Atom Valley View Graphics: Huh?

[dealcorn]

Superb graphics on Intel Atom at 32 nm with drivers that work good: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA3NDc.
Big picture: Ivy Bridge graphics (and Intel drivers) on Atom at 32 nm around year end. "It looks like the ValleyView Atoms will offer up about 4x the performance of the current CedarView Atoms. Goodbye Atoms with PowerVR graphics!" At 22 nm, Atom may be a dominant low end gaming platform. Gradually, the pieces are starting to some together.

If accurate, is there any word to describe it other than Huh?

 

[Chiropteran]

Sounds nice, but a lot can change between now and year's end.

Is a current Atom's GPU even 1/4 as fast as an E-450 GPU? I'm not sure if 4X is enough, although the fix for driver issues is a welcome change.

 

[Ventanni]

It beats paying PowerVR a licensing fee for every chip I 'spose.

 

[Khato]

Eh, I doubt it'll be as fast as an E-450 GPU necessarily... but it may end up having equal or greater performance in some games if it's using the Silvermont CPU core. Regardless, it's good for them to get up to date on their Atom graphics instead of it being either an old Intel design or poorly supported PowerVR. I think most would agree that the one graphics driver worse than Intel's is PowerVR's.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Valleyview is a 22nm Silvermont core based SoC. The 4x performance is against Cedar Trail platform. They might only need 350MHz 6EU graphics to perform like that.

 

[dealcorn]

Xbitlabs agrees with Phoronix that Valleyview is a 32 nm chip, not 22nm. (http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/pr...em_on_Chip_with_Ivy_Bridge_Graphics_Core.html)

The driver issue is hugh and permits Intel to be the master of its own destiny for better or worse. However at 32 nm Atom is working with a tweaked Bonnell core and I do not see it realizing that much benefit out of more robust graphics hardware beyond the facts that things will just work right, they earn instant enhanced credibility, and perhaps a rep as a Hot Dog. Atom is moving to Ivy Bridge graphics and the intro vehicle should use HD 1000 Ivy Bridge graphics which is still pretty good. A semi credible low and gaming platform probable requires more CPU than Bonnell's got.

Silvermont changes everything at 22 nm. The Bonnell core is history and beyond Anand's speculation that it is an out-of-order architecture and that dual and quad cores will be available, little is known. (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4333/intels-silvermont-a-new-atom-architecture) However Brazos has been favorably mentioned as AMD's semi credible low end gaming platform. That is why Kristian observed "Outside of the GPU improvements, the D2700 should only be around 16% faster than D525, which means the E-350 might come in slower in certain CPU tests. However, single-threaded performance is still likely to be faster on E-350—we’d estimate up to a 25% lead in some use cases." (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4295/intel-cedar-trail-platform). Somehow, when Intel replaces Bonnell with an out-of-order architecture I have to believe they will find a 25% improvement in single threaded performance. It is not like they never did this before. The boost you get going from dual core to quad core is icing on the cake. Try to keep a straight face if you want to assert that the e-350 has enough CPU for a semi credible low end gaming platform today but when Atom easily surpasses that level, the bar is raised. That position does not work. Thus, it comes down to the GPU.

The intro vehicle, Valley View will use the worst Ivy Bridge Graphics and fulfill it's role as a proof of concept. With Silvermont quad cores Intel has to decide whether it wants to build HD 1000 2000 or 3000 into the die and then use price discrimination to decide how much to enable. What not charge $35 extra to boost the graphics from HD 1000 to HD 3000? They will tune the price so it wallops any discrete graphics competitor. If it makes you happy, you can say that Ivy Bridge HD 2000 or 3000 graphics are not good enough for a semi credible low end gaming platform but keep you head down when the benchmarks start to roll in.

Someday, we will become familiar with the fierce competitive response of AMD/ARM which may well be better. However, the response must be fierce because they are working with transistors that cost lots more and do not work as well. If Intel wants the title of champion low cost semi credible gaming platform, it is their's for the taking with Silvermont. This might be helpful for some folks who always look back rather than forward.

 

[ultimatebob]

I'm looking forward to this, as the integrated graphics on the existing Atom processors suck. Forget 3D gaming... I've found full screen Java applets that it can't keep up with.

 

[Lonyo]

I'm looking forward to this, as the integrated graphics on the existing Atom processors suck. Forget 3D gaming... I've found full screen Java applets that it can't keep up with.

In one of the older Atoms (the lowest end one), the drivers were non existent and you would get a BSOD every time you tried to run DXVA content in Windows XP. It was a known and documented problem. The CPU couldn't manage even 720p content on its own, and wasn't really fast enough for Vista or 7 either.

I don't care what hardware is inside if the drivers are terrible.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Xbitlabs agrees with Phoronix that Valleyview is a 32 nm chip, not 22nm. (http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/pr...em_on_Chip_with_Ivy_Bridge_Graphics_Core.html)

Then they are BOTH wrong. Valleyview is a 22nm chip.

 

[Cerb]

Superb graphics on Intel Atom at 32 nm with drivers that work good: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA3NDc.
Big picture: Ivy Bridge graphics (and Intel drivers) on Atom at 32 nm around year end. "It looks like the ValleyView Atoms will offer up about 4x the performance of the current CedarView Atoms. Goodbye Atoms with PowerVR graphics!" At 22 nm, Atom may be a dominant low end gaming platform. Gradually, the pieces are starting to some together.

If accurate, is there any word to describe it other than Huh?

Intel video drivers may not be up to par with NV and AMD, but the Tungsten PowerVR drivers are a complete mess. If they're really getting rid of PowerVR designs, we should rejoice! Nothing against PowerVR or Tungsten specifically, but either Intel should be able to make the drivers, or PowerVR should.

Eh, I doubt it'll be as fast as an E-450 GPU necessarily

If it can do full-speed 1080i decoding+deinterlacing in hardware, with no artifacts or crashes, it will be more than fast enough. The PowerVR chips have had non-support, and bad support. Bad support as in BSODs, kernel panics, and X server crashes.

 

[sm625]

I was hoping for the ib version of the celeron 807UE. The ib equivalent should be a single core running at around 1.2GHz at just 10 watts. That thing would slaughter any and all atoms and brazos's.

 

[dealcorn]

As both Phoronix and XbitLabs have either walked back or softened the references to 32 nm, it appears IntelUser2000 is correct. This is a 22 nm product.