News Bits: AMD Fusion CPU+GPU, Intel Larrabee Graphics, MSI Gaming Notebooks

AMD Fusion details uncovered

AMD's Fusion project has been known about for some time, but due to the company's financial problems, it hasn't received much attention. Fusion will be AMD's first CPU+GPU chip. AMD has recently been working with contract manufacturer TSMC, who will be producing the Fusion chips.

The first Fusion chip, codenamed Shrike, will be a dual-core Phenom processor and an ATI RV800 graphics core; this is more powerful than originally expected. Shrike will be introduced as a 40nm chip, but will be a 32nm part in the beginning of 2010.

Full Story (TGDaily.com)
Special thanks to forum member jujube for submitting this bit

Intel Larrabee graphics card details emerge

Intel's Larrabee chip technology will help Intel earn a spot in the high-end graphics card market. Larrabee will be a template for a series of chips. Unlike processors which have two to four cores, Larrabee chips will have somewhere between 12 to 48. AMD and Nvidia already have graphics processor chips with several hundred cores, so Intel is facing substantial competition.

AMD and Nvidia naturally say Intel's graphics chips will not be able to outperform their own. They point out flaws, such as the fact that Intel will be using software to do a lot of the rendering. Besides the performance challenge, Intel is also needs to match the manufacturing cost and power consumption of current GPUs.

Larrabee's main selling point is that it is x86, and many programmers know how to take advantage of that technology.

Sourced from the Wall Street Journal; original article "Intel to Offer Details Of Chip Technology" by Don Clark

Special thanks to forum member jujube for submitting this bit

MSI introduces GX620 and GX720 gaming notebooks

(view large image) Image credit: HEXUS

Micro Star International has introduced its latest gaming notebooks, the 15.4" GX620 and 17" GX720. Both are based on the latest Intel Centrino 2 mobile platform and feature the Nvidia GeForce 9600M-GT graphics card. They feature "Turbo Drive Engine Technology", which allows users to overclock the Core 2 Duo processor up to 15%.

Specifications of the two notebooks are as follows:

• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Intel Core 2 Duo processors and PM45 chipset
• 15.4" WSXGA+ (GX620)/17" WSXGA+ (GX720)
• Nvidia GeForce 9600M-GT with 512MB GDDR3
• Up to 4GB DDR2-800 RAM
• 802.11b/g/n wireless

Full Story (HEXUS.net)

HP introduces 550 business notebook

HP has quietly introduced the 550 business notebook. It has an affordable price tag and is based on the previous-gen Intel Centrino platform. Specifications of the 550 include a 15.4" WXGA display, Celeron or Core 2 Duo processors, up to 4GB RAM, and Intel GMA X3100 graphics.

Pricing was not announced, but expect it to be in the $500 - $600 range (starting).

HP Product Page
Via (Laptoping.com)

Intel Capella platform coming in Q3'09

According to a DigiTimes report, Intel will launch its 'Capella' notebook platform in Q3 2009. It will have Nehalem based CPUs, which do away with the current northbridge/southbridge package and the Front Side Bus (FSB). Capella will use the next-gen Intel Clarksfield and Auburndale notebook processors, which feature an on-die DDR3 memory controller. 802.11a/g/b/n wireless and WiMAX will be supported.

Full Story (DigiTimes.com)

 

Anandtech did an in-depth analysis of Larrabee, based on presently available information. There's a lot of potential in this, and Intel writes some of the best compilers in the business, so it may very well match AMD's and nVIDIA's solutions.

And also, the number of cores will be a multiple of 8, likely 24-32.

 

hmmm interesting... first off I hope intels garphics card falls flat on it's face, simply we don't need another monopoly/rear-monopoly in the computer industry (Microsoft, Intel CPU, then Intel GPU) Capella looks promising.

 

I don't get why Intel would be working on the high-end market when the low end is going to be swept by AMD's Puma.

Are they not up to the challenge that the HD 3200 brings upon them?

 

Puma, is AMD processor only which means intel still sells all there garbage on all dells, sonys, apple, leveno, and majority of toshiba's, HP, and other brands.

as for preformance Intel dreams of matching 3200HD. lol,

 

I mean Puma the platform (CPU, IGP, chipset)
When I want to bring up the processor only, I say Turion Ultra

That aside, Intel shouldn't be dreaming about it, they should cook something up to beat it; I'd like to see that.

 

As nice as the GX620 looks, it pales in comparison to the ASUS G50v. Not only does it have a lower-end 9600GT (the G50v has the 9700GT), it manages to cost $100 CAD more. The alluminum casing is a nice touch though, I give 'em that.

 

I know what Puma is, I am pointing out that majority of computers sold have intel CPU's this includes several big brands that are intel only.

Dell's market share + Apple + Sony + levono + etc. = amount of market that are exculsive to intel, and a majority of those have IGP's.

Then you can add 70-80% of HP's, Toshiba's, and other notebook makers market share and intel sells a TON of IGP's.

remember there are alot of non-computer savy people who go online buy a Dell but don't know anything and they buy intel cpu + intel IGP to reduce costs. they don't realize that they can get Puma based system which is a little cheaper and far more powerful.

all I am saying is intel doesn't need a fast IGP to control market share, it just needs to keep people thinking that the CPU makes up for the IGP

 

You're right about several things there.

But do not forget that Intel blows out of the water AMD's Puma platform in the department of Battery Consumption, and thats a BIG selling point for all Intel IGP's.

I mean, most of us don't want the power that offers the HD3200 but instead we want 1 more hour of battery life.

I'm not saying AMD's Puma is a bad choice, but right now I prefer the plus in power consumption.

 

How do you know? Has the pricing for the GX620 been released?

 

I see. My mistake on reading your first post wrong then. And in fact, good point, ignorance is how Dell's grabbing so many sales as well.

1 more hour of battery life? Got source to that? I didn't know the 2 platforms had a significant battery life difference.

 

Needmore4less has a point. Although this site's primary demographics include enthusiasts and gamers, there are millions of laptop users who couldn't care less about powerful GPU's on laptops. Their primary use are low GPU-intensive business apps. For those, battery life is far more important than a powerful graphics chip.

 

I couldn't stated more accurate, I'll speak for me anyway, I don't play games, but I use a lot of light software apps and office, internet browsing an e-mail... So, I really don't need the power that offers the new radeon 3200, although is a nice thing AMD and ATi are reaching that sort of power in an IGP.

Hazutzy, read the reviews about the power consumption between AMD's Puma platform and Intel's new Montevina platform, and you'll give me the reason

 

AMD's Fusion platform sounds like a winner; the company has positioned itself beautifully to punch Intel right where it hurts on this one. I can't wait to see how the platform performs.

 

You know, battery life claims are important, but unless someone can actually link an article or has first hand experience comparing the battery life between an Intel IGP notebook and an AMD IGP notebook, all of the claims are invalid.

I doubt there is more than a 30 minute difference in battery life, probably less than that when doing similar tasks like surfing the net.

No, I don't think battery life differences are as significant as you'd think, but then again, if someone has a link to actual data, we'd have a much better idea of the reality.

That said, Fusion looks freaking awesome. Direct inter-chip communication between a CPU and GPU will be an amazing boon to mobile users who like to game or work with multimedia. Even if Larrabee happens to be powerful, a Fusion-like architecture would undoubtedly work better on mobile systems. And don't forget mobile systems are continuing to outpace desktops in sales.

I'm excited for both!

 

Dammit now I feel like waiting another year for new notebook...

 

Battery life are becoming more and more dependent on Screen, WIFI, HDD, and battery ratings etc. And less dependent on the CPU and IGP as they are pretty low powered by now. While AMD usually have a slight higher Power draw their memory controller is included in this as it is on die, while Intel platforms have additional power requirement for their separate memory controller solution. But it pretty much evens out.

 

What's awesome about larrabee is scalability and the fact that it's a many-core x86 CPU. Future itterations can be just a larrabbe CPU that works as both CPU and gpu, with many, many, many Cores (when it's on a 32nm fab, it will likely exceed 128 or something).

And if it turns out that it can effectively compete with nvidia and Ati on the high end, intel just needs to remove some cores and get a lower end gpu.

Many things can go wrong though. Larrabee is quite dependant on its drivers and compilers, more so than a traditional GPU. Considering Intels present state of GPU drivers, this is a big bump. Luckily the present driver team is NOT working on larrabee.

 

Wont Nehalem integrate a graphics core too? And i think it's coming out before Fusion.

 

Larrabee can't replace a common CPU. It's cores are based on the original Pentium and are in order and specifically optimized for floating point and vector operations. In general purpose apps, most of which use integers the performance will be terrible. In fact, even worse than Atom, since Atom is based on the Pentium MMX and was heavily modified to bring it up to modern standards in general purpose applications.

Mainstream Nehalem chips coming in 2009 will integrate an IGP on the CPU, which will be some version of the current GMA. Presumably in the future, Larrabee cores will replace the GMA in these chips and act as both an IGP and a co-processor. Regular CPUs are still needed if not for general purpose applications, then as a scheduler to control the operation of the Larrabee cores.

 

There have been numerous articles stating that Intel has a roadmap to integrate Nehalem and Larrabee to provide on-die cores with separate areas for CPU and GPU. I'm pretty sure it's not incredibly far off, either.

I'm curious as to see if Intel is upgrading its graphics for this current Nehalem combination, however.

 

"Shrike." Great name. I just wonder if it's a reference to the bird, some kind of weaponry or the the Nathaniel West character from "Miss Lonelyhearts." I hope it's the last, but whatever it is, it's a real improvement over "Phenom."

 

Wasn't that the codename for RedHat 6.2 or thereabouts?

Recycled codenames - gotta love it!


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