As I suspected earlier, vr-zone.com is reporting that RV770 consists of five clusters with 160 stream processors each (grouped in the same 4 IEEE754 +1 fashion as in the Rv6xx/R6xx cores).
My take: 5 slightly modified HD3650's (40 stream processors more than the 120 of the RV635), striped of their individual memory controllers altogether (which, as we saw with the RV670, RV610/20 and RV630/35, does impact the transistor count significantly), which would then access an on-die, but "off-array" common memory controller, bypassing the frame-buffer multiplication of the same data, a limitation of multi-chip rendering.
The connection between these "arrays" themselves and/or the common memory controller could be made by some form of on-chip coherent HyperTransport link.
Let's wait a bit more and see if i was way too off the mark or not...
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Intel Xeon "Dunnington"
The Intel "Dunnington", successor of the "Tigerton" (Xeon X73xx, E73xx, L73xx) and "Tulsa", is scheduled for the third quarter of this year, just ahead of the brand new architecture, "Nehalem"-derivatives for the enterprise and high performance workstation segment.
This will likely be the "swan song" of the venerable Socket 604, in use since the old "Paxville" MP (early Pentium 4's "Netburst" offspring), but it will go out with a bang, nevertheless.
The big news: 45nm, single die, 6-core design, with up to 16MB of shared L3 cache.
Despite the single die and L3 cache, it is not a brand new architecture with an integrated memory controller, but a mere "packaging" of 3 dual-core 45nm Core 2 derivatives, with each pair of cores sharing a single 3MB of L2 cache, and only then accessing the other cores though the rather large, but much higher latency L3 space.
The increased computing density's need for one big FSB bus (impractical with the soon-to-be-retired GTL+ protocol design and hardware infrastructure in place) is therefore offset by the shared L3 -up to a point-.
This also means a new and easy, drop-in upgrade path for most high-density setups.
Of course, Nehalem will not benefit from it, so Intel is giving the socket 604 one last chance until the "Quickpath"-enabled motherboards start over with a clean slate (which could take years, giving the server market's lag against the desktop/notebook typical upgrade patterns).
Monday, March 10, 2008
JPR Desktop Graphics report for Q4'07
The latest figures are in, and they don't look too promising for AMD.
Despite the "apparent" success of the RV670 launch (Radeon HD 3850 and HD 3870), the reality was that, not only they couldn't take market share away from Nvidia, but they have actually lost a huge 7% of their own share to their Santa Clara rivals.
Nvidia now commands a mighty 71% of all PC desktop discrete graphics shipments (up from 64%) which, despite the "mentideros" close to console gaming interests saying otherwise, grew a staggering 50.3% year-over-year, and a sizable 23% sequentially against Q3'07.
Source: Jon Peddie Research
Despite the "apparent" success of the RV670 launch (Radeon HD 3850 and HD 3870), the reality was that, not only they couldn't take market share away from Nvidia, but they have actually lost a huge 7% of their own share to their Santa Clara rivals.
Nvidia now commands a mighty 71% of all PC desktop discrete graphics shipments (up from 64%) which, despite the "mentideros" close to console gaming interests saying otherwise, grew a staggering 50.3% year-over-year, and a sizable 23% sequentially against Q3'07.
Source: Jon Peddie Research
Intel Atom = Prices
According to vr-zone.com, the suggested price for the Intel Atom 230 SKU (single-core, dual-threaded, 1.6GHz/512KB cache L2) will be 29 US dollars -supposedly single unit price when purchased in 1000 unit lots for OEM's, as usual-.
This bodes very well for the expected quick mass adoption of the platform for low-cost notebooks, desktop PC's and even entry-level UMPC's.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
AMD "R700"
Contrarily to popular belief, i'm still not entirely convinced that the "R700" next-gen high-end from AMD is just two "RV770" GPU's (more powerful RV670 cores) "stitched" together on a PCB like the Radeon HD3870 X2.
Oh, and it will almost certainly be a 55nm core yet again, but it doesn't take a genius to figure that out once you're aware of the TSMC process roadmaps...
After the Asus Eee PC 701, Cloudbook, HP 2133 (glup) and of the recently revealed 9 inch screen version of the Eee PC, lo and behold, here it comes, the MSI "Wind":
As predicted, the Intel Atom is taking the (low-end) world for its own.
However, i still believe that the VIA "Isaiah"/CN-based HP 2133 UMPC is, not only more feature-filled (it even has an ExpressCard/54 slot, for god sakes; not even the top of the line, über-expensive Apple Macbook Pro 17 incher has one :P), but it could end up being faster in most single-threaded software applications than a single core, dual-threaded Intel Atom "Diamondville" due to the former Out-of-Order CPU design and significantly improved Floating Point processing capabilities.
The also new -if actually used on the HP "mini-wonder"- DX10 IGP from VIA's S3 subsidiary could also give it an edge over the modified GMA950 from the Intel "Poulsbo" chipset that currently is a required companion to the Intel Atom core.
As they say, time will tell.
P.S.:
It is believed that the first versions of the 9-inch Eee PC still sport the >underclocked to a mere 630MHz by bringing the "quad-pumped" FSB from 100MHz down to 70MHz< Intel Celeron M 900MHz based on the old 90nm "Dothan" core (second generation, but still single-core Pentium M), so be careful when you decide to choose one of those as your next "net-machine".
An Intel Atom "Diamondville" should be significantly faster than it anyday, especially if its clockspeed overs around the rumored 1.6~1.8GHz figures. Not to mention a much lower power consumption due to the 45nm process and agressive clock gating techniques, which are completely absent in the Celeron M.
As predicted, the Intel Atom is taking the (low-end) world for its own.
However, i still believe that the VIA "Isaiah"/CN-based HP 2133 UMPC is, not only more feature-filled (it even has an ExpressCard/54 slot, for god sakes; not even the top of the line, über-expensive Apple Macbook Pro 17 incher has one :P), but it could end up being faster in most single-threaded software applications than a single core, dual-threaded Intel Atom "Diamondville" due to the former Out-of-Order CPU design and significantly improved Floating Point processing capabilities.
The also new -if actually used on the HP "mini-wonder"- DX10 IGP from VIA's S3 subsidiary could also give it an edge over the modified GMA950 from the Intel "Poulsbo" chipset that currently is a required companion to the Intel Atom core.
As they say, time will tell.
P.S.:
It is believed that the first versions of the 9-inch Eee PC still sport the >underclocked to a mere 630MHz by bringing the "quad-pumped" FSB from 100MHz down to 70MHz< Intel Celeron M 900MHz based on the old 90nm "Dothan" core (second generation, but still single-core Pentium M), so be careful when you decide to choose one of those as your next "net-machine".
An Intel Atom "Diamondville" should be significantly faster than it anyday, especially if its clockspeed overs around the rumored 1.6~1.8GHz figures. Not to mention a much lower power consumption due to the 45nm process and agressive clock gating techniques, which are completely absent in the Celeron M.
G92 product naming thoughts
Many in the industry question Nvidia's motives for the admittedly awkward naming of their first G92 GPU's, shipped in millions of "8800 GT", 8800 GTS 512MB and "8800 GS" around the world since last fall.
I could atest first hand to some confusion in the minds of plenty of people who ask me for advice in their purchase decisions, but i also have somewhat of a theory about it.
Bear with me for a moment.
The G92 was to be the Geforce 9xxx right from the start, but the absence of a high-end refresh to the R600 ("HD 2900 XT") from AMD, and the chance to make it throughout the whole Holiday Season without having to show all the cards in the company's deck (pun not intended :D) were just too good to pass on.
Think of it as a two-part product family launch.
First they capitalize on the huge "Geforce 8800" marketing potential (it's, in many ways, the Radeon 9700 Pro from Nvidia) by calling two cheaper variants of the G92 by that name and ride the usual "Christmas shopping craze".
Second, it's no coincidence that the 8800 GTS 512MB is very similar to the 9800 GTS and 9800 GTX whose launch is near.
The 8800 GTS 512MB was probably to be launched alongside the 9800 GTX bearing the name "9800 GTS" back in November, divided from the high-end part only by it's core and memory clocks, besides a more elaborate PCB design (a lá 7900 GTX vs 7900 GT).
The 9800 GX2 is a quick answer to the Radeon HD3870 X2, but, honestly, it's only there to show off Quad-SLI once more, alongside Three-Way SLI (with the 9800 GTX, 8800 GTX and 8800 Ultra in that case).
Geforce 9800 GTX
With the arrival of the Geforce 9800 GTX, Nvidia hopes to have a somewhat accessible point (at least compared to the aging 8800 GTX/Ultra, which has unacceptable TDP's due to their old 90nm-based GPU) of entry for the "Three-Way SLI" technology introduced with the nForce 680i SLI/780i SLI.
As the Intel X48 high end core logic clearly comes to the market later than expected (bearing "Crossfire X" support), Nvidia needed a quick and easy solution to turn up the appeal of their next top of the line chipset, the (almost) all new nForce 790i SLI/Ultra SLI for high bandwidth, low voltage DDR3 memory technology.
I say "almost", because, even though the Northbridge is in fact completely new, and now integrates PCI-Express 2.0 on-chip (besides switching from DDR2 to DDR3), the Southbridge component is still the 2 year old nForce 590/570 SLI for AMD systems (here relegated to I/O hub only).
Now, i'm not against using it per se (it still has plenty to offer as a Southbridge, from 6 SATA 3Gb/s ports with RAID 5, to HD Audio, integrated Gigabit Ethernet and IDE/ATA, USB 2.0, etc), given the fact that it's main purpose is to provide 16 lanes of PCI-Express to the third full-length slot -which gives it an edge over their top counterparts from AMD and Intel, which can't go beyond x4 or x8-.
But, even with a new revision on its shoulders, the process tech used (130nm) is a bit long in the tooth, and the fact that a certain DFI motherboard shown at Cebit has an active cooler on top of it (but only a small passive heatsink on the main chip, the 790i SLI) should be somewhat odd for the buyer of such over-the-top parts.
Incidentally, the nForce 790i SLI Northbridge finally marks the transition to 90nm (matching the "P965" and "P35" from Intel, but still behind the soon to be released "P45" -essentially, a 65nm version of "P35").
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