Computex, The conclusion #3

source: hardwarezone.com
Everything from Computex





Intel Poised and Ready for the Near Future

By far, Intel probably hogged the most time and space at Computex 2009. Not that there's anything wrong, but were surprised how much they are looking forward to shaping the next generation desktop, mobile and even handheld space with their solutions in this time of economic downturn. However that's exactly the right thing to do when you can afford to do so because once the economy turns around, you would want to be there with your solutions when the uptake comes knocking around the corner. With that said, we'll step you through what you can expect in the near future starting from the performance desktop space.


Intel's New Lynnfield Desktop Processor

Besides just launching two new Core i7 processors, the i7-975 Extreme Edition and the i7-950 for the enthusiast segment on the existing Intel X58 chipset, Intel shared with the media on some of the salient points of the upcoming Lynnfield processors that's set to replace the Core 2 Quad processors in September this year. Lynnfield is also commonly known as the Core i5 processor in the tech circles, but Intel strongly claims that it won't be bearing that name (sad though since it's so befitting the series and chronology).

Lynnfield will be a 45nm quad-core, eight-thread processing CPU (and that means HyperThreading is available on this series too). But instead of the extreme nature of the Core i7 processor built for workstation-like performance, Lynnfield would feature a dual-channel memory controller with not as extreme clock speeds (by contrast, the Core i7 series has a tri-channel memory controller).

However the highlight of the Lynnfield processor is in our opinion of its clever power and performance management via a more advanced power control unit (PCU for short) than on the current Intel Core i7 processor. At the moment, the Core i7 is able to kick up one or two multipliers as part of its Turbo Boost function when the application being run isn't able to take advantage all of the four cores.

Come Lynnfield, you're going to see a far more dynamic architecture where depending on the threaded nature of the application, you'll get more performance out of the processor's multiple cores, or much higher clock speeds on less threaded applications. The limit on how high a frequency it can tune itself up is not yet concretely revealed, but it is generally governed by the processor's TDP spec and the processor will be clever enough to notch itself up or down with regards to power required.

Lynnfield's advanced dynamic architecture with a more advanced PCU ensures good performance even on less threaded applications.

Robert Crooke, General Manager of Business Client Group at Intel who introduced this Lynnfield's capabilities did mention an example where a 2.93GHz Lynnfield processor can go as high as up to 3.6GHz depending on how lightly threaded the application is and within the TDP of the processor. This amount of frequency scaling is definitely many bins more than the Core i7's Turbo Boost function. Plus the fact that there's no fixed scaling function and is instead controlled by Lynnfield's PCU to determine how best to optimize the CPU's resources within the TDP rating ensures good performance throughput across a variety of applications (be it gaming or digital media creation).

Robert Crooke, GM of Business Client Group at Intel was busy educating the media and on why the Lynnfield is a much more intelligent processor with its dynamic performance scaling architecture thanks to the more advanced power control unit.

Not only is Lynnfield able to better optimize its power consumption by shutting down inactive processing cores compared to the Core 2 series, but it is also able to scale up in terms of frequency, limited only by the processor's TDP limit.

Here's a slide from Intel dictating how a Lynnfield processor will perform versus a Core 2 Quad 9650. At least some number to keep in mind for expectations.

The Intel P55 Chipset & Braidwood Memory Technology

To accompany the new Lynnfield processor, Intel will be pairing it with an appropriate cost-effective chipset befitting its class of users. In comes the Intel P55 chipset for which we've already seen a handful of motherboards showcasing this new platform. On a side note, the Lynnfield processor will be using a cheaper LGA 1156 socket versus a 1366-pin socket since it will only feature a dual-channel memory controller instead of a triple-channel controller, thus requiring lesser pin-out.

Here's a sample shot of an Intel P55 motherboard that we had a chance to play with recently at the show. Notice how the entire socket is smaller than the LGA 1366? The socket base and locking mechanism/securing plate are also different and use less material too - all in the bid to optimize cost and pass on the savings to end-users.

Back to the Intel P55 chipset itself, Robert Malinowski, General Manager of Client Components Group at Intel extolled a few key advantages of the new Intel P55 chipset. Firstly, instead of the old tri-chip platform solution on the Intel Core 2 series, the Intel P55 chipset will integrate the I/O functionality all within the same platform controller hub while the memory controller and PCIe controller will be onboard the Lynnfield processor. The PCIe graphics controller supports either one PCIe x16 or dual PCIe x8 configurations.

Robert Malinowski, GM of Client Components Group at Intel came up to explain the finer aspects of the Intel P55 chipset that will accompany the Lynnfield processor.

An overview of how a Core 2 platform architecture will differ from that of a Lynnfield processor platform.

Additionally, the Intel 5-series chipset will feature a new technology to improve the I/O performance. Codenamed as the Braidwood memory technology, this is somewhat a revival of Intel TurboMemory which uses a small flash memory via PCIe interface and is available only on a select few Centrino 2 platforms. Now Braidwood will involve a much larger memory capacities (rumored tot be 8GB, 16GB or more), newer and more efficient caching algorithms and will use the Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI).

While Intel wouldn't admit that this is similar to TurboMemory, they do acknowledge that the concept is similar. If you ask us, it feels just a refresh of the old technology. Of course cost considerations will now come into play and will undermine weather it would be adopted or left out. And more dear to our hearts, would it deliver? We've a feeling it would because it's essentially a smaller form of an SSD unit. Imagine loading the OS from the Braidwood memory in quick time while using your conventional HDD for storage - we can't confirm yet if this is possible, but it could likely be the case as it will be seen as an extra storage drive on the OS level (just like TurboMemory).

Here's an actual shot of the Intel P55 chipset while the bottom plug-in module is the Braidwood memory unit.

Take note though, we've spoken to a handful of motherboard vendors who've confirmed that Braidwood will only make it on the Intel P57 chipset, which is exactly the same as an Intel P55 chipset (even pin-compatible) in all other ways.

P55 Platform Showcase

There were a couple of Lynnfield configured systems that we could trial and this one here is using an ECS P55H-A motherboard and a 2.67GHz Lynnfield processor.

We tried running CineBench just to have a feel on how much of a turbo would it apply on the processor and on which cores. From our mini trial, it seems that Cinebench spreads the load very evenly among the cores and thus processor loading and even turbo applicability was very even all through the test. We'll need more trials on other applications to get a better conclusion of the architecture, but that'll probably have to wait for our review in the future.

More Intel P55 motherboards:-

















Clarkdale:- Next Generation Mainstream Desktop CPU Refresh

Looking further ahead, Intel projected that small form factor systems and all-in-one (AIO) machines will be highly sought after with varying stylish designs to give it the lifestyle integration in today's world. Currently though, there are a number of AIO PCs in the market, most of which were designed and conceptualized late last year or early this year. To maintain their sleek profiles, they often used the same Intel Atom platform that's used in the mini-notebook (netbook) space. Even the new ones that we saw at the event were still using this same platform:-

BenQ's new nScreen i92 AIO PC is looking chic but it's still using the same old Intel Atom platform.

While Lenovo has a larger, sexy and more powerful A600 AIO PC, seen here is another new AIO system but designed more like an ultra large photo frame. Being a lot sleeker as well, it's equipped with an Intel Atom platform.

The ASUS Eee Top 2001 is a large and slim 20-inch AIO system still following on the original Eee Top design - including the Atom platform.

Come end of this year, Intel expects to roll out their first 32nm processor for the mainstream user segment, codenamed Clarkdale. It will also use the LGA-1156 socket, but it will have a dual dies on its package - one for the 32nm dual-core processor, and another 45nm die for the new integrated graphics core along with the memory controller. This was first revealed to us in February. The graphics core won't be anything out of the ordinary and it would just be a more advanced version of the Intel G45 chipset's graphics core. This high integration in addition to the reduced size of an Intel P55 platform might just make it possible that desktop AIOs early next year might have a chance to adopt this new platform and finally possess a much more powerful processing platform - if their TDP points are reasonable enough to do so.

The Clarkdale dual-core, quad-threaded processor.

While not quite squeezable into an AIO machine yet, this is the first demonstration of a working Clarkdale processor on an MSI H57-ED65 motherboard with DDR3-1333 memory.

Montevina Plus - Mainstream Ultrathin Notebooks

As of just a couple of months ago, we began seeing a spike of ultrathin notebooks - both of the expensive/exclusive range like the Dell Adamo and more affordable variants such as the Acer Aspire Timeline series. This is all actually part of the updated Montevina Plus platform that has silently seeped through the retail channels.

Mooly Eden, VP and GM of the Mobile Platforms Group at Intel, was showing off just how thin, light and affordable that the new breed of ultrathin notebooks have become thanks to the Montevina Plus platform update.

The differences between current Centrino 2/Montevina notebooks and the new Plus version of the platform are mostly relegated to the change in mobile processor line-up where there are now far more affordable ultra-low voltage processors as well as much faster notebooks processors (up to 3.06GHz with a T9900) by virtue of the mature process technology. The ability to churn out speedier processors also means that producing existing low voltage versions would go down in price - and thus the reason why the 'new' CULV mobile processors are identical on all aspect to the ULV mobile processors, except for the more affordable pricing of the newer CULV processors. Of course, the other possibility is that these adjust pricing processors are just an answer to AMD's Yukon platform. Here are some really new Intel based ultrathin notebooks that will hit retail anytime now:-

Wipro's ultrathin notebook using the updated Montevina platform.

Here's a pair from ASUS' latest U series, the UX50 on the left and the U20 on the right.

A close-up on the basic system specs of the UX50. The Core 2 Duo U9600 is one we've not encountered yet, but we guess that's going to be a norm in a few months.

Clevo's W840T looks simple and neat but it�s the usability that counts just like the Acer Timeline series.

A close-up on the Clevo's specs.

Here's the Dell Adamo - the silver version.

And here is a Lenovo ultrathin notebook with a wonderfully crafted cover.

Calpella - Next Generation Notebook Performance

Besides the silent Montevina Plus update, Intel also shared with us a tad bit more on the next generation notebook platform called Callpella. Adopting the Nehalem architecture in the form of the Lynnfield and Intel P55 chipset of the upcoming mainstream desktop platform, Calpella will also be two-chip platform solution with a Clarksfield 45nm mobile processor and a platform controller hub (PCH). The Clarksfield processor will have an integrated memory controller as well as a graphics core too but we've no information yet if it's going to be a single or dual die package. What we do know is that Clarksfield would be a quad-core, eight-threaded processor - the first non desktop based solution for the notebook to use quad-core processors.

How Calpella differs from Montevina.

We've been privileged enough to catch a glimpse of a real working Calpella based notebook and this one is from ASUS. Although the platform has integrated graphics, this model comes with some pretty powerful discrete graphics to tackle Crysis and FarCry 2. However we couldn't snuff out any more specs or information regarding the platform.

And to make sure it's really a next generation platform, we were allowed to check the task manager and it did show the system was capable of eight processing threads. This is definitely a Calpella platform! Amazingly, the notebook wasn't extremely chunky and was about the size of a usual 17-inch entertainment notebook.

Pine Trail-M: Next Generation Netbook Platform

Having seen the midrange and high-end notebook segment, we take a look at the opposite end of the scale with mini-notebooks (netbooks). The Intel Atom was introduced last year in Computex, and this year it celebrates its first anniversary.

Happy first anniversary Intel Atom!

At Computex 2009, Intel announced Pine Trail-M which is aimed to replace the current Diamondville Atom platform.

We've disclosed much of the Pine Trail platform details in our previous article . So do check that for the complete details. To summarize, expect this platform to be in retail products by end of 2009 that's aimed for better power efficiency, more performance and tighter integration for more compact products.


Pine Trail-D: Next Generation Nettop Platform

Taking the same Pine Trail-M platform with a more relaxed TDP design, Pine Trail-D is aimed at the nettop market and will have the same hardware design.

Check out the Pineview processor that's part of the Pine Trail platform. It has everything (CPU, memory and graphics controller) but the I/O processing hub.

Here's the Pineview processor in another comparison.

Somewhere along the line between nettops and AIO PC systems, Intel is also in talks with monitor vendors (such as BenQ, Chimei, Viewsonic and others) to design and integrate the few key components to transform the monitor into a full system. We're not sure how this would bode well since most monitor vendors won't have the know-how to support any after-sales requirements. Plus the current crop of AIO systems are already filling this need fairly well. Thus it remains to be seen if this union would take off. Here's a concept product for illustration:-

Integrate the system PCB with embedded CPU and memory, add on a hard drive and few I/O ports for interaction and presto! The monitor is a full fledged system - sort of.

Moorestown and Moblin

Moorestown is much closer than you think, as we found out during Intel's Ultra Mobility event. Keynote speaker, Anand Chandrasekher, Senior Vice President and GM of the Ultra Mobility Group, demoed to the audience on the latest prototype Mobile Internet Devices (MID) from the various manufacturers.

Keynote speaker, Anand Chandrasekher, Intel Senior Vice President and GM of the Ultra Mobility group, speaking to the audience on the latest update of Moorestown and also showing off the latest prototype devices that are using the Moorestown platform.

Due to launch by 2010, the Moorestown platform will bring about better power saving features while also being much smaller in size. Thanks to Moorestown, the devices were quite capable of running HD clips with no problems though we question the point of watching HDs on small screens. Intel however, has indicated that these devices will easily be able to stream these HD clips to any connected device in a home network, so it does make some sense somewhat.

This prototype MID from WindRiver runs on the Moorestown platform and looked fully functional. If you're wondering what's the pretty OS it's using, it's Moblin v2.0. Impressive no?

Another working MID is this EB Reference MID that uses Moorestown. This MID features a 3.97-inch display, WiFi and 3G connectivity.

Moorestown will also see the launch of MIDs that come equipped with Moblin v2.0, an OS based on Linux that's designed for the Intel Atom platform. Also, we had a sneak peak of the 32nm Medfield platform, which is the third generation of the Atom and will only be available in 2011. By sneak peak we mean Intel showed us how much smaller it would be compared to Moorestown (which makes us somewhat sad pandas).

Anyway, here are two videos of the keynote, one with a special surprise and another a comparison of the power savings of the Moorestown platform compared to the current Menlow.

Download video!

Download video!

A WiMAX Showcase

WiMAX is vital technology in sparsely populated regions where the much longer range of a WiMAX base is more cost efficient in infrastructure deployment than WiFi. WiMAX can also transmit a lot more data at a lot faster rate, for which Sean Maloney, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Intel, was happy to showcase the bandwidth potential of WiMAX with a live video conference call from Taipei to Canada:-

Smooth is what we would describe this live video conference call initiated by Sean Maloney, EVP of Sales and Marketing at Intel, to showcase the bandwidth potential through long distance.

Intel had a booth had the exhibition halls to showcase some of the WiMAX enabled notebooks (using an Intel WiMAX/WiFi Link 5350/5150 module). Also, surrounding them were WiMAX vendor specialists who had supporting equipment, modules and more. Here's a picture spread:-

Intel's WiMAX-centric solutions booth.

A trio of mini-notebooks ready for WiMAX - YuKyung S7, Gigabyte T1028 and the BenQ U101.

MSI U120 mini-notebook and the MSI X340 ultrathin notebook.

Acer Aspire 4810T and the Aspire One 531.

The ASUS U80 on the left and the UX50 on the right.

dmedia claims that it has the world's first WiMAX enabled MID device, nicknamed the M0. It has a 4.3-inch touch screen (800x480), uses a Samsung processor which is supported by a Windows CE 6.0 OS, has a 5MP camera and can operate off a tri-band WiMAX frequency range.

This the dmedia D1, a WiMAX TV dongle.

AMD First to Ship 40nm DirectX 11 Silicon

In this year's Computex, AMD had new announcements to make in the graphics, desktop and server space. They started their conference session with a highly orchestrated display of aerobatics.

Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President of AMD (on the left), happily accepting the first 40nm DirectX 11 silicon wafer from TSMC's Dr. John Wei, Senior Director of Advanced Marketing Division.

The major improvement/feature of DirectX 11. In actual fact, most are efficiency advances and not ground breaking - other than the DirectX Compute shaders which will finally give all software developers a common API to program for and finally unleash the GPU's massively parallel processing nature to run more general purpose application via the GPU. Functions first to be exploited are graphics and video post-processing and A.I.

The first ever DirectX 11 demo showcased anywhere publicly. AMD says that major software vendors are working to bring DirectX 11 compliant games to the market as they have the first working silicon of the hardware

AMD's split-screen presentation of how a scene would appear with and without tessellation - a required feature support on DirectX 11 and already supported on current Radeon HD 4000 series.

Microsoft's Steve Guggenheimer (Corporate VP of OEM Division), was also present to give a quick speech and demo of how in Windows 7 the CPU and GPU are used in tandem to drive performance and efficiency its to accelerate certain tasks natively - such as transcoding videos to certain media devices without user intervention and at a much speedier pace than when done with just the CPU.

Notebook and Desktop Updates

We've talked about AMD's Yukon before but not too much of Congo since it wasn't official yet. However this new slide from AMD now makes it official and where it is positioned. However it will be at least another quarter before a thin and light Congo based notebook appears in the market.

More details of their low-power platform strategy but details are still sketchy.

This sexy Gateway notebook is part of the thin and light notebook segment and is powered by an AMD Athlon processor. No other details are revealed yet.

This is BenQ's Joybook Lite T131 and it uses an AMD Sempron processor.

Over on the desktop side of things, AMD is sprucing up its value parts and it now has a new Athlon II X2 250 processor. Based on the 45nm process, this has a high 3GHz clock speed but no L3 cache. Other details and pricing are as indicated. AMD also release another dual-core processor, the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition which clocks in at 3.1GHz and has 7MB of cache in total.

Server Updates

Pat Patla, VP and GM of Server and Workstation Business at AMD walked us through the updates on AMD's server business - most notably on Istanbul (AMD's six-core 45nm server processor).

Key features of the Istanbul Opteron processor. There's not a whole lot to say about it since architecturally, it is still using the same 45nm design of the Shanghai core, but now has six instead of four cores.

One major feature added to the Istanbul is HT Assist, which serves to reduce HT bus traffic in 4-way server systems or higher where probe traffic and broadcasting consumes quite a bit of HT traffic to resolve which CPU has the required data or needs the requested data. HT Assist reserves 1MB of each CPU's L3 cache to act as a directory recording down where that CPU's cache lines are used throughout the system. The reduction is HT traffic reduces memory latencies and improves overall memory throughput since snooping greatly reduced.

AMD claims that for a given TDP rating, the new Istanbul processor is 60% more efficient in performance-per-watt over its predecessor.

The performance and pricing structure of AMD's Shanghai and Istanbul processors applicable from now.

Last but not least, Global Foundaries gave us a quick overview of when their process technologies and production schedules will take place. It looks like they've got their roadmaps all planned out till at least 2011 - which is when the 28nm parts will go in to production.

This is a Supermicro 2021M-UR dual-socket six-core ready Opteron server.

And here's a 2U HP DL 385 with dual quad-core AMD Opteron 2300 processors.

This is the Dell PowerEdge M605 dual-socket quad-core AMD Opteron server. Extremely compact indeed.

A closer look revealed the use of smaller enterprise class 2.5-inch hard drives which contributed to space savings in addition to the narrow system architecture design.