx series of Intel Harpertown processors (7.8 percent), then by the PowerPC 440 (4.22 percent).
(Note: Combining the Intel Harpertown E54xx series and X54xx series boosts the total for this chip model to 31 percent.)
The IBM Power processors passed the AMD Opteron family and "are now (again) the second most common processor family with 68 systems (13.6 percent), up from 61 systems (12.2 percent) six months ago," Top500.org said.
AMD's strongest showing was in the top five supercomputers. Opteron processors played a major role in the No. 1 IBM Roadrunner system, which connects 6,562 dual-core AMD Opteron chips as well as 12,240 IBM Cell chips (on IBM Model QS22 blade servers).
See: IBM's Roadrunner breaks petaflop barrier, tops supercomputer list.
The No. 4 Sun Microsystems' SunBlade system uses over 62,000 cores running inside AMD Opteron quad-core processors running at 2.0GHz.
The No. 2 and No. 3 systems were based on IBM PowerPC 450 chips.
Other Top500 processor highlights:
A total of 375 systems (75 percent) are now using Intel processors. This is up from six months ago (354 systems, 70.8 percent) and represents the largest share for Intel chips in the Top500 ever.
56 systems (11 percent) are using AMD Opteron processors, down from 78 systems (15.6 percent) six months ago.
283 systems are using quad-core processor based systems.
Intel is expected to bring out low-cost quad-core processors in the third quarter to compete with AMD's triple-core Phenom chip. One site is also posting specifications for upcoming Nehalem processors.
The Core 2 Quad Q8000 series will include the Q8200, which will be priced as low as $203, according to Chinese-language technology Web site HKEPC.
Tech Web site The Inquirer also cited an Intel slide with the processor.
The 45-nanometer Q8000 series will be relatively low performance and stripped down, running at a clock speed of only 2.33GHz and integrating only 4MB of cache memory.
The currently shipping Intel quad-core processor that comes closest to this is the popular Q6600, which runs at 2.4GHz and packs 8MB of cache memory. This is priced at $224. Typically, the more cache memory integrated into a processor, the better the performance.
An Intel Q8000 quad-core chip priced at $203 would still be more expensive, however, than an AMD triple-core Phenom. A triple-core Phenom processor 8750 (2.4GHz) is listed on AMD's processor pricing page at $195. The Phenom 8650 (2.3GHz) is listed at $165 and the Phenom 8450 (2.1GHz) at $145.
The price difference between a system using a Phenom and one based on a Core 2 Quad is typically even more stark at first-tier vendors like Hewlett-Packard, where it can be as much as $300. Presumably, a system with a Q8000 quad-core processor would fall below the Q6600-based system in price.
HKEPC is also posting specifications on Intel's upcoming Nehalem processor, which is based on a new architecture featuring a high-speed data transfer technology called QuickPath (PDF).
At least three Nehalem "Bloomfield" quad-core processors are slated for the fourth quarter, with speeds ranging between 2.66GHz and3.2GHz, targeted at the mainstream and high end of the market. The processors will also use a new "X58" chipset, according to the report.
Intel will introduce the Q9650 Core 2 Quad processor in the third quarter, according to Chinese-language Web site HKEPC, almost halving the price of the current high-end Intel part with similar specifications.
(Credit:
Intel)
The Q9650 will be priced at $530, according to HKEPC, close to half the price of the similarly spec'd high-end "Extreme" QX9650, which is listed at $999 on Intel's pricing Web page.
Like the QX9650, the Q9650 will have a clock speed of 3GHz, a 1333MHz front-side bus (FSB), and 12MB of cache memory.
The other notable desktop processor slated to debut in the third quarter is the Core 2 Duo E8600. This will have a clock speed of 3.33GHz, a 1333MHz FSB, and 6MB of cache memory, according to HKEPC. It is expected to be priced at $266.
The E8600 will top the currently available E8500, which runs at 3.16GHz and is priced at $266.
When contacted, Intel had this to say: "We publicly acknowledge that we will have future 45nm Intel Core 2 processor offerings which fit into LGA775 sockets and take advantage of currently available and future desktop platforms with similar physical, power, and thermal characteristics."
HKEPC also lists price cuts. The quad-core Q9550 (2.83GHz), for example, is slated to drop from $530 to $316 (the upcoming Q9650 will push the Q9550 down to a lower price point). The widely-used Q6600 (2.4GHz) is expected to fall from $224 to $203.
The Core 2 Duo E8500 should see its price fall from $266 to $183.
UPDATE An alliance to promote the use of Intel's Itanium processor said a quad-core version of the chip will come out in early 2009. The alliance also disclosed more than a 30 percent jump in volume growth year to year and an update to its partnership with Microsoft, among other announcements.
Itanium is an Intel 64-bit architecture for high-end servers. It differs from the x86 architecture, widely used in PCs. One principal difference is the way the compiler is used. Because the compiler makes decisions about the parallel execution of instructions, the processor can execute up to six instructions per clock cycle.
(Credit:
Itanium Solutions Alliance)
The quad-core version of the Itanium, code-named Tukwila, will come out in early 2009 and be one of the first "monolithic" quad-core designs from Intel, said Rob Shiveley, worldwide marketing manager of the Mission Critical Server Platform Group at Intel. A monolithic design puts all four cores on one piece of silicon (called a die). To date, Intel has built its quad-core processors by combining two dual-core processor dies. AMD's "Barcelona" Opteron quad-core design puts all four processors on one die.
This will give system vendors the ability to deliver eight-socket systems with up to 32 cores (4 cores per socket), said Mike Mitsch, General Manager, Enterprise Servers, IT Platform Group, NEC Corporation of America.
Tukwila will also have an integrated memory controller and QuickPath Interconnect technology, Shiveley said. This will increase the data transfer rate within the processor. Intel's "Nehalem" processor--due in the fourth quarter of this year--will also be a monolithic design with an integrated memory controller and QuickPath Interconnect technology.
On-chip cache memory for Tukwila will also be increased from 24MB to 30MB. "It is focused on database performance"--that's what the large 30MB cache is for, Shiveley said. Windows Itanium platforms are used, for example, to consolidate a larger number of SQL database servers.
Using two billion transistors (the bulk of the transistors are allocated to the large cache memory), Tukwila will be based on Intel's 65nm process technology and will initially have a clock speed of up to 2GHz at both 170 watts and 130 watts.
NEC's Mitsch said Itanium also supports extremely robust error detecting and error correcting memory. "We're in the process of qualifying up to two terabytes of logical (memory)," he said.
On another front, the Itanium Solutions Alliance announced that worldwide annual Itanium-based factory system revenue and system volume continued to grow in 2007, with a year-over-year increase of 30.8 and 36.3 percent, respectively. The Asia-Pacific region led the way, with year-over-year growth in factory system revenue and system volume of 61 percent and 45 percent, respectively. In Japan, Itanium-based revenue exceeds all other non x86 server platforms, the alliance said.
The alliance also said it is collaborating with Microsoft to deliver new programs and tools to help businesses migrate from "costly legacy RISC systems and mainframes" to Itanium-based platforms. Currently, a fourth of the more than 13,000 Itanium-based applications are Windows Server-based, the alliance said.
Other recent developments include: an NEC enterprise server with dynamic hardware partitioning functionality for Microsoft Windows Server 2008--the NEC Express5800/1320Xf. Sun Microsystems previewed Itanium-optimized Java SE 6 running on an Itanium-based server in several different SOA (service-oriented architecture) scenarios.
Dell's Alienware unit is slated to put AMD-ATI front and center. The Dell subsidiary will bring out a relatively low-cost game PC with dual ATI graphics chips within the next two weeks.
This comes in the wake of a report that Dell will phase out its XPS game PC line in favor of Alienware systems.
Alienware will ship a system with 4GB of memory, two ATI graphics chips, and a quad-core AMD processor for less than $1,700, dirt cheap in the gaming PC world.
(Credit: Alienware)The $1,699 system--cheap by game PC standards--will come with 4GB (DDR2 800MHz) memory, a quad-core 9550 (2.2GHz) Phenom X4 processor, and a 3870 X2 board with two ATI HD 3870 graphics chips, said Marc Diana, Alienware product marketing manager for desktops. The system will ship within 48 hours, he said.
It will also sport an Asus high-end motherboard based on the AMD 790FX chipset, Diana said.
Systems configured with a quad-core processor and dual graphics chips are typically well over $2,000.
Overall, Alienware is seeing respectable demand for AMD-based systems. "AMD is a good entry point," according to Diana.
Alienware is already offering a relatively high-end system for less than $3,000 with a quad-core Phenom X4 9850 (2.5GHz) "Black Edition" (Black Edition indicates that the processor can be overclocked) and two ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics boards (each with two 3870 graphics chips).
"It's not your granddaddy's AMD system. We're talking top-of-the-line quad core," he said.
This not the sentiment at all game PC makers, however. Falcon Northwest is seeing virtually no demand for AMD-based systems, according to a spokesperson at that company. Falcon Northwest sells Intel-based systems almost exclusively. The company attributes this to the fact that customers are spending big bucks for its systems and that they will invariably opt for higher-performing Intel chips.
Diana concedes that AMD will not take the performance crown--this goes to Intel. And in graphics, Nvidia typically performs better in games than ATI, he said. "(Nvidia is) able to refine their drivers more for the most popular games," he said.
And in the laptop gaming space, Intel-Nvidia rules too. Currently, Alienware offers no AMD-based gaming laptops, though this may change in the future when AMD brings out its Puma mobile platform later this quarter.
Alienware recently began selling a gaming laptop, the Area-51 m17x, with two Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTX graphics chips and the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor, starting at about $3,200.
On Monday, Advanced Micro Devices announced availability of low-power quad-core Opteron processors targeted at servers.
AMD quad-core Opteron
(Credit: AMD)The HE (high-efficiency) processors have a thermal envelope of 55 watts. Other AMD quad-core server processors have higher thermal envelopes of 105 watts or 75 watts.
The low-power Opterons are available in both the 2300 and 8300 series. The 2300 series processors are designed for servers that use two processors, while the 8300 series processors are for systems that use four or eight processors.
The new parts include the 8347 HE (1.9GHz, $873) and the 2347 HE (1.9GHz, $377).
"Our new Quad-Core AMD Opteron HE processors were designed to help data center managers who see power consumption and virtualization as the keys to solving their overall performance equation," Randy Allen, general manager at AMD's Server and Workstation Division, said in a statement.
Intel announced in March energy-efficient quad-core Xeon processors with a thermal envelope of 50 watts at core frequencies as high as 2.50GHz.
Quad-core processors boasting lower power and packing more transistors are arriving at mass-market retail.
HP Pavilion Slimline desktop s3430f uses a low-power AMD quad-core processor
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)These latest chips from Advanced Micro Devices and Intel are now populating consumer desktops from Hewlett-Packard and Gateway, among other prominent PC makers. What makes them different? Intel's are made on a 45-nanometer process, and AMD's run at a lower power.
First up: AMD and its new power-sipping quad-core 9100e Phenom. HP is now offering its space-saving Slimline Pavilion desktop with the 9100e, which draws only 65 watts. Typically, quad-core processors draw 95 watts or higher. Intel's popular Q6600, for example, has a thermal envelope rated at 105 watts.
The HP s3430f system also packs 4GB of PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM memory, a 500GB (7200 rpm) Serial ATA (SATA) hard disk drive, and an Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT graphics processor. The system is priced at $999 at Best Buy.
Next up, Intel's Core 2 Quad Q9xxx series of 45nm quad-core processors. Although the Q9550, Q9450, and Q9300 CPUs were announced at the beginning of January, they were delayed, pushing back availability in the distribution channel until mid-March.
One reason for the long delay was stated explicitly by Intel CEO Paul Otellini at his company's first-quarter 2008 earnings conference call earlier this month.
"The bulk of our 45-nanometer output starts out in servers, moves to mobile, then moves to desktop," he said. In other words, desktops have last dibs on 45nm parts. There were also rumors about motherboard compatibility problems for all three chips.
Whatever the case, the processors are now offered on select consumer systems from HP and Gateway, among other PC vendors. The Q9550 (2.83GHz) and Q9450 (2.66GHz) integrate 12MB of cache (versus 8MB for older Intel quad-core chips) and attach to a 1,333MHz front-side bus. The Q9300 (2.5GHz) has 6MB of cache. All have a thermal envelope of 95W.
The HP Pavilion Ultimate d4999t series--with a Q9550 processor, 3GB of DDR2-800MHz dual-channel SDRAM memory, an Nvidia GeForce 8400 graphics card (256MB), and a 500GB 7200 SATA hard disk drive--is priced at $1,259.
Gateway offers a FX7026 tower system with a Q9300 processor for $1,099 at Best Buy.
Update: Circuit board makers using Advanced Micro Devices' high-end quad-core Phenom chips claim that there are compatibility issues with select boards. This comes as the chipmaker struggles to churn out processors that are competitive with Intel's offerings.
AMD quad-core Phenom X4
(Credit: AMD)This issue was reported Monday at the Web site HKEPC.
AMD confirmed Monday that some motherboard suppliers are mismatching high-end quad-core Phenom processors with a lower-end chipset. (The motherboard is the main circuit board in a PC. The chipset allows the processor to interact with other components, among other functions.)
"What people have done, mistakenly, is paired a 780G (chipset-based) motherboard with the higher frequency Phenom--the 125-watt Phenom," said Jake Whitman, an AMD spokesperson.
Whitman is referring to the fact that the high-end 9750 and 9850 Phenom processors have a Thermal Design Power (TDP or thermal envelope) of 125 watts versus the lower-end 9600 and 9550 models that have a TDP of 95 watts. The higher-watt parts will not work with motherboards that contain the 780G chipset. The lower-end models do not have these TDP issues.
"They've taken an enthusiast-class quad-core part and paired it with a mainstream motherboard," Whitman said. "And not all motherboard manufacturers have tweaked their boards to support a 125-watt TDP." Whitman says that AMD's 790 chipset--not the 780--should be paired with the 9750 and 9850 processors and that a number of motherboard makers are already doing this.
"We've never made claims that 780G motherboards are enthusiast-class motherboards," Whitman said.
The inability to use high-end quad-core AMD processors on some motherboards may be symptomatic of a larger challenge. AMD is finding it difficult to compete head-on with Intel quad-core offerings in the consumer segment. Hewlett-Packard and Gateway, for instance, offer desktops with only the lower-performance Phenom chips, such as the 9100e (1.8GHz) and 9600 (2.3GHz). Neither HP nor Gateway offer desktops with higher-performance 9750 (2.4GHz) or 9850 (2.5GHz) Phenoms.
Meanwhile, Intel-based systems from these companies--though usually more expensive--come with quad-core chips ranging up to a 2.83GHz Q9550.
Whitman says there's a reason for this. First-tier PC makers "are not necessarily interested in building the fastest AMD-based quad-core systems, but are more interested in price." He expects wider adoption of the high-end Phenom chips with system builders and game-enthusiast PC makers.
In related news reported by CNET News.com on Monday, supercomputer maker Cray said it would adopt Intel quad-core processor designs for its supercomputers. Though Cray says it will continue to offer configurations with AMD chips too, the move by Cray is seen as an endorsement of Intel multicore designs. Before this announcement, Cray had been using AMD processors only.
