Intel Atom Z600
- Thread starter liolio
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you remember when Microsoft showed of windows 8 on arm only those soc that had DX9.0/L3 support were used like omap5
Blazkowicz
Legend
requiring pixel shaders 2.0 was a bold enough measure for what is basically a 2D interface.
more shockingly, if it is to run on Cortex A15 or more current SoCs, then Windows 8 won't be a 64bit-only operating system
now, will Windows 8 on the PC will be available as 32bit x86, or 64bit only?
if the latter then Intel should stop with their crappy habit of disabling 64bit on the Atom.
more shockingly, if it is to run on Cortex A15 or more current SoCs, then Windows 8 won't be a 64bit-only operating system
now, will Windows 8 on the PC will be available as 32bit x86, or 64bit only?
if the latter then Intel should stop with their crappy habit of disabling 64bit on the Atom.
OMAP 5? Afaik that isnt even sampling yet! (Scheduled for H2 2011)
Netbooks could theoretically also get served with notebook SoCs. As for smart-phones and tablets specifically DX9.0/L3 (or as Vivante calls it DX11 certified DX9.0) sounds sufficient which is present in SGX544 and the likes.
yes that is true it not sampling yet
but it is was one of soc that were used during the Microsoft presentation
TI most likely send a few copy’s of OMAP5 to Microsoft to be include in the presentation
Any link sustaining that claim? I highly suspect this is completely wrong.
D
Deleted member 13524
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http://vr-zone.com/articles/exclusive-intel-s-cedarview-atom-to-sport-powervr-graphics/12117.html
It looks like Atom Cedarview for netbooks and nettops will ditch Intel's graphics for the PowerVR SGX545.
Netbooks will clock the GPU @ 400MHz while nettops will have it a bit higher at 640MHz.
Given that Intel ditched its own GPU architecture for higher-powered Atoms, it seems a clear indication to me that Medfield will also have a PowerVR SGX545.
Nonetheless, this leaves the next-gen Atoms with dirt-low 3D performance compared to low-power Fusions like C-30 and C-50 for netbooks, even if they do bump the CPU performance somehow.
It looks like Atom Cedarview for netbooks and nettops will ditch Intel's graphics for the PowerVR SGX545.
Netbooks will clock the GPU @ 400MHz while nettops will have it a bit higher at 640MHz.
Given that Intel ditched its own GPU architecture for higher-powered Atoms, it seems a clear indication to me that Medfield will also have a PowerVR SGX545.
Nonetheless, this leaves the next-gen Atoms with dirt-low 3D performance compared to low-power Fusions like C-30 and C-50 for netbooks, even if they do bump the CPU performance somehow.
Blazkowicz
Legend
I didn't know some of the current atoms had Intel graphics, so it's a lottery based on an unreadeable model name (who knows what's the difference between a D and an N?).
good to have that cleared away.
notice the 2x performance target over previous PowerVR.
I don't know what to think of the performance but I hope there's a clear focus on drivers. stable, full featured and fast enough (using multithreading).
The Atom is CPU limited anyway in Warcraft III custom maps when there's many, many monsters and things around. It also needs to just work under linux!
good to have that cleared away.
notice the 2x performance target over previous PowerVR.
I don't know what to think of the performance but I hope there's a clear focus on drivers. stable, full featured and fast enough (using multithreading).
The Atom is CPU limited anyway in Warcraft III custom maps when there's many, many monsters and things around. It also needs to just work under linux!
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And here I (and others) thought it'd probably be based off of Sandy Bridge's GPU, at a lower clock/possibly lower EU count.
It really begs the question, if Medfield at 32nm is supposed to deliver substantially lower power consumption than Moorestown why exactly is Cedar Trail pegged for 10W with presumably the same GPU? Sure it has two cores, but I'm wondering if Medfield won't also. In fact, I'd say Medfield absolutely needs to have two cores in order to look at all competitive in 2011.
Actually, the claim is a 2x performance improvement over the graphics in Pinetrail, which uses Intel's GMA 3150 GPU. Considering it's a mobile GPU compared against one meant for IGPs on desktops and laptops it's pretty impressive, although not that impressive considering how old GMA 3150 has become. At any rate, it shows that Intel has no real confidence in its ability to scale down and compete in perf/W at all. I guess that's not that surprising.
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D
Deleted member 13524
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It's not that hard IMO.
- By going PowerVR with a VXD, all Atoms will now support video acceleration for FullHD High-Profile decoding, which was unprecedented in the low-cost versions and is actually good (it felt ridiculous that netbooks had inferior video performance than most mid-to-high end smartphones).
- They can brag about supporting DX10.1 with hardware vertex shading this time (whooohoo), which means it'll support some more games (horribly) and maybe they'll even come up with an OpenCL driver for it, just for the lulz.
- They can also brag about having twice the 3D performance of the previous generation, which means 2x the performance of a GMA 3150. The truth is, the 3150 (2 pixel shaders) had about half the performance of the 945G (4 pixel shaders) in the 1st-gen Atoms, so we're basically back to the Atom's original 3D performance back in 2008, maybe just a little bit higher and with more functionality.
- With the Atom now on 32nm and with SGX+VXD cores, I think Intel might be able to reach a huge battery life even on the low-cost, 3-cell battery netbooks, which might hurt the tablet rising somehow.
Only the low-power Z500 and Z600 had PowerVR graphics. The first-gen netbook Atoms paired with the 945G northbridge and the 2nd-gen (current) netbook Atoms had the horrible GMA 3150 (something that struggled with Windows Aero) within the CPU.
D is for nettops (or Small Desktops) and N is for Netbooks.
It's not 2x over previous PowerVR (although it's probably true compared to the 400MHz SGX535 in Oak Trail), it's 2x more powerful over GMA 3150. And that's not really a hard feat, not even for some ARM SoCs.
Nonetheless, every Atom system we've seen so far (except for Ions and mini-itx boards with PCI-Ex cards, of course) is clearly GPU limited, regarding game performance at least.
D
Deleted member 13524
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Nope, and it'll be mighty hard to find one, since it shares the L3 cache witht the CPU.
Yeah, so we don't really know if it would be reasonable to mash it up with Atom I guess.
Blazkowicz
Legend
thanks a lot for the replies, I also googled about the GMA 3150 to clear things out.
crucially there was a GMA 3000 before, which is an updated GMA 950 and is nothing like a GMA X3000.
I didn't know Intel played that little naming game, that's why a 3150 can have a worse architecture than a "3000". I was also amused to learn the G31 chipset has the wrong kind of 3100. who knew an "X" was such a vital feature
crucially there was a GMA 3000 before, which is an updated GMA 950 and is nothing like a GMA X3000.
I didn't know Intel played that little naming game, that's why a 3150 can have a worse architecture than a "3000". I was also amused to learn the G31 chipset has the wrong kind of 3100. who knew an "X" was such a vital feature
FINALLY !
it was clear for a while now that intel had to be the licensee for SGX545, as IMG announced JAN '10 that they had a lead licencee for it.
Intel has stated for ages now that cedartrail was DX10.1 and OpenGL3 compliant, the only core from IMG that fits that bill is the 545. So in some way its unsurprising that its turned up in CedarTrail.
However in many ways the fact that Intel has chosen it is very surprising. As someone above pointed out, its a very clear signal that Intel can't get their own inhouse graphics down enough on power to hit the required spec (or at least couldn't do it in time). To have won a design seat, for which intel's own inhouse design department would have been competing strongly for (after all it was Intel's Graphics dept that got the seat for the previously generation, pinetrail), is a strong endorsement of img's technology and may be seen as IMG going up in form factor designs within Intel. Yes Z500 did appear in some netbooks (dell's 12 inch, and some smaller Sony's) but the Z500 was never really designed with that form factor in mind.
Looking at performance within the PowerVr range, this SGX545@640Mhz, will certainly be the highest performing single core solution by around a factor of 2, and 2nd only to the dual core 543 in the A5. So why go 545 instead of a dual core? Well, it would appear to me that DX compliance was needed (for windows obviously), and a combination of SGX545 being already well down the design road, and perhaps only having Dx9 compliances multi-core in the required time frame (IMG could of course design a DX10 multi-core if someone wanted it, but only DX9 was in the map and DX9 might looking poor from a marketing point of view), it ended up having to be SGX545.
With regard to video decode, intel have stated that cedartrail will have full blu-ray decode. So that looks like IMG's VXD390/1 block, which can decode multiple blu-ray streams.
I'm not sure that seeing this 545 in cedatrail totally means that this will be the core in medfield. medfield won't be running windows, so no DX requirement, and the space saved by getting rid of that might be better used by putting in a dual core.
it was clear for a while now that intel had to be the licensee for SGX545, as IMG announced JAN '10 that they had a lead licencee for it.
Intel has stated for ages now that cedartrail was DX10.1 and OpenGL3 compliant, the only core from IMG that fits that bill is the 545. So in some way its unsurprising that its turned up in CedarTrail.
However in many ways the fact that Intel has chosen it is very surprising. As someone above pointed out, its a very clear signal that Intel can't get their own inhouse graphics down enough on power to hit the required spec (or at least couldn't do it in time). To have won a design seat, for which intel's own inhouse design department would have been competing strongly for (after all it was Intel's Graphics dept that got the seat for the previously generation, pinetrail), is a strong endorsement of img's technology and may be seen as IMG going up in form factor designs within Intel. Yes Z500 did appear in some netbooks (dell's 12 inch, and some smaller Sony's) but the Z500 was never really designed with that form factor in mind.
Looking at performance within the PowerVr range, this SGX545@640Mhz, will certainly be the highest performing single core solution by around a factor of 2, and 2nd only to the dual core 543 in the A5. So why go 545 instead of a dual core? Well, it would appear to me that DX compliance was needed (for windows obviously), and a combination of SGX545 being already well down the design road, and perhaps only having Dx9 compliances multi-core in the required time frame (IMG could of course design a DX10 multi-core if someone wanted it, but only DX9 was in the map and DX9 might looking poor from a marketing point of view), it ended up having to be SGX545.
With regard to video decode, intel have stated that cedartrail will have full blu-ray decode. So that looks like IMG's VXD390/1 block, which can decode multiple blu-ray streams.
I'm not sure that seeing this 545 in cedatrail totally means that this will be the core in medfield. medfield won't be running windows, so no DX requirement, and the space saved by getting rid of that might be better used by putting in a dual core.
D
Deleted member 13524
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If Microsoft is supporting ARM in Windows 8, it means they'll have loosened the requirements for the legacy buses and SATA that Medfield doesn't support.
That said, at some point Medfield may be able to run Windows 8, with the advantage of actually being backwards-compatible with all previous windows software (unlike the ARM builds).
At that point, Medfield could become the one chip that does all.
And I think Intel seems to be more concerned with the feature check-list than raw gaming performance.
Agreed about the feature list, but given their biggest issue, which is trying to compete on power consumption, getting rid of superfluous circuitry is very important. The DX10.1 and full profile OpenCL compliance of SGX545 probably adds to the area signficantly too.
And insertion of dual-core does more that just increase top end performance, for many tasks, a single core would suffice, which provides its own significant power saving.
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