My Llano summary in two graphs and four sentences.

[gorobei]

legit review has been showing a bit of bias in some of their setup configs. I peruse a number of sites and usually i can average out a reasonable expectation of video card/cpu performance. But more often than not legit wll be the outlier as far as benchmark results. not sure what it is but sometimes the results they get are way outside what everyone else gets. it's 50-50 with them as far as i am concerned.

as to llano's power hogging, it may be due to bios/drivers. if the xfire and bd playback issues on desktop from the toms and anand reviews are any indication, there could be any of a dozen fixes coming down the pipe in the following weeks. The silicon is just too new for anything to be working optimally.

 

[Khato]

Intel's graphics team just strikes me as having the classic government contractor stereotype mentality "good enough for gov'ment work!". They don't really seem to care how crappy their IGP is because they know they are assured >80% of the market by default.

The whole 23.976fps vs 24fps situation with movie playback is classic. AMD delivers a product customers will appreciate, Intel delivers one they just have to live with.

No question that Intel's mentality towards integrated graphics used to be the bare minimum for Microsoft to accept it... But I think it's rather clear that such isn't the case any more, no? If it hasn't, then why isn't Sandy Bridge's integrated graphics just a GMA X4500 derivative? Sure it still seems like they're just trying to do the minimum, but, well... isn't that really just a matter of how incredibly far behind AMD/NVIDIA they were to start with? The real question is how long Intel can keep up their current rate of improvement - Sandy Bridge is typically over a 2x improvement from Clarkdale, and thanks to the process shrink it's actually a bit smaller too (41mm^2 versus ~47mm^2.) Compare that to the 1.3-1.5x performance improvement of the 4890 -> 5870, where despite the process shrink from 55nm to 40nm, the 5870 was still ~15% larger. Yes, Intel is likely just getting such large gains because they're so far behind, but if they can actually keep it up then they're going to catch up pretty quick... especially if they devote comparable die area.

Regarding the 23.976 fps situation, eh... it's no different than any of the other areas where Intel's graphics are lacking. It's not like AMD and NVIDIA always had support either. As was stated in the Llano HTPC review on Anandtech, Intel has fixed their issue in an upcoming driver, so they are indeed doing what they can to correct areas where they're behind.

 

[Idontcare]

That legitreviews power comparison is a bit of an outlier. Most other reviews show closer to a 40W-60W difference at load, which is still pretty hefty considering. The gap actually narrows quite a bit to only 20-30W if gaming on IGP. Intel's IGP is quite the power hog once it hits high clocks. Wonder how much of the non-gaming load power draw is from the beefier IGP even if it's just running basic desktop stuff? I became curious about transistor count difference and the official transistor count of the A8-3850 is more than double that of i3-2105 thanks in good part to that dense IGP (1.45B vs 624M). Wonder what 8 core BD transistor count is like compared to an 2600K. Any thoughts, taking that stuff into account, Idontcare?

Yeah, no telling what to take from the legitreviews article. I paid attention just because I recognized and have used the programs they referenced using for their power-consumption numbers. I know what my rig takes, so it made those numbers a lot more tangible to me.

At any rate, regarding bulldozer xtor estimates, AMD has been so tight-lipped about zambezi that I don't think we have even the bare minimum of necessary infos to hash out an estimate that would be any more of an educated guess than a straight up WAG would be.

I was really expecting a lot more of a decompositional analysis of Llano to come with the formal web reviews. Given that this is our first indications of how well GloFo's 32nm SOI w/HKMG is going, I thought for sure we'd have more information coming forth regarding it as well as more layout info on Llano (sram cell sizes, core logic area for shrink comparisons to thuban cores on 45nm, etc etc). So far its like everyone just kinda went "meh".

Without those kinds of "under the hood" analyses anecdotes being included in the reviews we are no closer to making any more insightful speculations on bulldozer's prospects.

 

[Idontcare]

No question that Intel's mentality towards integrated graphics used to be the bare minimum for Microsoft to accept it... But I think it's rather clear that such isn't the case any more, no? If it hasn't, then why isn't Sandy Bridge's integrated graphics just a GMA X4500 derivative? Sure it still seems like they're just trying to do the minimum, but, well... isn't that really just a matter of how incredibly far behind AMD/NVIDIA they were to start with? The real question is how long Intel can keep up their current rate of improvement - Sandy Bridge is typically over a 2x improvement from Clarkdale, and thanks to the process shrink it's actually a bit smaller too (41mm^2 versus ~47mm^2.) Compare that to the 1.3-1.5x performance improvement of the 4890 -> 5870, where despite the process shrink from 55nm to 40nm, the 5870 was still ~15% larger. Yes, Intel is likely just getting such large gains because they're so far behind, but if they can actually keep it up then they're going to catch up pretty quick... especially if they devote comparable die area.

Regarding the 23.976 fps situation, eh... it's no different than any of the other areas where Intel's graphics are lacking. It's not like AMD and NVIDIA always had support either. As was stated in the Llano HTPC review on Anandtech, Intel has fixed their issue in an upcoming driver, so they are indeed doing what they can to correct areas where they're behind.

Well they missed the mark with Vista, didn't they? It was more like "the bare minimum we can force Microsoft to downgrade their standards to accept".

My point about the 23.9xx fps situation is that it was a recognized gap in capabilities that went unaddressed for so long. It wasn't an oversight or a bug, it was a feature that was intentionally left out of the project because, well because they knew they could and the customer would just have to live with herky-jerky video.

Mind you I don't blame Intel, they do what they want and are beholden only to themselves and their shareholders. They had no contract with me to deliver a fully functioning product.

But I am not at all pleased with my experience with their product, and the driver support (my games regularly bomb out with the "display driver has stopped responding" error) is reflective of their mentality when it comes to post-sales customer support.

So I don't blame them, but I will call a spade a spade, and after having experienced it for myself and seeing what I see in the reviews I would only have myself to blame if I voted for more of it with my wallet. Not going to do it, I'll give AMD my money for the next laptop.

Worst case is that it turns out to be no more problematic than the Intel lappy it will be replacing, but that bar is just so low that there is a whole lot of upside potential and I am willing to spend my money to take a chance on that upside potential panning out.

Intel doesn't need my money and I don't need another 3 yrs with an Intel IGP that frustrates me as much on a daily basis as my current one has for the past 3yrs.

 

[Khato]

Intel doesn't need my money and I don't need another 3 yrs with an Intel IGP that frustrates me as much on a daily basis as my current one has for the past 3yrs.

Haha, now that I can certainly understand since the IGP of three years ago bears pretty much zero resemblance to the graphics in Sandy Bridge. Which is part of why the driver support is non-existent comparatively - just like AMD and NVIDIA did many years ago, Intel isn't on a unified driver really. While it's somewhat understandable given what must be marked changes in architecture, it's still quite annoying for those with the older products that simply get dropped.

As for the 23.9xx fps support, sure, that's one way to look at it. The other way would be that they weren't really aware of the extent of the issue - to those not familiar with the peculiarities of film playback a complaint of only supporting 24Hz and not 23.976Hz sounds like trivial nonsense.

 

[Vesku]

They weren't unaware of the 23.976Hz issue, they just didn't like how much it was going to cost in time and money to fix so they kicked that can down the road. It's one of the advantages of being the dominate market player.

 

[Bman123]

Intel is getting raped by llano on laptops

 

[Khato]

They weren't unaware of the 23.976Hz issue, they just didn't like how much it was going to cost in time and money to fix so they kicked that can down the road. It's one of the advantages of being the dominate market player.

Fact or assumption? Because the first time I recall them acknowledging it was after clarkdale, aka, once they're taking graphics more seriously. The response at that time was that it was a hardware limitation and couldn't be fixed for awhile, which would explain why there was no fix initially on Sandy Bridge. From one htpc oriented review I read recently, the updated drivers that 'support' 23.976Hz when UAC is disabled are actually just a much closer approximation - still off by +/- 0.003Hz I think it was. Such implies that there is a hardware limitation, but someone on their driver team figured out a way to at least get a close approximation in the meantime.

 

[gorobei]

Fact or assumption? Because the first time I recall them acknowledging it was after clarkdale, aka, once they're taking graphics more seriously. The response at that time was that it was a hardware limitation and couldn't be fixed for awhile, which would explain why there was no fix initially on Sandy Bridge. From one htpc oriented review I read recently, the updated drivers that 'support' 23.976Hz when UAC is disabled are actually just a much closer approximation - still off by +/- 0.003Hz I think it was. Such implies that there is a hardware limitation, but someone on their driver team figured out a way to at least get a close approximation in the meantime.

here maybe?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/7

This isn’t intentional, but rather a propagation of an oversight that started back with Clarkdale. Despite having great power consumption and feature characteristics, Clarkdale had one glaring issue that home theater enthusiasts discovered: despite having a 23Hz setting in the driver, Intel’s GPU would never output anything other than 24Hz to a display.

The limitation is entirely in hardware, particularly in what’s supported by the 5-series PCH (remember that display output is routed from the processor’s GPU to the video outputs via the PCH). One side effect of trying to maintain Intel’s aggressive tick-tock release cadence is there’s a lot of design reuse. While Sandy Bridge was a significant architectural redesign, the risk was mitigated by reusing much of the 5-series PCH design. As a result, the hardware limitation that prevented a 23.976Hz refresh rate made its way into the 6-series PCH before Intel discovered the root cause.

Intel had enough time to go in and fix the problem in the 6-series chipsets, however doing so would put the chipset schedule at risk given that fixing the problem requires a non-trivial amount of work to correct. Not wanting to introduce more risk into an already risky project (brand new out of order architecture, first on-die GPU, new GPU architecture, first integrated PLL), Intel chose to not address it this round, which is why we still have the problem today.

 

[Khato]

here maybe?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/7

Thanks, that's exactly as I remembered it. As the editorial opinion in bold states, Intel possibly could have fixed the hardware issue in the chipset in time, but it would have introduced significant risk to the launch schedule. So sometime after Clarkdale launches, they're made aware of the issue. If they root caused it quickly, then there's not much of an excuse for not fixing it... But if it took them just 3-6 months to root cause, then it's quite understandable why they wouldn't want to make major changes to the logic - that would leave only 6-9 months until launch (3-6 months to starting mass production) so the majority of validation was likely already complete.

 

[gorobei]

as IDC said, intel knew and chose not to fix this go around.

 

[Khato]

as IDC said, intel knew and chose not to fix this go around.

No, he said...

My point about the 23.9xx fps situation is that it was a recognized gap in capabilities that went unaddressed for so long. It wasn't an oversight or a bug, it was a feature that was intentionally left out of the project because, well because they knew they could and the customer would just have to live with herky-jerky video.

As per the quote from the article, it wasn't intentional, it was an oversight. And sure the gap in capabilities is going unaddressed for basically 2 years - 1 year on the initial product and 1 year because it was root caused too late to intercept the next product. It's an unfortunate result of the length of Intel's development cycle/validation standards/fact that they actually meet their schedules unlike most every other company in this field.

So yes, they did know and chose not to risk their timetable... But it wasn't a nefarious abuse of their market position, just a result of the circumstances. It, along with many other issues will be fixed in Ivy Bridge.

 

[AnandThenMan]

So yes, they did know and chose not to risk their timetable... But it wasn't a nefarious abuse of their market position, just a result of the circumstances. It, along with many other issues will be fixed in Ivy Bridge.

It was due to market realities. If Intel was losing significant market share due to a missing feature etc. they then would most certainly correct the problem. But as it stands, Intel has been able to field second rate graphics processors for years because of their dominant position. So in effect, it could be argued that it was an abuse of their market dominance.

 

[Vesku]

Their market position had to have played a role. Something that is too much trouble to fix before launch for Intel might very will be a "we have to fix this or it will get slammed for being broken" for AMD.

 

[Arkaign]

Intel may get raped by llano on cheap laptops without discrete gpus

Fixed for you 🙂

We don't know what the sales would be. Obviously the smart choice between a laptop with an i3 and Intel integrated graphics vs. a Llano laptop would be the AMD choice. But companies like Dell/HP/etc may be sluggish to make many models, and customers at the local best buy / walmart might not have the brains to figure out which is better. 90%+ of the market is cheap dispoable crap with integrated video anyway, which works fine for 90%+ of the users who do nothing more complex than IE + toolbars + Facebook + gmail or whatever.

 

[Lonbjerg]

It was due to market realities. If Intel was losing significant market share due to a missing feature etc. they then would most certainly correct the problem. But as it stands, Intel has been able to field second rate graphics processors for years because of their dominant position. So in effect, it could be argued that it was an abuse of their market dominance.

You made me lol..."significant"...LOL

Even when AMD had CPU's that matched those of Intel...it didn't help them.

 

[hans007]

well... i was going to buy a llano, and well maybe if microcenter has a crazy deal in a few months...

but i just picked up an athlon ii x4 620 on ebay for $48 shipped. can't really say no to that considering i already have the motherboard. hopefully by fall or so, the deals will be rollin for this.

 

[Blitzvogel]

I'm considering replacing my lappy (in sig) with a Llano based system, but it needs to be a quad + 400 SPs, 4 GB RAM, 14 in and close to $500 for me to really consider. I'd almost rather just spring for an i5 based system, especially if I can get it in 14 in form factor and with a Turks GPU like one of those new 14 in Sonys. Problem is the Turks based 6630 is clocked ridiculously low (500 MHz) and uses DDR3 :|

AMD just really needs to fix the CPU capability issue and get it in line with Intel's stuff. Come on AMD, get BD out!

 

[assassin24]

For those interested Intel has a beta driver out that is being tested that has fixed the 23.xxx issue.

So that will no longer be an argument against Intel for HTPC.

This is one of the reviewer's commments: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=20656808#post20656808

 

[gorobei]

For those interested Intel has a beta driver out that is being tested that has fixed the 23.xxx issue.

So that will no longer be an argument against Intel for HTPC.

This is one of the reviewer's commments: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=20656808#post20656808

unconfirmed yet in that thread.
also i think it is a temp workaround that solves uac but is still going to generate an offset frame just at a larger interval(40 frames vs say 400)

so it will still be an issue, until IVB fixes it. tho i believe amd and nvidia arent at 100% lock on uvd and have offsets at 1000 frame intervals.

 

[garagisti]

As per the quote from the article, it wasn't intentional, it was an oversight. And sure the gap in capabilities is going unaddressed for basically 2 years - 1 year on the initial product and 1 year because it was root caused too late to intercept the next product. It's an unfortunate result of the length of Intel's development cycle/validation standards/fact that they actually meet their schedules unlike most every other company in this field.

So yes, they did know and chose not to risk their timetable... But it wasn't a nefarious abuse of their market position, just a result of the circumstances. It, along with many other issues will be fixed in Ivy Bridge.

Yes, you would side with a company which got the OEM's to ship mobo's with faulty SATA2 parts, even though they identified it, and were working on it. Do you work for their marketing team by any chance? However, 'intentional' means being fully aware of something and its consequences and Intel were fully aware of what they're doing and of the consequences... They just chose to make money at your expense. As IDC rightly pointed, they've been doing this, as they could get away with it. Even MS had to put Vista Capable stickers out. They've long been abusing whatever they could in order to keep their competitive edge, and it doesn't seem likely they'll ever play fair.