Over the past two days Intel has been hitting the ground running with a slew of presentations and announcements surrounding their four core focuses for 2010: 32nm processors, the Atom, and television technology.
Westmere
From the get-go, it is worth saying that Intel will not be putting any 32nm chips into the enthusiast space in 2010. While the ultra high-end market will enjoy the Core i7 980X, all other chips based on the company’s Westmere architectural family will fall into the Clarkdale (desktop) or Arrandale (mobile) chips, both of which are dual core parts mated to an on-die Intel GMA GPU.
With that out of the way, let’s talk quickly about what each of these parts are all about. On the desktop side, the Clarkdale will be marketed with “Core i3” and “Core i5” branding, some of which you may have already seen popping up at retail.
Core i3 500 series
These 32nm processors carry a HyperThreaded dual core CPU and an on-die GPU called “Intel HD Graphics,” which is substantially based on the GMA X4500HD featured in the Intel G45 chipset. While this GPU won’t perform any miracles, it will run Blu-ray without sobbing bitterly in the corner, and Intel says it’ll only throw a little sass when you leave your Sims to perish in a doorless bathroom.
Technically speaking, the Intel HD Graphics core baked into the Core i3s are 733MHz and feature DirectX 10, OpenGL 2.1 and Shader Model 4.0. The GPU is also backed by up to 1.7GB of system memory, and also uses Hierarchical Z and Fast Z Clear–both ATI-developed technologies which are designed to make the most out of available memory bandwidth. As a reality check, however, these are largely superficial features for games, as the GPU struggles to render major cities in World of Warcraft at 1024×768. Consider the ramifications of this statement for other games: This is a chip definitely designed for productivity and movies, not games.
In terms of specs, Clarkdale Core i3s will have an 87W TDP, 512k L2 cache, 4MB L3 cache, 64-bit support, and dual channel DDR3-1333 support. Core i3s will also support hardware virtualization, but it will be limited as compared to Core i7 (EPT vs. EPT+IOMMU). And, more abstractly, because the parts are 32nm, they require an extremely low vcore and boast impressively low operating temperatures.
Finally, we now also know what chips we can expect:
- Core i3 540: 3.06GHz
- Core i3 530: 2.93GHz
Retail availability should begin relatively shortly as the products began volume shipments yesterday.
Core i5 600 series
Also based on the 32nm Clarkdale core, the Core i5 ups the stakes by adding Turbo Boost functionality. Turbo Boost allows the CPU cores to dynamically increase their frequency by hundreds of megahertz if the chip is operating within safe temperature ranges. The number of processing cores in use dictates the frequency gains, and we now know what kind of performance we can expect:
- Core i5 650: 3.2GHz/3.46GHz stock/Turbo
- Core i5 660: 3.33GHz/3.6GHz stock/Turbo
- Core i5 661: 3.33GHz/3.6GHz stock/Turbo
- Core i5 670: 3.46GHz/3.73GHz stock/Turbo
For an example of how TurboBoost can drastically improve the clockspeed of an Intel CPU, this chart demonstrates how Lynnfield and Bloomfield increase their frequencies over stock in response to workloads.
While the Core i5 600-series processors are largely identical to the Core i3, Core i5 6×0 CPUs are slightly better at virtualization than i5 6×1 chips due to EPT and IOMMU support. In exchange, 6×1 parts have superior video performance due to a 900MHz GPU, rather than the standard 733MHz.
Atom
High on Intel’s list in their computing divisions is the release of the new Pine Trail Atom platform.
“The Intel Atom processor has fueled an entirely new category of computing over the last year and a half and we think the growth will continue for devices like netbooks and entry-level PCs built around basic computing and Internet usage models,” said Mooly Eden, Intel Corporate Vice President and GM of Intel’s PC Client Group. “We’re excited to be delivering the next-generation Atom platform and working across the industry as we head into a second phase of growth, powering innovative new system designs with better performance, smaller footprints and better battery life.”
With obligatory quotes out of the way, let’s cut straight to the 411:
- The new Atom was codenamed Pineview.
- The Pineview is based on the Lincroft family of architectures.
- The Pine Trail platform combines the new Atom with the Intel NM10 Express chipset, originally codenamed Tiger Point.
- Pineview uses an on-die memory controller and GPU, the GMA 3150.
- The GMA 3150 is good enough for 720p playback, but 1080p requires a third-party decoder chip.
- Intel has firmly said that the 720p performance requires no voodoo, but it is limited to movie files. People who want accelerated Flash content must find a Netbook with Broadcom’s Crystal HD decoder module.
- Pine Trail netbooks are chipset-limited to a maximum of 2GB of DDR2 667.
- The new Pineview Atoms will launch in three models: N450 (single core, 512K L2) for netbooks, D410 (single core, 512K L2) for nettops, and the D510 (dual core, 1MB L2) for nettops. All three chips are 1.67GHz.
- The N450 is 22²mm. That’s the size of the entire chip.
- Including chipset, the N450 is 7W TDP, the D410 is 12W TDP and and the D510 is 15W TDP.
Intel claims that the refinements imparted on the new Pineview Atoms allowed them to shrink the footprint of the netbook’s components by nearly 60%, while the desktop platform parts have been reduced in size by nearly 70%, with 50% less heat. Lastly, Intel alleges Pine Trail netbooks sport 20% better battery life than their predecessors
Intel expects systems based on the N450 to start at about $350, though we can expect higher pricepoints to filter to the surface as “premium” amenities and OS versions dictate.
For Netbooks, Intel also announced the Intel AppUp Center which features a scad of applications written specifcally for the screen real estate of the Netbook. The application store has been taking submissions from developers for quite some time, but now it is open to the public. As an example of the types of applications we can find, the firm demonstrated a custom client for Fring, a free VoIP app. Intel also confirmed that all of the apps in their store work on both Windows and Linux.
Intel has also been working to fit the Moorestown Atom into several smartphone designs. We saw a pair of reference smartphone designs which were capable of doing real-time video conferencing over a 4G network (Las Vegas is blanketed in WiMax) with no stuttering or artifacts. Though the phones were big (5″ screens), they were absolutely beautiful.
Lastly, Intel announced that it has been working on an Atom-based SoC called Sodaville that the company plans to use for a new generation of smart televisions.
Television
Televisions played a surprisingly large role in the keynote address delivered by Intel CEO Paul Otellini. The exec demonstrated a TV based on the Sodaville platform which, via pure IPTV, delivered a 1080i stream as well as an on-screen guide with live thumbnails of what’s being broadcasted on each channel. In other words, Sodaville is robust enough to render several concurrent streams sourced from an HD signal.
Sodaville-based TVs, due to their x86 heart, also support a wide variety of applications which would find a home on the AppUp Center if the firm is successful in bringing their vision of the “smart TV” to market, though we’re a little skeptical of its chances.
More presently, Intel announced their new Wireless Display technology, shortened down to WiDi for marketing purposes. WiDi allows an enabled notebook, many of which are now in retail, to broadcast what’s on the screen to a TV at the touch of the button. TVs that don’t have the technology built in can buy a $100 adapter which will perform all the magic necessary to make the link, and it really did work amazingly well; WiDi’s picture was clear, free of artifacts, smooth, and easy to use.
Miscellany
Westmere, Atom and TVs aside, Intel is also working on a wide range of projects which fall outside of what many would consider its core competencies.
First off, do you remember Light Peak? The spec will hit retail in 2011 at 10Gbps, and it will definitely carry Ethernet, video and audio. We watched them use the technology to do real-time post-processing on 1080p 3D video, and Toshiba is also on board witho the tech.
Bizarrely, Intel is also dipping its wick into augmented reality. The company demonstrated a screen which uses anonymous facial recognition to detect the height and gender of the person approaching. The screen produces shopping assistance that is presented at the correct height of the user, and product suggestions for the user’s gender. We know it sounds totally not rad, but it was able to point directly to products in the store (as in, point to the physical location behind the screen) once the consumer pulls it from the search. The screen can also give a map to the location of any product in the store, and provides coupons directly to a smartphone. Did we mention that the screen was like six feet tall, completely transparent, displayed in full color, was perfectly legible in stage lighting, and accepts four independent inputs? Well it does.
There was some other shit, but it was completely uninteresting, so we’re not going to talk about it.
Final thoughts
So happens we followed Intel’s Dan Snyder to the end of his rainbow and snatched a Core i5 661 from his bottomless gnome bag of gifts. We’re gonna throw that one on the bench and see what comes up roses.
More abstractly, we’re definitely sharing a dose of disappointment for the company’s product roadmap in 2010. We totally respect Intel’s commitment to process advancements in the New Year, as 32nm chips are bitchin’ sweet, but we’ve been hard pressed not to crack “two is the new four” jokes to snipe at the company’s complete lack of 32nm quad parts. They’re coming, but not soon enough. We also wish the company would just bin faster chips, rather than using Mia Hamm to jazzercise the merits of Turbo Boost.
Atom, on the other hand, is going in cool directions. Intel flogged some pretty sweet designs based on Sodaville and Moorestown, but it’s really hard to say how long it will take to see retail implementations–if we ever do. We were really impressed with the IPTV and the smartphones powered by Atom, no foolin.
Also, 3D TV.
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