Intel Atom Z600

[Ailuros]

I know that video captures aren't particularly telling but for Intel's Moorestown there's this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mo5fg_hePs&feature=related

and IMG's own showcase of the demo in question:

http://www.imgtec.com/demo_room/vie...OWERVR Graphics&DemoDev=Imagination&#ViewPort

and there's of course a showcase of Kwaak3 on a Moorestown smartphone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzWGQaPEF9Y

I doubt the smartphone in question has its GPU clocked as high as 400MHz, since that sounds more like tablet/netbook material.

 

[Lazy8s]

Another video there shows off some displays of the multimedia performance of Moorestown such as multi-point HD streaming plus playback of Avatar in HD, a video teaser for World of Warcraft, and some other backgrounds to IMG's shader view demo like an outer space scene and a rooftop cityscape scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAB-Cqe0yz8

 

[Exophase]

Hm, okay, so non-useless drivers exist for at least something that isn't Windows. Hopefully we're not talking Android only or something, and hopefully this can propagate back to GMA500 netbooks running Linux.

 

[Ailuros]

Another video there shows off some displays of the multimedia performance of Moorestown such as multi-point HD streaming plus playback of Avatar in HD, a video teaser for World of Warcraft, and some other backgrounds to IMG's shader view demo like an outer space scene and a rooftop cityscape scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAB-Cqe0yz8

I don't know what the smart-phone frequency could be, but I'd dare to speculate not below 300MHz since that Q3 demo seems a lot faster then what I could see on a Hummingbird. As for the shader views demo here it is in their demo room:

http://www.imgtec.com/demo_room/vie...OWERVR Graphics&DemoDev=Imagination&#ViewPort

The ShaderViews demonstration illustrates the image processing capabilities of the programmable shaders available on POWERVR SGX enabled platforms. It includes a variety of different post-processing effects applied to floating windows and frames zooming across the background. A variety of backgrounds are shown, including still photos, 3D scenes rendered-to-texture (Urban, Asia and Space scenes), and dynamically tessellated terrain.

More than 25 different post-processing effects are illustrated include edge detection, procedural deformations & distortion effects (punch, swirl, mirror, twirl, etc.), color matrix operations, blurring, frosted glass, greyscale and sepia filters. This demonstration includes a rolling demo with scrollable windows and a touch menu to select scenes and effects.

Post-processing is obviously one of their strengths

 

[DavidC]

I doubt the smartphone in question has its GPU clocked as high as 400MHz, since that sounds more like tablet/netbook material.

Correct. On earlier demos Intel has done, they say the "faster" version got 100 fps while the "regular" version got ~60 fps. I'm guessing the "regular" version is "smartphone" while the "faster" version is "tablet".

Clock speed of the graphics in Tunnel Creek is 333MHz. I doubt even the Tablet Moorestown parts are clocked faster than that.

 

[tangey]

Full datasheet is up for the TunnelCreek (now E600) series embedded processors.
http://download.intel.com/embedded/processor/datasheet/324208.pdf

In terms of graphics/video the highlights are:-
skus run the graphics @320Mhz or @400Mhz
fill rate:- 2 pixels per clock
vertex rate, 1 triangle per 15 clocks
x4 MSAA

video encode
720P30 H.264 MP encode
From the table the max bit rate the encoder acheives is 16M.

Video decode
1080p H.264 MP&HP decode

display output supports 1080p

 

[Lazy8s]

The SGX535 still gets 320 even with the 600 MHz Atom. Nice.

Also, the E600 doc reveals a 267 MHz clock for the VXD.

 

[Ailuros]

Also, the E600 doc reveals a 267 MHz clock for the VXD.

Uhmm if you look into the VXD whitepaper you'll see in which cases it ranges from 50 to 266MHz; the peak frequency of the VXD was never really a secret, it just rarely runs actually as high.

 

[tangey]

Some of the Intel tech sessions from yesterdays IDF confirmed that Groveland (CE4200) is still using SGX535, so intel has now reused that core (at various clock speeds and process sizes), in CE3100,Z500,Z600,E600,CE4100,CE4200 and oaktrail.

I've never seen any proof thus far that Sodaville uses IMG I/P for video decode or encode. Interestingly, in pdf's from IMG relating to their results, it mentions that in the demo rooms there is Moorestown with SGX,VXD and VXE, and also sodaville demoing SGX (no mention of VXD or VXE).

http://www.imgtec.com/corporate/presentations/prelims10/IMG-Prelim-2010-Jun10.pdf
(see page 54).

I mentioned the above earlier, but it may have got lost.

Anyhow, the reason from bringing it up again is that two features that Intel highlighted as being in groveland (CE4200) are 1) HP H.264 1080p video encode and 2) S3D support.

Interesting, because in the same IMG presentation above, they state on page 43 that S3dD is "already supported in chips shipping with SGX and VXD".

And towards the end of last year, IMG announced VXE380 which now includes:-
"H.264 High Profile (HP), at HD resolutions."

http://www.imgtec.com/corporate/newsdetail.asp?NewsID=493

So I wonder does Sodaville currently have any IMG video I/P, and whether Groveland will have the new VXE380 ?

 

[tangey]

Moorstown is late, there is no doubt about it. It was talked about at the start of 2009 and formally announced in May of this year, but a look on the Intel website will show that other than the initial press releases ou'll find absolutly NOTHING about it, no technical data at all. This is in contrast to tunnel creek (now E6xx) series that was announced many months after it, there's loads of tech stuff on there. Additionally intel repeatedly said that moorestown would ship in products end of this year, but other than a few prototypes, it hasn't showed up.

why ?

well, two reasons I'd say. 1st I assume they got a luke-warm reaction from handset people. 2nd, the importance of having a windows compatible version has quickly become apparent, and they see more sales in that direction, than in trying to get 3rd tier handset providers to take moorestown. Hence oaktrail overnight took precedence, moorestown is now being talked about again more for MID/UMPC type devices, and for handsets the emphasis seems to be on Medfield, which they are now saying will appear 2nd half of 2011.

but what graphics will medfield have ?

Intel has indicated that it'll be x2 moorestown, which is x2 menlow. We know the x2 in moorestown is being acheived by going from 200Mhz to 400Mhz.

clearly the next x2 isn't going to be from running it at 800Mhz.

So SGX545 or a multi-core ?

My bet is 545. why ?, well timing is key here. 543mp has been out for a while, but it doesn't have any DX compliance. 544mp, although having DX9 compliance, has not been long announced. Yes it could have been available to Intel long before announcement, but if the next core we see being used by Intel is 544mp, then you'd have to assume that 545 has missed its Intel chance. Additionally IMG have already said in January of this year that 545 was available in test silicon.

But why does Intel need DX compliance in Medfield. Probably they don't. However what Intel has done up to now is take 1 SGX graphics core and use it in no less than 6 chips, menlow,canmore,sodaville,groveland,oaktrail & Tunnel Creek. It is in line with their recent ethos of reusing building blocks as much as possible to amortise costs and reduce developement time. So if they follow to form, they will step up to 545 and use that across another range of products, which implies ones that might be required to run windows OS (and hence need the DX9/10.1 support that 545 provides and 543mp does not).

If by some chance we *don't* see 545 shortly from Intel (i.e. in whatever is announced as a next gen to any of the above, and I think medfield is the 1st one up), then I might have to consider that it is Apple and not Intel that is taking 545 as a step up from their 535.

 

[DavidC]

There's a lot of delay on the software part(both Android and MeeGo) so we can't conclude its the hardware alone.

First Moorestown-based phone: http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archive...e_in_russia_runs_on_intel_atom_processor.html

It does look like its a Aava device rebranded, but it confirms there will be some handsets based on Moorestown. Now the release date is set as early 2011. I'm assuming due to multiple factors(customer reaction/delays in software and hardware/technical) they might stick most into Tablets and go full out handset with Medfield.

Power-wise Moorestown is a significant improvement over any previous Atom platform.

I don't know what the smart-phone frequency could be, but I'd dare to speculate not below 300MHz since that Q3 demo seems a lot faster then what I could see on a Hummingbird. As for the shader views demo here it is in their demo room:

About this, Tomshardware mentioned that Lincroft's communication between GPU and internal blocks were way better than anything done in this space previously. It might not be just clocks that determine performance.

 

[Lazy8s]

I had already run myself in circles trying to figure out when and with whom all these DirectX focused SGX cores belong.

Intel got good use out of the 535, but they now potentially have a lot of other SGX cores to deploy into a range of markets within a short time considering they're likely an early licensee of "Rogue".

 

[roninja]

TWatcher, sorry Tangey - you forgot Moorestown...so make that 7 SGX 535 families....
I think 545 is logical for Intel as sole licencee for it? Would expect some use of XT at some point in near future given it's 2011-4 lifespan before we see Rogue in 2013 I would guess inside a shipping SoC....

 

[Exophase]

Afaik Oaktrail and Moorestown are the same primary chip with CPU + GPU + memory controller (Lincroft), it's the supplementary input/platform controller hub chip that's different. Langwell in the case of Moorestown, Whitney Point in Oaktrail.

So counting both Oaktrail and Moorestown is redundant, better to just cite Lincroft. I haven't actually heard of Canmore, can I get a reference on that?

This is a useful thread for existing Atom cores:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2090553

 

[tangey]

Actually I did leave out Moorestown by accident. I think its a distinct Soc from either Oak Trail or Tunnel Creek, both of which have a PCI express bus (which moorestown definitely doesn't have)

Canmore was Intel's first Soc targetting CE, it was however not Atom, but a Xscale based processor. Its formal name was the CE2110.

http://www.intel.com/design/celect/2110/ce2110_brief.pdf?wapkw=(CE2110)

However I made a mistake calling it as SGX, it was in fact MBXlite.

 

[Exophase]

It is as I described it. PCI express and other secondary interlinks (and audio) are supplied by a support "hub" chip. In that sense you could say that it's not a complete SoC style chip like Sodaville and its successors, and like many other non-x86 SoCs.

Tunnel Creek, unlike the Lincroft on Oaktrail, does actually have PCI Express as part of the CPU, and is in fact its main interconnect (as opposed to an FSB interface). You could argue that it's closer to a real SoC, although it'll probably still usually be paired with a Topcliff hub (except in Stellarton) in order to have interfaces like USB, SD, SATA, etc.

While I'm on the topic, I actually think Sodaville is a disappointing showing for being the only real Atom SoC currently available. The CPU core is only 1.2GHz, and moreover, they've disabled hyperthreading which is Atom's ace in the hole and really the only thing making it remotely competitive with out of order CPUs. I haven't looked at the successors so I don't know what they're fixing, but it's obvious that Sodaville is selling strictly as a set-top chip and has that market firmly grasped because of its strong video decode capabilities. I could see something like Ontario taking over here, since its on-chip decode can probably handle most tasks and its GPU compute capabilities could pick up the slack where necessary.

 

[roninja]

Wasn't Canmore the CE3100 fast loosing track with all these soc names and code names

 

[Exophase]

Yeah apparently. I hadn't even heard of the CE line until Sodaville. I imagine it's the same for a lot of others >_>

 

[Lazy8s]

I've always found them the most interesting of Intel's line because of the consumer electronics focus (which gets them into the platforms of companies like Toshiba and Sony and brings them into competition with a whole other set of technologies) and because of their harder push for integration.

I consider the 2700G co-processor as the forerunner to the line.

CE2100 was the Xscale integrated platform.

CE3100 aka Canmore was the first with x86.

And CE4100 aka Sodaville was the first with Atom.

One of these days they should be really competitive little SoCs.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I'm digging this thread just to put make a little question:


"We" still have no idea on what GPU will be in Medfield, right?

Are there any press releases hinting it will be a SGX chip?
Is there even any confirmation that Medfield will be in the Z6xx family? Given it's using a new process node, wouldn't it make sense to name it Z7xx?