Right now, Intel has every right to lay contentedly atop the laurels of
its biggest quarterly profit ever, but that's not what the company is doing at all. Instead of protracting the life of its current-gen processors unduly, Intel is planning to
accelerate the roadmap for its next generation of multicore parts, codenamed
Sandy Bridge. The difference between the
Nehalem-based stuff we have today and the upcoming chip is that the Sandy Bridge architecture takes everything down to 32nm -- including the graphics processor and memory controller which are built at 45nm at present -- while keeping it all within the same enclosure. Enthusiastic feedback from customers who were given tasters of the Sandy stuff has been to blame for this haste on Intel's part, and we're told that with additional investment in 32nm infrastructure, the chip giant plans to make deliveries late this year. That in turn could potentially result in some eager vendor pushing a Sandy Bridge laptop or desktop out before 2010 is through -- which would be all kinds of nice.
posted July 14th 2010 8:34AM
goooooooo intel! :)
@hammydbest
reeeeeeeeeeead the article. Then post.
@Teslanaut says the guy that is just pissed because he didnt get the attention of commenting first. on a relevant note that is really small =o
@hammydbest
This is worth buying. It will give a substantial performance & OC leap above i7. i7 was completely avoidable for those who had 45nm Core 2 Quads.
@Kurian
But will it be worth buying a new board as well? That's the question for most people.
@archkron FTA "while keeping everything inside the same enclosure"
@sanriver12
That refers to the silicon and not the socket (which will be 1155 rather than 1156).
@Kurian
Unless you game or do heavy rendering or something, everything has been completely avoidable since the Core 2 Duo's just as this will be. I game somewhat (Far Cry, Starcraft 2, etc) and I haven't had a problem with anything on my launch C2D e6600, 4GB RAM, Radeon HD 4850
Intel has sort of gotten intself into a corner: with the Core 2 Duo's they released a processor that was fast enough and that would stay fast enough for waaaay too long. Before, you needed new processors just to run the new versions of Windows, but now everything but Crysis runs without a hitch on a 4-year-old processor (obviously the RAM and GPU have been upgraded), so I see no reason to upgrade.
This particular die shrink to 32nm is gonna be amazing. 6 cores, less heat, big overclocking headroom. Suck it, AMD!
@MrDiSante
I have a similar setup to you: e6600 at launch, 4GB RAM, GTX 260. I've played the same games and recently I've been playing Bioshock 2 at the highest settings at 2560x1600.
Still, I'm planning on upgrading to a Sandy Bridge and a next gen AMD graphics card if one comes out this year. Four years between CPU upgrades is a long time for me.
Seeing these kinds of articles makes me die a little as I work away on the Pentium D shitbox my company provides me. I can't wait for it to be replaced (in 2 years).
@Hap Hazard Pentium D !?!?!? Do you make ascii art for a living :-)
@MrDiSante
Actually, some recent games have been very taxing on the CPU lately. I have an E6600 and there are some games that really hit my CPU hard.
Grand Theft Auto IV and Bad Company 2 come to mind. In those games, even with my HD 5870, it's difficult to break 30 and 40 FPS on average, respectively.
@hammydbest
Cool.
@hammydbest
If only their chipset roadmaps could be 'accelerated' as well. Where's my USB 3.0, Intel?
As well as ubiquitous SATA 6.0 Gbps and PCIe 2.1 for that matter.
@Hap Hazard
Wow. What kind of company do you work for?
Everyone here gets at least a Core 2 Duo for their workstation, and I've seen a few Core 2 Quads as well. I also know one lucky guy with a Core i7 for his workstation, but that's definitely not the norm.
@MrDiSante
I highly agree with this post. The Core 2 series of CPUs was an amazing bunch that is definitely still usable, and, actually, quite good, today. In fact, the only reason I moved up to a Core i7 at home was because encoding h.264 video is SO MUCH FASTER on it than a Core 2 Duo, and I've been doing a lot of video encoding recently.
@MrDiSante One other place where i7/Sandy Bridge will be useful: virtualization. If apple ever upgrades the Mac Mini to either of these, it will make a hell of a platform for installing VMware ESXi on...
@Metayoshi
aXXo??! i thought you stopped making movies?!?!
@hammydbest
The competing AMD chipset has been codenamed Sandy Vagina
-jp
@Kurian
And what about 65nm Core 2 Quads like my Q6600? I don't think the i7s are worth it even coming from that.
Maybe Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge will change that, but I'm not sure at the moment. Chances are I might even skip that for Haswell/Rockwell.
If an upgrade involves replacing the RAM and motherboard in addition to the CPU, I'd better see at least a twofold performance increase. Can't afford to keep up with the upgrade treadmill otherwise.
I truly wonder how long AMD can survive? Unfair as it seems, there's just no practical way for them to keep up
@zepfloyd Have you seen AMD's fusion tech? Basically a cut down ATI GPU built into the chip that destroys any effort intel have shown so far. If they can get the GPU accelerated software to catch on (which may take a while) then it won't matter how much faster intels CPU's are, the GPU will make up the difference and then some. In saying that the long delays mean I will more than likely go for sandybridge as im looking to do a new build in the next 6 months.
By the way Sandy Bridge is a new socket (1155) which seems so cheeky on intels part it really makes me want to go AMD. If only they would speed up their damn releases.
@zepfloyd
Actually AMD is good in the desktop processor area.... they just fail horribly with their laptop processors.
@zepfloyd
AMD's catered to the budget market for years now I think they're comfortable where they are. Plus AMD haven't released their CPU + IGP solution yet so who know what will happen.
@runadumb
You sure?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuGwPnWrpow
This confidential 1156 CPU could be sandy bridge.
@tobsmonster2
Probably just an engineering sample. Intel HAVE announced SaB to be on 1155.
@tobsmonster2 What makes you think that's a sandy bridge chip? Anyway I can't say for certain but Bit-Tech has already seen the new 1155 boards which aren't even due for release for 6 months. If Intel had a change of heart it would be great but as far as i'm aware two new sockets will be released next year, the 1155 and the 2011 (intels sense of humour there) It's not a big deal to me as I'm a 775 at the mo but hate seeing sockets change so quickly.
@runadumb
Im just hoping as my new i3 & 1156 board just arrived this morning and I'd hate to have to get a new board in the next year.
@tobsmonster2 I know how you feel, it's why I'm very reluctantly holding off buying a new core i5 right now. Thing is your purchase should last you years but it is annoying being EOL so quickly on something you just bought.
@zepfloyd I definitely think so. Their 6 core Thuban processor is a great CPU at an affordable price. AMD is appealing because of the reusing of sockets. Intel changes sockets constantly, AMD keeps the same so you can keep your existing hardware and just upgrade the CPU. I'm not an AMD finatic by any means, I've had Intel for the longest time and love their products; however, I just recently purchased an X6 for $125 AR. Performance is unreal. You can't beat the prices.
@zepfloyd
The latest 6 core AMD processors kick Intel's ass in power/$
AMD kicks their asses in GPUs, which will become very important once CPU on GPU becomes mainstream.
Don't be surprised to see Macs switch to a custom AMD Fusion chip in the future.
@fourthletter I want some of whatever you're smoking. You just keep thinking AMD's desktop offrrings are anywhere near Intel's latest - god knows someone needs to buy AMD to keep Intel prices down for the rest of us.
Macs on Intel? Yarite.
@fourthletter I want some of whatever you're smoking. You just keep thinking AMD's desktop offrrings are anywhere near Intel's latest - god knows someone needs to buy AMD to keep Intel prices down for the rest of us.
Macs on Intel? Yarite.
@fourthletter I want some of whatever you're smoking. You just keep thinking AMD's desktop offrrings are anywhere near Intel's latest - god knows someone needs to buy AMD to keep Intel prices down for the rest of us.
Macs on Intel? Yarite.
@Mister Warmth
The new macs ARE on intel. And he said power/$ and not raw power. I think we all realize that intel still has the most powerfull x86_64 CPU's but AMD has better pricing per power CPU.
@zepfloyd Its in intels best interest for them to survive as well, so if things start getting catastrophically bad, I'm sure intel will slow down a little for them.
@Ceyran
in my optinion AMD is only good for GPUs. Which they make the best of. NVIDIA
@johnston9234
opinion
@Muu
I couldn't agree more. I think some people were missing my original point. I'm not saying AMD can't viably survive as a company by any means, I meant survive on an Intel competitor basis...give Intel enough reason to keep innovating. Look at the two companies revenues...how much more can Intel put into R/D vs AMD? (A LOT) It's simple economics. Yes there is some interesting possibilities with CPU/GPU stuff they are working on but that's probably going to help in certain areas, not going to be a game changer for the overall PC market for quite some time.
@Peytral
People are just upranking you for your icon.
-jp
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
@5teFX
That's what she said!
Smart move, catching up on Apple's sales by end of this year!!!
@hksduhksdu
umm, what?!
you know that Apple doesn't make their own CPUs, and that they buy them from intel, right?
or was that another blind troll comment? either way, *downranked*
@hksduhksdu
I dont care about apple's (milkiing-fanboys)profit but as it seems they will put an extra delay because of their recent and relatively late nehalem refresh.
that means an extra delay ontop of the ordinary delay we saw with the nehalem..
if you sum that you can read out that apple might even skip the first sandy-bridge based cpus.
just talking of the macbooks ... iMacs might get updated
@electron
Not too tech-knowledgeable so may be wrong, but with the introduction of the Apple's proprietary ARM-based A4 chip Intel doesn't get any product in the beef of Apple's lineup- iPhones & iPads. You just talking about Macs?
@sundevl21
The point is that Intel wont be going anywhere because of x86. Apple can't just switch onto A4 chips for everything because nothing on the Mac range will run on that architecture.
That and A4 chips really aren't powerful enough for the desktop.
@sundevl21 Proprietary ? You mean the same A4 chip made by Samsung that will feature in Samsung phones ?
Steve Jobs lies about proprietary.
@iHack13
Or, more likely, as is their trend, was to not jump on iX processors until they were certain intel's next offering used the same core components/sockets/chipsets. Apple got burned with Intel shifting around socket requirements already, having to hard redesign every system to get iX into them, they were not likely to do that twice in 2 years. Good move.