Wi-Fi on Rosepoint SoC die. Intel flexes before ARM wrestle.

Subject: General Tech, Processors, Systems, Mobile, Shows and Expos | February 20, 2012 - 01:50 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Rosepoint, ISSCC 2012, ISSCC, Intel

If there is one thing that Intel is good at, it is writing a really big check to go in a new direction right when absolutely needed. Intel has released press information on what should be expected from their presence at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference which is currently in progress until the 23rd. The headliner for Intel at this event is their Rosepoint System on a Chip (SoC) which looks to lower power consumption by rethinking the RF transceiver and including it on the die itself. While the research has been underway for over a decade at this point, pressure from ARM has pushed Intel to, once again, throw money at R&D until their problems go away.

Intel could have easily trolled us all and have named this SoC "Centrino".

Almost ten years ago, AMD had Intel in a very difficult position. Intel fought to keep clock-rates high until AMD changed their numbering scheme to give proper credit to their higher performance-per-clock components. Intel dominated, legally or otherwise, the lower end market with their Celeron line of processors.

AMD responded with series of well-timed attacks against Intel. AMD jabbed Intel in the face and punched them in the gut with the release of the Sempron processor line nearby filing for anti-trust against Intel to allow them to more easily sell their processors in mainstream PCs.

At around this time, Intel decided to entirely pivot their product direction and made plans to take their Netburst architecture behind the shed. AMD has yet to recover from the tidal wave which the Core architectures crashed upon them.

Intel wishes to stop assaulting your battery indicator.

With the surge of ARM processors that have been fundamentally designed for lower power consumption than Intel’s x86-based competition, things look bleak for the expanding mobile market. Leave it to Intel to, once again, simply cut a gigantic check.

Intel is in the process of cutting power wherever possible in their mobile offerings. To remain competitive with ARM, Intel is not above outside-the-box solutions including the integration of more power-hungry components directly into the main processor. Similar to NVIDIA’s recent integration of touchscreen hardware into their Tegra 3 SoC, Intel will push the traditionally very power-hungry Wi-Fi transceivers into the SoC and supposedly eliminate all analog portions of the component in the process.

I am not too knowledgeable about Wi-Fi transceivers so I am not entirely sure how big of a jump Intel has made in their development, but it appears to be very significant. Intel is said to discuss this technology more closely during their talk on Tuesday morning titled, “A 20dBm 2.4GHz Digital Outphasing Transmitter for WLAN Application in 32nm CMOS.”

This paper is about a WiFi-compliant (802.11g/n) transmitter using Intel’s 32nm process and techniques leveraging Intel transistors to achieve record performance (power consumption per transmitted data better than state-of-the art). These techniques are expected to yield even better results when moved to Intel’s 22nm process and beyond.

What we do know is that the Rosepoint SoC will be manufactured at 32nm and is allegedly quite easy to scale down to smaller processes when necessary. Intel has also stated that while only Wi-Fi is currently supported, other frequencies including cellular bands could be developed in the future.

We will need to wait until later to see how this will affect the real world products, but either way -- this certainly is a testament to how much change a dollar can be broken into.

Intel urges you to program better now, not the same -- later.

Subject: General Tech, Processors, Mobile | February 18, 2012 - 09:06 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Intel, mobile, developer

Clay Breshears over at Intel posted about lazy software optimization over on the Intel Software Blog. His post is a spiritual resurrection of the over seven year’s old article by Herb Sutter, “The Free Lunch is Over: A Fundamental Turn Toward Concurrency in Software.” The content is very similar, but the problem is quite different.

The original 2004 article urged developers to heed the calls for the multi-core choo choo express and not hang around on the single core platform (train or computing) waiting for performance to get better. The current article takes that same mentality and applies it to power efficiency. Rather than waiting for hardware that has appropriate power efficiency for your application, learn techniques to bring your application into your desired power requirements.

"I believe your program is a little... processor heavy."

The meat of the article focuses on the development of mobile applications and the concerns that developers should have with battery conservation. Of course there is something to be said about Intel promoting mobile power efficiency. While developers could definitely increase the efficiency of their code, there is still a whole buffet of potential on the hardware side.

If you are a developer, particularly of mobile or laptop applications, Intel has an education portal for best power efficiency practices on their website. Be sure to check it out and pick up the tab once in a while, okay?

Can you effectively patch up a Bulldozer?

Subject: Processors | February 17, 2012 - 01:52 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: fx-8150, FX, cpu, bulldozer, amd, 990fx

AMD's $270 flagship processor, the 3.6GHz FX-8150 had a mixed reception as the hype which lead up to the release built up our expectations to a point that the processor could not live up to.  Part of the disappointment has been blamed on the Windows 7 thread scheduler, which AMD described as not being optimized for their architecture, which lead to the release of hotfix files KB2645594 and KB2646060.  TechPowerUp revisited their benchmarks to see if these patches effectively increase the performance of multi-threaded tasks; single threaded tasks are dependant on processor speed so they should be unaffected by the patches.

"After settling on the market, with all the quirks and bugs supposedly fixed, all the hype and disappointment blown away, we put AMD's FX-8150 under the scope. Benchmarks are done with and without the Windows 7 hotfix and in depth overclocking should resolve any doubts you have about AMD's flagship processor."

Here are some more Processor articles from around the web:

Processors

• AMD A8-3870K and Sapphire HD6450 FleX @ Kitguru
• The Opteron 6276: a closer look @ AnandTech
• AMD A8-3870K Unlocked Llano APU Review @ Hardware Canucks
• The Workstation & Server CPU Comparison Guide @ TechARP
• Intel Core i7-3820 vs. Core i7-2700K and Core i7-3930K @ X-bit Labs
• Intel Core i7-3820 3.6GHz Processor Review @ Legit Reviews
• Intel Core i7-3820 @ Techspot
• Intel Core i7-3930K @ OC3D

Intel may delay shipments of Ivy Bridge processors

Subject: Processors | February 16, 2012 - 03:47 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: Intel, Ivy Bridge, delay

Some unfortunate news is making the rounds today surrounding a potential delay of the upcoming Intel Ivy Bridge processor.  A story over at Digitimes is reporting that due to an abundance of inventory on current generation Sandy Bridge parts, Intel will start to trickle out Ivy Bridge in early April but will hold off on the full shipments until after June.

If Intel is indeed delaying shipping Ivy Bridge it likely isn't due to pressure from AMD and with the announcement by top brass there it seems likely Intel will retain the performance lead on the CPU side of things from here on out.  With the release of Windows 8 coming in the fall of 2012 Intel's partners (and Intel internally) are likely going to be using that as the primary jumping off point for the architecture transition. 

If ever there was a reason to support AMD and competition in general, this is exactly that.  Without pressure from a strong offering from the opposition Intel is free to adjust their product schedule based on internal financial reasons rather than external consumer forces.  While we will still see some Ivy Bridge availability in April (according to Digitimes at least) in order to avoid a marketing disaster, it seems that the wide scale availability of the Intel design with processor graphics performance expected to be double that of Sandy Bridge won't be until the summer.

Intel Haswell Processors To Launch In First Half of 2013

Subject: Processors | February 12, 2012 - 06:57 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: shark bay, Intel, haswell, cpu

Intel's Ivy Bridge processor, the upcoming "tick" in Intel's clock-esque world domination strategy, has yet to be released and we are already getting rumors and leaked information coming in about the "tock" that will be Ivy Bridge's successor in the 22nm Haswell processors (as part of the Shark Bay platform). Ivy Bridge processors will bring incremental performance improvements and lower power usage on the same 1155 socket that Sandy Bridge employs.

Haswell; however, will move to (yet another) socket LGA 1150 on the desktop, and will bring incremental improvements over Ivy Bridge. Improvements include much faster integrated processor graphics and the AVX2 instruction set. Unfortunately, Intel will be returning to an increased TDP (thermal design power) with Haswell compared to the lower TDP from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge.

According to Domain Haber, who claims to have gotten their hands on a leaked road map, Intel will be launching Ivy Bridge through the end of this year, and then will debut their Haswell processors in the first half of 2013. The alleged road map can be seen below.

What I found interesting about the road map is that there is no mention of an Ivy Bridge-E or Haswell-E processor. Instead, the current Sandy Bridge-E chips are shown occupying the high end and enthusiast segment through at least the first half of 2013 and the launch of Haswell. Whether enthusiasts will continue to choose the Sandy Bridge-E processors for that long will remain to be seen, however. Also strange is that, according to VR-Zone, Intel will have three tiers of integrated graphics performance with GT1, GT2, and GT3. They will then place the fastest graphics core in the mobile chips and leave the slower graphics cores in the desktop chips. Discrete cards are not dead yet, it seems (unless you're rocking an AMD APU of course).

Have you invested in a Sandy Bridge-E setup, or are you still holding onto an older chip to wait for the best performance upgrade for your money?  If you have bought into SB-E, do you think it'll last you into 2013?

AMD shows 18mm thin reference ultrathin notebook based on Trinity

Subject: Graphics Cards, Processors, Mobile | February 2, 2012 - 02:02 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: amd, trinity, hsa, ultrabook, ultrathin

Today at the AMD Financial Analyst day in Sunnyvale, Lisa Su, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Global Business Units, showed off a reference design from Compal of an 18mm think ultrathin notebook that they are obviously hoping to compete with Intel's Ultrabook push.

The notebook is based on AMD's upcoming Trinity APU that improves on the CPU and GPU performance of the currently available Llano APU.  There weren't many details though Su did state they were hoping for prices in the $600-800 range would could but a lot of pressure on Intel. 

Live Blog: AMD Financial Analyst Day

Subject: Editorial, Graphics Cards, Processors | February 2, 2012 - 12:31 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: reports, gpu, fad, cpu, APU, analyst, amd

Consider this fair warning: tomorrow here at PC Perspective you will learn the future of AMD.  Sound over dramatic?  We don't think so.  After a pretty interesting year in 2011 for the company and AMD has said on several occasions that this year's Financial Analyst Day was going to reveal a lot about what the future holds for them on the GPU, CPU and APU front.  

Hopefully we will learn what AMD plans to do after the cancelation of the second-generation of ultra lower power APUs, how important discrete graphics will be going forward and what life there is for the processor architecture after Bulldozer.  

We will be in Sunnyvale at the AMD campus covering the event and we will be holding a live blog at the same time...right here.  The event starts at 9am PST on February 2nd, aso be sure you set your calendars and bookmark this page for all the news!!

Intel Adds Seven New Sandy Bridge Processors To Their Lineup

Subject: Processors | January 31, 2012 - 01:01 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: sandy bridge, Quick Sync, P-series, Intel, i5-2550K

According to this article over at Anandtech, Intel has rather quietly launched seven new processors based on their Sandy Bridge architecture. The most interesting aspect about the new CPUs is not new features or more performance. Rather, it is the lack of features that caught my attention as three of the new additions will not have a functional graphics core.

The three processors without useable IGPs have a "P" moniker in there names which has been stated by VR-Zone to mean that they do not have a graphics core. On the positive side of things, the processors are a bit cheaper than their counterparts with functional GPUs. Such a SKU would compliment P67 motherboards that would not allow users to use the Quick Sync technology with a discrete card present anyway.

The new processors include three Core i5 Sandy Bridge desktop processors and four mobile Celeron chips. On the desktop side of things, we have the new i5-2550K quad core CPU with 6 MB of cache running at 3.4 GHz and a $225 tray price while the i5 2500K MSRP remains at $216 and runs at 3.30 GHz. VR-Zone further reported that this new "K" model would be unlocked but was also one of the three processors that would not have a functional graphics core. Moving down the performance line, the i5 2450P is a quad core part running at 3.2 GHz for $195 and provides a $10 cheaper alternative to the current multiplier locked i5 2500. Last up is the i5 2450P, which will be the IGP-less alternative to the i5 2400 at $184. This part is also a quad core; however, it is only clocked at 3.1 GHz and will sell for $177.

The new Intel Celeron chips are all mobile parts and include two standard voltage and two ultra low voltage (ULV) processors. The Celeron M B815 is a dual core chip running at 1.6 GHz for $86 and the Celeron M B720 is a single core CPU running at 1.7 GHz for $70. The ULV processors are the Celeron M ULV 867 and ULV 797. The ULV 867 is a dual core part at 1.3 GHz for $134 while the ULV 797 is a single core part running at 1.4 GHz for $107.

Are you still running a P67 motherboard interested in eschewing Intel's Quick Sync in a Z68 board for a bit more stock performance and a cheaper price? I think that these new "P" series chips will be something that OEMs will like though I think enthusiast interest will depend on what kind of overclocking headroom they end up having as they aren't all that much cheaper than their current graphics core packing counterparts.