Intel shows 4-display concept notebook

For the really productive users it is often a bit of a limitation to work on a notebook as you only have one display. We have seen how extreme workstations can solve this, but Intel has now tested a new concept where it has completed the main display with three small that can be used for navigation or just regular use. At IDF they showed a notebook concept where you could pull documents from the small screens up to the main screen and play video sequences on the smaller screen independently of the main screen.

Whether Intel has any actual plans for this concept is uncertain, but we wouldn't count on any retail versions within the next two years. The power consumption is just one of several important things that needs to be solved before a possible launch.

Still, a very interesting way of using the extra space available with bigger notebooks.

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Intel Core i7-860 overclocked to 5.39GHz

ntel's new Lynnfield CPU may be a stripped down version of Bloomfield and Intel's Core i7-9xx CPUs. There is still plenty of performance with the new platform though. When the first rumors of Nehalem mid-range platform appeared they questioned the overclocking potential, which we denied over and over back then, and now we have it on paper, clearer than ever. We showed in our review that you can overclock Intel's Lynnfield processors pretty easily and now Coolaler has taken things up a notch.

Together with MSI P55-GD80, Coolaler overclocked Intel's fastest Lynnfield CPU from 2.80GHz to 5.39GHz with a bus speed of 245MHz and 22x multiplier.

The cooling was liquid nitrogen and the processor was fed with 1.67V. To achieve this new record high clock frequency the motherboard had to settle for a single DDR3 memory module.

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Intel Launches New Motherboards to Fuel Growth of Nettops and Small Form Factor Computing

INTEL SOLUTIONS SUMMIT, Gold Coast, April 29, 2009 – At Intel’s largest annual channel customer event today, the company launched two new motherboards designed to fuel the growth of nettops and small form factor computing. The Intel® Desktop Board D945GSEJT with the Intel® Atom™ Processor is designed for building into stylish and affordable nettops that push the traditional imagination of what an all-in-one or an enhanced thin client should be. Another new small form factor motherboard, the Intel® Desktop Board DG41MJ supporting low power (65W) Intel® Core™2 Quad processors and Intel® Core™2 Duo processors, offers users a space saving desktop solution that meets their everyday multimedia needs.

Intel® Desktop Board D945GSEJT comes fully integrated with the 45nm Intel® Atom™ Processor N270 and the Mobile Intel® 945GSE Express Chipset making this affordable, thin form factor, low-power nettop platform ideal for building into all-in-one PCs or enhanced thin client PCs. For all-in-one PCs, this versatile motherboard can be customised into entry-level or secondary home entertainment PCs, education PCs, or internet-centric PCs for businesses. For commercial usage models, this motherboard can be customised into industrial designs such as such as internet kiosks and home surveillance units.

“Proliferation of small form factor desktops can spur significant growth in the overall desktop PC category. Key to tapping this growth of small form factor desktops is smaller motherboards, which enable greater design flexibility and new opportunities for desktop innovation,” said John Deatherage, director for Intel’s Business Clients Group. “Intel® Desktop Board D945GSEJT and Intel® Desktop Board DG41MJ will allow us to offer our customers access to truly innovative solutions that lower system size and power consumption, while boosting aesthetics and performance.”

Featuring the integrated 45nm Intel® Atom™ processor N270 the Intel® Desktop Board D945GSEJT delivers robust performance per-watt for cost-effective and low-power solutions. The Mobile Intel® 945GSE Express Chipset features power-efficient graphics with an integrated 32-bit 3D graphics engine based on Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 architecture. The combined platform delivers impressive power-optimisation and rich I/O capabilities, such as PCI Express* Mini Card and conventional PCI slots, Serial ATA ports, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 and GbE LAN connectivity, Intel® High Definition Audio and legacy I/O expandability.

The Intel Desktop Board D945GSEJT promotes channel diversification into innovative solutions based on its mini-ITX (170mm x 170mm) form factor, total board height of only 20mm and passively cooled components for very thin and potentially fanless system designs. It features VGA and DVI dual graphics for LVDS options. The Intel Desktop Board D945GSEJT also supports low-cost external 12 V power, onboard power for SATA storage devices, internal USB and IDE flash disk-on modules, network boot via gPXE/iSCSI protocol and wireless connectivity via the PCI Express Mini Card slot (including mechanical support for up to three external antennas through the supplied I/O shield). The Intel Desktop Board D945GSEJT will be available towards the end of first half this year.

For a space-saving solution ideal for digital home entertainment and daily computing needs, Intel launched the Intel® Desktop Board DG41MJ Classic Series. Based on the Intel® G41 Express Chipset, the board may be small but it offers legacy to premium features such as parallel port, integrated VGA and DVI ports, Intel® High Definition Audio and integrated 10/100/1000 network connection to enrich users’ multimedia creation experience. For fast and efficient computing performance, this mini-ITX form factor board supports Intel® Core™2 Quad processors and Intel® Core™2 Duo processors up to 65W Thermal Design Power (TDP) and 1333 System Bus. The Intel® Desktop Board DG41MJ is Microsoft Windows Vista* Premium WHQL certified. The Intel Desktop Board DG41MJ is available now for PC manufacturers and system builders to order from Intel authorised distributors.

Intel, the world leader in silicon innovation, develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom and blogs.intel.com.

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ntel Launches New Motherboards to Fuel Growth of Nettops and Small Form Factor Computing

Intel is in close to total dominance of the netbook and nettop markets. Even if both processor, Atom, and chipset found in most small systems are built by Intel, it still wants more. Intel has now announced two motherboards for nettops and SFFs. Intel's D945GSEJT mini-ITX motherboard is intended for nettops and comes with an integrated Atom N270 processor. Intel's DG41MJ model use the same formfactor, but supports Core 2 Duo/Quad processors within the 65W envelope.

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Intel launches new chip logos, rating system

Intel has revamped its processor badging and rating system. Consumers are the main target, though business systems will get new badging too.

The new badges include a die (the chip minus the packaging) accent in the upper right hand corner, a prominent main brand (e.g., "Core"), and the modifier (e.g., "i7").

Intel has also instituted a star system that rates chips from five stars (best performance in class) to one star (lowest performance). "So when a consumer goes into a Best Buy store they can distinguish between Centrino, Core, Celeron, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad," said Intel spokesman Bill Calder.

That may be a little easier said than done, however. Some consumers (but not including "tech savvy" Giampaolo, of course) will still need help from the sales person to decipher the badging. A daunting challenge in the case of consumer laptops, which are typically plastered with a hodgepodge of stickers from Intel, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, AMD's ATI graphics chip unit, and other companies.

Intel is in the process of moving to a "pretty aggressive brand simplification plan," Calder said. "When we launched Core i7, we said we're moving to a single primary client brand, which is Core. We're moving in that direction," he said.

The Atom processor will not get a modifier. In the future, the Nehalem server processor, currently branded only as "Xeon" with a letter and number suffix, may also get new branding to make it more readily identifiable as part of the Nehalem architecture like its desktop sibling the Core i7, Calder said.

New Intel processor badges with "die" accent

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Intel launches new single, dual, and quad-core processors

Intel is commemorating Labor Day this year with a trio of new processors aimed at different market segments. In the mainstream quad-core market, we have the new 45nm Core 2 Quad 8200, at 2.33GHz, 4MB L2 cache, and a 1333MHz FSB. Intel lists the chip at $224 in 1K quantities; Newegg has it up for sale for $229.99.

The new chip's lower price tag, however, comes at the cost of several features that are otherwise standard on Core 2 Quad processors. Older Kentsfield (65nm) and most Yorkfield (45nm) processors support Intel's Virtualization Technology, but the new Q8200 does not. Just for the record, the chip is still capable of running virtualization programs, but it lacks the hardware support for that capability that Intel has baked into its processors. According to Tech Report, LaGrande support, also known as Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TET), is also missing.

The new chip also packs a relatively anemic 4MB of L2 cache. That's just half the L2 that Kentsfield processors offer, and 2MB less than the 6MB aboard the Yorkfield Q9300 (which also offers hardware virtualization support). The Q8200's $229 price tag puts it smack between the 2.4GHz Q6600 (now just $189.99), and the 2.5GHz Yorkdale ($259.99). Typically, a bridge product between Q6600 and Q9300 would make a great deal of sense, but in this case, I'm not sure the Q8200 is a great choice over either of the other two parts.

If you want quad-core on a budget, the Q6600 is $40 (18 percent) cheaper, packs twice the L2, consumes a relatively modest amount of power, and offers hardware virtualization support. Intel's Yorkfield is faster than Kentsfield clock-per-clock, but these advantages (and the $40 price difference) should definitely soften the blow, if not negate it. If, on the other hand, you want Intel's 45nm technology, the Q9300 is just $30 more. Q9300 uses the same 1333MHz bus as the Q8200, bumps the clockspeed up by 7 percent, offers 50 percent more L2 cache, and supports both hardware virtualization and TET.

Here's how AMD's offerings compare, for those of you who might be curious. The AMD Phenom 9950 Black Edition (2.6GHz, 512K L2, 2MB L3) is just $179.99, and competes well against the Q6600 at $189.99. The 9950 should also compete well against the Q8200, particularly if you bump the chip's speed to 2.8GHz via multiplier adjustment (all three processors can be overclocked, but only the BE Phenom supports doing so via multiplier). The only thing that stops AMD's 9950 from being a very capable competitor in this segment is heat. The Phenom 9950 carries a TDP of 140W, and while AMD's listed TDPs have historically been much higher than actual power consumption, the high-end Phenoms are a bit of an exception to that rule.

Core 2 Duo, Celeron

Intel's new dual-core is the E5200 (2.5GHz, 2MB L2, 800MHz FSB) at $84, while the new single-core Celeron 450 is a 65nm, 2.2GHz chip, with 512K of L2 cache and an 800MHz FSB. Price on this chip is $53. The new E5200 slides in well below the next-cheapest Core 2 Duo (Allendale 2.4GHz, 2MB L2, 800MHz FSB), and is a no-brainer replacement for that chip, provided you want to stay Intel. The Celly 450 is what it is—a single-core chip for $53.

Here's how the two break down compared to what's on the market from AMD. The Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Black Edition is a 2.8GHz 65nm chip with an unlocked multiplier at $77 and a 65W TDP, while a 3GHz (90nm) Athlon 64 X2 is available for $92.99. We've seen evidence of a 3GHz Athlon 64 X2 on 65nm technology, but it's currently not up at NewEgg. If you intend to build on integrated, AMD is definitely your best choice, since the company's 780G outperforms anything available on the Intel side, but the E5200 is probably the faster of the two processors at stock speeds.

As for the Celeron 450, it's generally competitive with the retail Sempron's AMD currently has positioned around the $50 mark. If you're willing to buy an OEM processor, both the BE-2400 (2.3GHz, 45W TDP, 65nm) and the 4400+ (2.3GHz, 65W, 65nm) are available for $49.99, and would definitely be preferable to any single-core Celeron. AMD's cheapest dual-core is the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ for $66, but that's still a significant step upwards if you're on a $49 CPU sort-of budget.

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The P55's new system architecture

Below is a diagram of a standard Core 2 Duo system, and it represents the general layout of an Intel system up until Nehalem or an AMD system up until the Opteron.

A typical pre-Nehalem Intel system.

In the diagram above, the core logic chipset consists of two primary chips:

• Memory controller hub (MCH): The memory controller hub, also called a "northbridge," links the CPU and GPU with main memory.
• I/O controller hub (ICH): The I/O controller hub, also called the "southbridge," links the MCH to peripherals and mass storage. The ICH typically hosts the USB and other expansion ports, mass storage interfaces, network interfaces, and the like.

As the GPU gained in size and importance, the standard PC system essentially took on a kind of hacked-together non-uniform memory architecture (NUMA) topology, with two main pools of DRAM (main memory and graphics memory) attached to the two main processors (the CPU and the GPU). As the amount of graphics memory increased to the point where the GPU became a second system on a daughtercard, this topology began to get more and more unbalanced and inefficient in its use of memory and bandwidth.

In 2003, AMD made the obvious improvement by moving the memory controller hub up to the CPU socket, so that main memory could attach directly to the CPU the way that GDDR had been directly attached to the GPU for some time. You can see the results below, and, give or take an I/O bridge chip or so, this is basically how AMD single-socket systems have looked since the memory controller went on-die.

A typical AMD single-socket system

You can see from the diagram that, with the memory controller moved onto the processor die, the northbridge has become a kind of "graphics hub"—it hosts the discrete GPU via some PCIe graphics lanes, and it typically has an integrated graphics processor (IGP) along with the requisite display ports. The ICH is still there, doing pretty much the same job it always did.

Today's P55 launch jumps from the first diagram above to the diagram below in a single move.

Intel's P55 platform

Intel's P55 can be seen as an evolution of the AMD topology shown previously, with the graphics hub and memory hub functionality all moved right onto the processor die. Because the northbridge is completely gone, the southbridge/ICH has been rechristened the "platform controller hub," and it's now the only chip in the core logic "chipset" (aside from the BIOS, which is also typically included in the chipset count).

The PCH is connected to the processor socket by the relatively low-bandwidth (2GB/s) DMI bus that used to connect the MCH to the ICH. Disk I/O, network traffic, and other types of I/O will have to share this link. This shouldn't be a problem for single-socket systems, though.

So with the advent of the P55, Intel's core logic has gone from a two-chip to a one-chip implementation, pushing ahead of the comparable AMD platform. In theory, this very tight, direct coupling of the GPU + GDDR and CPU + DRAM systems should make for a performance boost vs. both earlier topologies.

It's "in theory," because Tech Report's corei5/i7benches show some surprising results that indicate that all isn't right with the new platform under Windows 7, and that (contrary to the stated conclusion) gamers are better off with the older Core 2 Duo systems.

Take a look at the last benchmark on this page, which shows that the minute you boost the image quality settings to begin stressing the GPU instead of the CPU, Nehalem loses its advantage and actually underperforms the older systems. This effect holds in both the i5 and the i7, so it can't be an issue with SMT. Something is screwy with Windows 7, the drivers, or something on Intel's end, but our money is on Windows 7. This is actually the most interesting benchmark result I've seen today, and I'm hoping that Scott and others will follow up on it and different combinations of OSes and games to isolate the issue.

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Intel launches all-new PC architecture with Core i5/i7 CPUs

Intel brought its mainstream desktop CPU lineup into the Nehalem era today with the launch of the Core i7 860 and 870, and the Core i5 750. Also launched today is the P55 chipset, which implements a new system architecture that represents a significant break with Intel's past. In this short article, we'll take a brief look at each, in turn.

In previous articles we've covered Nehalem's microarchitectural improvements to the Core 2 Duo lineage, so we won't recap that here. What is worth repeating, though, is that Nehalem is Intel's first x86 design to feature an on-die memory controller. This significantly changes the system topology, but in a direction that AMD already went way back in 2003.

Processor Number	Base Clock Speed (GHz)	Max Turbo Frequency (GHz)	Cores/Threads	Cache	1K Unit Price	SMT	TDP
Core i7-870	2.93	3.6	4/8	8MB	$562	Y	95W
Core i7-860	2.80	3.46	4/8	8MB	$284	Y	95W
Core i5-750	2.66	3.2	4/4	8MB	$196	N	95W

The Core i5/i7 parts that were launched today are quad-core, with the i7 having two-way SMT for a total of eight threads per socket. The table above gives a general breakdown of the relevant features of the three new parts.

An annotated floor plan of Lynnfield. Source: Intel

The floor plan above shows the main blocks in Nehalem, and if you've followed previous Nehalem launches (most notably Bloomfield) then you may be able to spot what's missing: there is no QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) interface. Instead, in a significant twist that differentiates Intel's new PC system architecture from even AMD's offerings, there is now a PCIe interface that enables the GPU to attach directly to the processor socket. This latter move was made in anticipation of two things: 1) the GPU will migrate right into the processor socket at a later point when Intel releases a CPU with an on-die GPU integrated into it, and 2) for a discrete GPU, Intel hopes you'll use Larrabee.

To understand what all of this means, let's look at a few diagrams.

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