The next intel processors

blanketyblank

Golden Member
Jan 23, 2007
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I've been reading up a bit whether or not I should upgrade to nehalem when I read something in PC Magazine about Intel's next chips which are supposed to come out later this year Lynnfield and Havendale which are supposed to be for the more mainstream market.
Strangely I haven't heard anything about these new processors whether it be about pricing or architecture. However seems that there is a big change in them since the Havendale is supposed to have an integrated graphics core and Lynnfield is supposed to use some kind of IBEX chipset.
It makes me wonder though if these features will be useful for my purposes since you usually have to buy a graphics card anyways to play games. Onboard stuff hasn't cut it in the past, but maybe the integrated core will be fast enough.
Anyone heard any info about these chips or know anything about integrated graphics? I'm wondering if I should just upgrade now if these won't have anything to offer me.

 

nyker96

Diamond Member
Apr 19, 2005
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i read some preliminary reports on Lynnfield, it looks like the graphics core is nothing like the discrete cards you can buy but it's suppose to be able to decode HD contents which is enough for htpc users or office users. probably can play some older games but i strongly doubt intel will come out with something can play new games with good frame rating on their first try.

you already got a 4850 so no point waiting for the graphics core inside LF unless you not plan to play any games in the future.
 

Cookie Monster

Diamond Member
May 7, 2005
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My bet is that its as crap as what intel has on the market today, maybe even weaker than the current intel IGPs.
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
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i read some preliminary reports on Lynnfield, it looks like the graphics core is nothing like the discrete cards you can buy but it's suppose to be able to decode HD contents which is enough for htpc users or office users.

The G45 chipset can already do that.
 

blanketyblank

Golden Member
Jan 23, 2007
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So I guess the consensus is these new chips have nothing to offer for a gamer unless they are cheaper or faster?
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
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So I guess the consensus is these new chips have nothing to offer for a gamer unless they are cheaper or faster?

If you are talking about the IGP-variant chips, nope. The fastest IGPs today barely offer the performance of the lowest end of the discrete chips. Next generation isn't going to change that.

It's not possible to have performance of high-end(400-500mm2, 1 billion transistors), or even mid-end(200-300mm2, 500 million transistors?) on a die size of just 100mm2 that will be available for the IGP-on-CPU implementations.
 

Cogman

Lifer
Sep 19, 2000
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Originally posted by: IntelUser2000
So I guess the consensus is these new chips have nothing to offer for a gamer unless they are cheaper or faster?

If you are talking about the IGP-variant chips, nope. The fastest IGPs today barely offer the performance of the lowest end of the discrete chips. Next generation isn't going to change that.

It's not possible to have performance of high-end(400-500mm2, 1 billion transistors), or even mid-end(200-300mm2, 500 million transistors?) on a die size of just 100mm2 that will be available for the IGP-on-CPU implementations.

Sure its possible, intels core 2 quad has about 500 million transistors and isn't much bigger then that.

The problem you run into with shoving graphics cards onto the motherboard is the fact that the current generation runs hot, even hotter then the cpu in many cases. so sure, they could slap a 4850 onto your motherboard, but how do they cool it?

It would be nice if the GPU had its own socket so we could buy after market coolers for it, but then that would require things like GPU ram purchases, vastly more complex bios, and motherboards to get big enough to have the room for another fan.

The current setup, buying a 3rd party card, is really pretty nice in the long run, because it avoids all that by slapping everything onto one add-on card that you plug in perpendicular to the board. (giving them much more room to work with).

Heck, we have double port cards now, I can see the day when they do a triple port card (if they don't go through a similar "Power is important" phase that Intel and AMD has gone through.)
 

taltamir

Lifer
Mar 21, 2004
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i wonder if it is a larabee core, that would be neat, since that means we finally have "fusion"... Larabee already scales over 95% increase per core up to 40 cores (with a larabee prototype card typically holding 10 cores). So this could be interesting.
 

blanketyblank

Golden Member
Jan 23, 2007
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I'm curious about the potential for the the new IGP to communicate directly with the CPU since Havendale will be integrated together with it. Wouldn't the shorter distance improve performance compared with current onboard GPU's since they don't have to go across the mobo?
The other thing I find somewhat appealing is the idea I might be able to upgrade the RAM on my GPU when I upgrade my system memory. System memory gets almost dirt cheap eventually so going to 8 gigs or beyond would be a cheap upgrade compared to buying a new video card.


 

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
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Originally posted by: blanketyblank
I'm curious about the potential for the the new IGP to communicate directly with the CPU since Havendale will be integrated together with it. Wouldn't the shorter distance improve performance compared with current onboard GPU's since they don't have to go across the mobo?
The other thing I find somewhat appealing is the idea I might be able to upgrade the RAM on my GPU when I upgrade my system memory. System memory gets almost dirt cheap eventually so going to 8 gigs or beyond would be a cheap upgrade compared to buying a new video card.
The problem is that Intel makes crappy low end GPUs, and nobody plans on making a high-end integrated GPU anytime soon. Even Fusion from AMD will be low-end, maybe midrange if we're lucky.

There's also the problem that graphics memory is way faster than system memory.

These will be great for things like netbooks, though.
 

Denithor

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2004
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For gaming, no. Larabee even with 40 cores? Compared to a mid-range card these days that has 128? I seriously don't think they will be able to pack enough cores into the CPU package to give discrete cards any challenge.

Netbooks & HTPC, now, that's a different story.
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
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Sure its possible, intels core 2 quad has about 500 million transistors and isn't much bigger then that. The problem you run into with shoving graphics cards onto the motherboard is the fact that the current generation runs hot, even hotter then the cpu in many cases. so sure, they could slap a 4850 onto your motherboard, but how do they cool it?

You do know that SRAM logic is the most efficient in terms of die size and power consumption?

Although in truth GPUs also have not so insignificant amount of die for cache the truth is even mid-end GPUs have 200-300mm2 die size which is not going to fit on a IGP.

I'm curious about the potential for the the new IGP to communicate directly with the CPU since Havendale will be integrated together with it. Wouldn't the shorter distance improve performance compared with current onboard GPU's since they don't have to go across the mobo?

Won't help a lot. For 3D graphics it doesn't communicate with the CPU a whole lot.

For gaming, no. Larabee even with 40 cores? Compared to a mid-range card these days that has 128? I seriously don't think they will be able to pack enough cores into the CPU package to give discrete cards any challenge. Netbooks & HTPC, now, that's a different story.

Cores in Larrabbee are more complex than the "cores" in current GPUs. Larrabbee cores are real CPUs while the ones in GPUs aren't really fully functional processing cores.