Intel's answer to AMD Fusion detailed

[SUBMAN1]

I wondered when we would hear from Intel on AMD's Fusion. I think they may be scared of AMD's lead in this area.

-S

IDF Fall 007 Nehalem's CPU+GPU comes with speeding up the process adoption
By Theo Valich in San Francisco: Tuesday 18 September 2007, 22:31

INTEL IS PROMISING a ten-fold increase in performance of integrated graphics within two years. And after that, another ten-fold increase. In short, Intel promised that by 2010 or 11, integrated graphics will become drastically faster than they are today. Intel's keynote outlined the fact that integrated graphics have always lagged a generation behind the actual manufacturing process, with current stuff being manufactured in 90nm. In 2008, this will be updated to 65nm process -as the old Conroes and Meroms depart from the production line, space will be made for next-generation chipsets. But in the first half of 2009 we will see CPU and GPU being manufactured at the same manufacturing process, and that is 45nm.

The secret lies in the fact that Nehalem will be a modular marchitecture, and one of things that will be integrated is the graphics part, offering a strong performance and clock increase over the current situation.

While the numbers Intel mentioned above are great (10x with first-generation CPU+GPU silicon, another 10x with second gen), we should not omit the fact that integrated graphics need a dramatic increase in performance over today's situation.

Also, there is a catch with the integrated graphics chippery of today - it actually does not run most popular games, and if they run, they look like they came from stone age of texturing. Run F.E.A.R. on Intel Integrated graphics now, and you’ll get several frames per second (300-400 fpm). Compared to discrete parts, even ones in the mainstream, $100 range, where frame-rates are at 30-40 a second (1800-2500 fpm), it is clear that integrated graphics need to get up by 10x to get to bare minimum of playability. Of course, comparing G33 parts with ATI Radeon 2600 or Nvidia GeForce 8600 is very hard, since G965 and G33 cannot render more complex shaders, so an pple to apple comparison is rather problematic.

Bear in mind that a 10-fold increase in performance would raise the frame-rate from current 4-5 fps to acceptable 40-50 (not mentioning rendering quality), but we're comparing 2009 part with something you can buy for months now, so this excludes the performance figures from 2009-10 discrete parts.

For integrated performance to get onto the same page as discrete parts, we need to see 30-40x at least. Luckily, with Larrabee concept and other upcoming parts, graphics performance in Intel's camp will radically increase. µ

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=42439

[Letum]

Intel have far better marketing than AMD, but AMD seams to be ahead of the game in technology atm.
If I was buying a CPU I would look at AMD first.
If I was buying shares I wouldn't be so sure.

[JSLTIGER]

Actually, at the moment, Intel's C2D is beating even AMD's newer Barcelona chips.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by JSLTIGER

Actually, at the moment, Intel's C2D is beating even AMD's newer Barcelona chips.

That is true. AMD however has the lead in the Multi CPU + GPU chips though which may turn the tables soon.

Intel still needs to get rid of their legacy FSB as well. AMD is ahead here too.

-S

[geetrue]

This is fine and dandy for people with money ... people on a budget have to get a new motherboard every time they have a little chip war.

I'm still figuring out how to get a decent intel duo core I can bump up to 3 ghz for my Asus P5B still in the box.

[SUBMAN1]

Little chip wars is what you should be hoping for - It cuts prices in half or less for people on a budget!

-S

[[dc]Blade]

This is why i belive there are so many buggy or patched games out there because the Hardware market moves so quickly from underneath the feet of the Software programers there is never a solid ground for them to build on and to realy capitalise on the currant technology, In the world of Game consoles you see a solid Tech ground that software programmers can learn and maximise giving them ways to realy squeeze every bit thay can out!

I'm not a console fan but my younger brother plays a game called Fable and that has outstanding graphics for an Xbox, and if you stand it agents some 360 games that have been released like Two Worlds which is a similar sort of game then it could be fair to say it would be hard to guess which console platform thay come from.

It is in my opinion that the Software programmers and game writers of this world seem to play catch up more than thay do maximsing the hardware available to them through no fault of their own.

Interesting topic dont you think?

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Little chip wars is what you should be hoping for - It cuts prices in half or less for people on a budget!

-S

But how will intel pay for their engineers to have fancy groups lunches . Plus, do you want to starve their marketing department? Someone needs to feed the advertising budget beast. And it might as well be you.