Sandy Bridge preview

[Erinyes]

The only problem with SB is that, in the absence of any competition, Intel is gonna charge an Arm and a leg for it. Now that Fusion has been delayed, AMD will be left to compete with a 3 year old architecture(that barely matches Core 2 Duo) and process node(and its not gonna look pretty). It gives Intel a good few months of near laptop monopoly.

And the SB launch will drive prices of Arrandale laptops down(which will drive prices of AMD laptops down even further)

 

[DavidC]

I think we can still believe "order of magnitude over 2008/65nm graphics" improvement claim by Intel earlier this year for Sandy Bridge graphics.

 

[eastmen]

all this info is making it hard to decided what to do for future builds. Will be a very interesting year for cpus for the first time in awhile

 

[Erinyes]

I think we can still believe "order of magnitude over 2008/65nm graphics" improvement claim by Intel earlier this year for Sandy Bridge graphics.

Erm where was the doubt in that really? The performance preview showed it to be on par with a Radeon 5450/Geforce G310. That is sufficient for pretty much all buyers of laptops with integrated graphics

 

[DavidC]

Erm where was the doubt in that really? The performance preview showed it to be on par with a Radeon 5450/Geforce G310. That is sufficient for pretty much all buyers of laptops with integrated graphics

Radeon HD5450 is not even 2x faster than the HD Graphics in the i5 661. 1.5-2x is a normal, generational improvement, and I don't think they are going monkeys over 2x.

Radeon HD5450 scores 3-3.5k in 3DMark06. The Premium graphics Sandy Bridge parts should score 6k or more.

 

[Otto Dafe]

So is the prevailing speculation that if you use discrete graphics you have to disable onboard,graphics, thereby losing the media engine? because that blows.

 

[Erinyes]

Radeon HD5450 is not even 2x faster than the HD Graphics in the i5 661. 1.5-2x is a normal, generational improvement, and I don't think they are going monkeys over 2x.

Radeon HD5450 scores 3-3.5k in 3DMark06. The Premium graphics Sandy Bridge parts should score 6k or more.

HD 5450 is twice as fast as desktop i5 661 which runs gfx at 900 mhz i think. compared to the mobile parts which run at 500 mhz it'll be a lot faster. If sandy bridge mobile parts are as fast a a HD 5450 then that is a huge improvement.

Anyway i was replying to your previous post..

I think we can still believe "order of magnitude over 2008/65nm graphics" improvement claim by Intel earlier this year for Sandy Bridge graphics.

So sandy bridge's graphics will be about 5-6 times faster than GMA4500HD, that is definitely an order of magnitude faster.

So is the prevailing speculation that if you use discrete graphics you have to disable onboard,graphics, thereby losing the media engine? because that blows.

Apparently that is the case. The media engine is a part of the graphics, and without optimus they will be disabled

 

[entity279]

So sandy bridge's graphics will be about 5-6 times faster than GMA4500HD, that is definitely an order of magnitude faster.

No, it is only 5-6 times faster

 

[Npl]

No, it is only 5-6 times faster

And thats more than two magnitudes. Base2 magnitudes, but still :smile:

 

[doob]

Found this (SB to have remote kill switch / Anti-theft features) yesterday.

Intel has a PDF document with brief details on the feature. It can trigger remotly from being un-connected from the local network, via internet, 3G network, missed check-ins and brute-force attacks.

Doubt regular consumer desktop motherboards bioses will come with that feature avaiable, most likely targeted only at corporate/government (institutions).
Also the firmware of the hard drives themselves likely have to be 'compatible' with the feature to boot, otherwise its just a standard hard drive with encrypted data, a system like this won't stop skilled and/or resourcefull "thieves" from plugin the hard drive on another system to analyze, bypassing the whole 'new' feature altogether.

 

[MfA]

Hmm, I would like a contractual promise (with substantial penalties if proven to be untrue) with such a processor there are no intentional backdoors in there ... as for plugging the HD in a different system, the HD would probably be encrypted with a key stored in the processor. So you'd have to steal it while it was on and then dump it in a Faraday cage.

 

[DavidC]

The anti-theft feature is called vPro and Core 2 has it too. You just need to buy the "Q" chipset.

 

[Bohdy]

This may be a dumb question, but would it be possible to say, run Windows 7 Aero desktop and video decoding on the integrated GPU, but run games on a dedicated card? Automatically I mean.

 

[entity279]

This would need some sort of master driver between the OS and Nv/Intel drivers.

This would be a solution a la Lucid, apparently.

 

[eastmen]

all the reviews are out. Looks really fast to me. Still going to wait tho

 

[mito]

It's still not clear to me how the Sandy bridge GPU will interact with an Nvidia/ATI card, or it doesn't?

 

[DarthShader]

It doesn't, the IGP gets shutdown when a discrete card is used. Unless you mean the Lucid Hydra software sollution for switchable graphics. Haven't heard about that for a while...

 

[rpg.314]

It's still not clear to me how the Sandy bridge GPU will interact with an Nvidia/ATI card, or it doesn't?

My guess is that it will lie unused, kinda like older intel onboards.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Well, look like 4.5 ghz was just a little too much with stock Vcore. Had one error on the second core. Backed down to 4.4 ghz and it's peachy. I imagine I could bump the Vcore and probably get close to 5 ghz, but increase in power use wouldn't be worth it to me.

The thing is bloody fast. And finally a good SATA 3 implementation to pair with my C300 really makes it scream. Can't believe how utterly crap the Marvell SATA 3 chip is. It's so bad that even though it supports 6 GB/s transfers, I'm only going to use it for DVD burners and external SATA ports.

As well, under load and overclocked, still uses less power than my i7-860. Very impressive indeed.

Regards,
SB

 

[Squilliam]

As well, under load and overclocked, still uses less power than my i7-860. Very impressive indeed.

Regards,
SB

So like what did the new CPU do that the old CPU couldn't?

P.S. Do Americans have inside toilets? I swear Mize was looking for a place to take a leak in the other thread.