Intel Chipsets all the Way with OpenCL
Okay bear with me, this is Intel approx roadmap for laptop chips
Release Date ------- Platform ---------------- Chipset ----------------- Proces. Microarchitecure -------- Process. Family
CY2008 H2 --------- Montevina (65nm) ------- Cantiga -------------------- Core 2 --------------------- Penryn Refresh (45nm)
CY2009 H2 ---------- Calpella (45nm) ---------- _______ ------------------ Nehalem (Core i7) ---------------- Nehalem (45nm)
CY2010 H2 ----------- _______ ------------------ ________ ----------------- Nehalem (Core i7) ------------------ Westmere (32nm)
CY 2011 H2 ---------- ________ ----------------- ________ --------------- Sandy Bridge ----------------- Sandy Bridge (32)
CY 2012 H2 ---------- _________ ---------------- _________ ------------- Sandy Bridge ------------------ Ivy Bridge (22nm)
(unannounced but extrapolated date)
So now Larabee, Intel's own GPGPU (general purpose Graphics processing unit) is to be released with Nehalem in CY2009 H2 (next year this time basically)
It will be the CPU and GPU on 2 different die
Then for Sandy Bridge it will be the CPU and GPU on 1 die (which means GPU manufacturers like ATI and nVidia are out of business cause this even beats the new nVidia GeFore 200 series)
And with integration so tight as the current integrated GPUs (no pun intended) and Wireless ABGN, GPU manufacturers are gone
Apple wants to release Snow Leopard or 10.6 in CY2009 H2. Right. So there you have it mystery resolved. as Nehalem and Larabee come out at that time. (Even though this is pretty obvious and actually i didnt get why intel was never an option)
BTW: suppport for 10.6 will come WITH 10.6 launch not now.
www.9to5mac.com explains what the "new product transition is" it is merely an iPhone sized display instead of a trackpad and the new 16:9 ratios (even though i like 16:10 for editing and watching video as you get an area for controls that doesnt block the video itself)
And the new hardware is the electronics for the touch panel and the new tech is the "mulit-touch"
And 16:9 ratio does not allow trackpad BUTTONS, so it makes sense and he posted it on ComputerWorld which means he must be pretty sure as he bet his reputation against it. And also a Wall Street analyst said that 13" multi-touch displays are nowhere near feasible but 3" ones are.
So intime those mockups of dual-screen multi-touch laptops will come true
maybe by the time of sandybridge.
BTW for those thinking its blu-ray, i doubt it as blu-ray will make it into the Mac pro with the new Nehalem Xeon server chips this fall and then into mbp next time this year with Larrabee and Nehalem b/c of battery life is horrible now adays
PS: the best times to buy would be now and when Sandy-Bridges's shrink come down the line, in my opinion. (perfectly 4 years apart eh!)
Release Date ------- Platform ---------------- Chipset ----------------- Proces. Microarchitecure -------- Process. Family
CY2008 H2 --------- Montevina (65nm) ------- Cantiga -------------------- Core 2 --------------------- Penryn Refresh (45nm)
CY2009 H2 ---------- Calpella (45nm) ---------- _______ ------------------ Nehalem (Core i7) ---------------- Nehalem (45nm)
CY2010 H2 ----------- _______ ------------------ ________ ----------------- Nehalem (Core i7) ------------------ Westmere (32nm)
CY 2011 H2 ---------- ________ ----------------- ________ --------------- Sandy Bridge ----------------- Sandy Bridge (32)
CY 2012 H2 ---------- _________ ---------------- _________ ------------- Sandy Bridge ------------------ Ivy Bridge (22nm)
(unannounced but extrapolated date)
So now Larabee, Intel's own GPGPU (general purpose Graphics processing unit) is to be released with Nehalem in CY2009 H2 (next year this time basically)
It will be the CPU and GPU on 2 different die
Then for Sandy Bridge it will be the CPU and GPU on 1 die (which means GPU manufacturers like ATI and nVidia are out of business cause this even beats the new nVidia GeFore 200 series)
And with integration so tight as the current integrated GPUs (no pun intended) and Wireless ABGN, GPU manufacturers are gone
Apple wants to release Snow Leopard or 10.6 in CY2009 H2. Right. So there you have it mystery resolved. as Nehalem and Larabee come out at that time. (Even though this is pretty obvious and actually i didnt get why intel was never an option)
BTW: suppport for 10.6 will come WITH 10.6 launch not now.
www.9to5mac.com explains what the "new product transition is" it is merely an iPhone sized display instead of a trackpad and the new 16:9 ratios (even though i like 16:10 for editing and watching video as you get an area for controls that doesnt block the video itself)
And the new hardware is the electronics for the touch panel and the new tech is the "mulit-touch"
And 16:9 ratio does not allow trackpad BUTTONS, so it makes sense and he posted it on ComputerWorld which means he must be pretty sure as he bet his reputation against it. And also a Wall Street analyst said that 13" multi-touch displays are nowhere near feasible but 3" ones are.
So intime those mockups of dual-screen multi-touch laptops will come true
maybe by the time of sandybridge.
BTW for those thinking its blu-ray, i doubt it as blu-ray will make it into the Mac pro with the new Nehalem Xeon server chips this fall and then into mbp next time this year with Larrabee and Nehalem b/c of battery life is horrible now adays
PS: the best times to buy would be now and when Sandy-Bridges's shrink come down the line, in my opinion. (perfectly 4 years apart eh!)
Comments
Then for Sandy Bridge it will be the CPU and GPU on 1 die (which means GPU manufacturers like ATI and nVidia are out of business cause this even beats the new nVidia GeFore 200 series)
Uh, no. Not even close. The on-die GPU is great, but it is a replacement for integrated graphics, not for high-end GPUs.
Anyways, AAPL being so devoted to Intel, why dont they use Atom and instead are going to use PA Semi ARM SoC chips instead. Atom Centrino and Atom would be better or is it that Apple wants Atom to mature and then hop on or is it just bad habit to design everything themselves in a closed environment so others cant copy like the current intel mac
Uh, no. Not even close. The on-die GPU is great, but it is a replacement for integrated graphics, not for high-end GPUs.
and amd is doing the same thing and they have better on board video now. So there gpu in the cpu likely will be better then intel's dead last on board video.
Also the amd gpu can work with a pci-e add in video card.
and amd is doing the same thing and they have better on board video now. So there gpu in the cpu likely will be better then intel's dead last on board video.
Also the amd gpu can work with a pci-e add in video card.
The Intel on-die GPU will probably be able to work with a discrete GPU, as well. And Larrabee is very exciting.
ATI have already demoed their offering and I didn't know this but the Transformers trailers were actually rendered in real-time HD on the latest ATI cards that support ray-tracing. That is just staggering. Real-time cinema quality visual effects are already here in upcoming consumer hardware.
Say goodbye to the render farm, just buy a single graphics card. I don't anticipate seeing great advances in games just yet but this completely changes the film world.
Larrabee sounds good - 30+ cores like specialized Core 2 cores dedicated to graphics processing. The only problem is that it won't be until late 2009 and who knows if it will deliver on performance.
ATI have already demoed their offering and I didn't know this but the Transformers trailers were actually rendered in real-time HD on the latest ATI cards that support ray-tracing. That is just staggering. Real-time cinema quality visual effects are already here in upcoming consumer hardware.
Say goodbye to the render farm, just buy a single graphics card. I don't anticipate seeing great advances in games just yet but this completely changes the film world.
If Larrabee ends up as powerful as Intel claims -two teraflops- a computer with just one of them would have made the Top 500 list in 2005. Think about that for a minute.
*ATI and Nvidia's current high-end cards each claim about one teraflop, but Larrabee will be far less limited in the types of computing it can do
What are those cores? They are not GPUs, they are x86 'mini-cores', basically small dumb in order cores with a staggeringly short pipeline. They also have four threads per core, so a total of 64 threads per "CGPU". To make this work as a GPU, you need instructions, vector instructions, so there is a hugely wide vector unit strapped on to it. The instruction set, an x86 extension for those paying attention, will have a lot of the functionality of a GPU.
Here I can see Apple offloading to their own Vector Unit and run OpenCL with it.
If Larrabee ends up as powerful as Intel claims -two teraflops- a computer with just one of them would have made the Top 500 list in 2005. Think about that for a minute.
*ATI and Nvidia's current high-end cards each claim about one teraflop, but Larrabee will be far less limited in the types of computing it can do
The problem I see is how they will lower the cost. They are modified x86 CPUs and their performance scale shows a range of cores from 8 to 48:
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/04/...e-due-in-2009/
It's good that the performance improvement vs cores added is linear but what if they start out with 8 cores? I'm sure it will be a great replacement for integrated graphics but I'd imagine the 48 core will be the one to compete with the likes of ATI and NVidia's products.
Perhaps the architecture differences will give it the edge over GPUs but nonetheless, HD production quality graphics are being done right now on ATI's consumer hardware. Larrabee won't be out for another year.
Could it be that Apple are getting exclusive Larrabee hardware in their new products? I think they said Larrabee previews would be available by the end of 2008 - only for developers though.
If this is the product transition, it would certainly help developers working on Snow Leopard tune the software to take advantage of the hardware. As the article says, it actually seems quite likely that Apple would go this way.
No more having to deal with slower, buggier ATI/Nvidia drivers and not having access to the same features Windows users get like hardware media decoding and anti-aliasing in some models. No more having to underclock the chips or dealing with them using lower spec models.
Consider if the 48-core Larrabee is 2 Tflops and it scales linearly, then an 8-core Larrabee should be around 300Gflops. That is close to the next-gen console graphics performance.
I'm skeptical but Steve Jobs said 2008 would be off the charts and we're already 3/4 through so I'm thinking it's about time they delivered.
The problem I see is how they will lower the cost. They are modified x86 CPUs and their performance scale shows a range of cores from 8 to 48:
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/04/...e-due-in-2009/
It's good that the performance improvement vs cores added is linear but what if they start out with 8 cores? I'm sure it will be a great replacement for integrated graphics but I'd imagine the 48 core will be the one to compete with the likes of ATI and NVidia's products
I think there will have to be more than one version, if for no other reason than to take care of yield issues on a 32/48/whatever-core processor. In fact, probably most multiples of eight will be represented by different products.
I'm skeptical but Steve Jobs said 2008 would be off the charts and we're already 3/4 through so I'm thinking it's about time they delivered.
Doesn't Steve say that every year?
Could it be that Apple are getting exclusive Larrabee hardware in their new products? I think they said Larrabee previews would be available by the end of 2008 - only for developers though.
Sorry, but while Intel might like having Apple use their products they aren't going to constrain their potential market just to do Steve a favour! Apple might be aggressive in jumping on the Larrabee bandwagon, but they aren't going to be exclusive. And this certainly isn't going to happen before the timeframe that Intel has said -- late 2009 or early 2010. And these are not going to be found in laptops for a while, given the power figures that Intel quoted. Yes the performance/watt is awesome, but that doesn't mean the wattage is low.
Sorry, but while Intel might like having Apple use their products they aren't going to constrain their potential market just to do Steve a favour! Apple might be aggressive in jumping on the Larrabee bandwagon, but they aren't going to be exclusive.
I think Apple exclusively got the 3GHz iMac Penryn CPUs and certainly some Mac Pro ones - it was at least 2-3 months before they came out in PCs. Apple's market is low so Intel isn't under pressure to deliver as high a rollout.
And this certainly isn't going to happen before the timeframe that Intel has said -- late 2009 or early 2010. And these are not going to be found in laptops for a while, given the power figures that Intel quoted. Yes the performance/watt is awesome, but that doesn't mean the wattage is low.
I've seen articles saying that separate chips will be available in Q4 2008 or early 2009, which seems reasonable enough for Apple to get an exclusive. Then later in 2009, Larrabee will be integrated onto the Nehalem processors.
There are two models: Havendale for desktops, Auburndale for laptops. They will have two Nehalem cores and a Larrabee graphics system on each chip.
Most articles point to a late 2009-2010 release though and only developer previews in late 2008 but there's some interesting stuff about Intel and Nvidia. They've been cross-licensing some of their stuff and sources are saying Larrabee is a joint effort between the two companies. I could see Intel and Nvidia merging in future but since Larrabee likely isn't ready, perhaps this adds to the Apple using Nvidia rumor.
For the time being, Intel use Nvidia to bring their developments to consumers while they both work on Larrabee. Then they merge and we don't need dedicated GPUs any more. You basically get AMD vs Intel.
Apple won't have separate laptop lines because there is no GPU to separate them - makes sense to give them the same design.
I've seen articles saying that separate chips will be available in Q4 2008 or early 2009, which seems reasonable enough for Apple to get an exclusive. Then later in 2009, Larrabee will be integrated onto the Nehalem processors.
There are two models: Havendale for desktops, Auburndale for laptops. They will have two Nehalem cores and a Larrabee graphics system on each chip.
Most articles point to a late 2009-2010 release though and only developer previews in late 2008 but there's some interesting stuff about Intel and Nvidia. They've been cross-licensing some of their stuff and sources are saying Larrabee is a joint effort between the two companies. I could see Intel and Nvidia merging in future but since Larrabee likely isn't ready, perhaps this adds to the Apple using Nvidia rumor.
For the time being, Intel use Nvidia to bring their developments to consumers while they both work on Larrabee. Then they merge and we don't need dedicated GPUs any more. You basically get AMD vs Intel.
I'd like a link to the "articles" you've read this in.
I'd like a link to the "articles" you've read this in.
http://laptopcom.blogspot.com/2008/0...on-hybrid.html
"Larrabee chips first will ready as separate graphics units in Q4 2008 and will ship in early 2009. After that early next year laptop and desktop-oriented 45nm Nehalem processors with the built-in Larrabee will be released."
http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/18/i...ybrid-cpu-gpu/
"The plan is first to release Larrabee chips as separate graphics units in Q4 of this year, but early next year we should see both laptop and desktop-oriented 45nm Nehalem processors with the Larrabee tech built right in."
http://maxpctech.blogspot.com/2008/0...les-in-q4.html
"Intel?s Vice President has said that the Larrabee should sample in Q4 2008 and that the actual products should follow soon."
I found this though:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Larra...10-76637.shtml
It seems Otellini had said before about it being released in 2009 but pushed it back to late 2009-2010.
Maybe they won't even release Larrabee as a separate chip product. It might not be necessary to make a push for more advanced hardware this early if current GPUs can be used as GPGPUs with Snow Leopard. It would be good to see them get rid of Intel's integrated chips though - no way are they offering any breakthrough speedups with OpenCL.
Since Larrabee will eventually be on a chip, there will be nearly nothing to distinguish the MBP from the MB. It seems like Apple are already trying to make them look similar. I could see them using the 8600M GT in both and dropping the price of the MBP. That alone is enough to keep the lineup very competitive with PC laptops. Nvidia are supposed to be releasing some PhysX update to use their GPUs for physics processing in a matter of days:
http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/60453...next-week.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_physx.html
Apple could accelerate a number of things with that technology, not just graphics simulations.
(snip)
Thanks. I've been following the news about Larrabee pretty closely, but I haven't seen some of that, though frankly I'm not sure how much value to place in rumors from six months ago.
There's a lot of newer news out there, from just this week: Dailytech; Ars Technica; Engadget
Here's what I think: a 2008 release for Larrabee is pure fantasy. The hardware hasn't even been demonstrated yet. "Sampling" means Intel will be sending very early silicon to developers who will need to do testing, not that Apple will be actually putting them in retail computers. That's just absurd.
Sometime in 2009 (Q2 or Q3) we'll see a discrete graphics card and probably a socketed version for servers. The card has been confirmed; Intel talks about Larrabee in terms of it being a discrete GPU. They've even said that the card will have one six-pin and one eight-pin PCIe power connector, which is where the "OMG it will use 300W!" panic came about, although the card probably won't come anywhere near that. There will certainly be versions with fewer cores for midrange and mobile graphics.
Intel will not have a CPU with built-in integrated graphics until Q3 2009 at the earliest, with Havendale (desktop) and Auburndale (mobile). Even then, it won't be an on-die GPU, but rather an MCM arrangement. I think we can safely assume that this will be a Nehalem-derived GPU, but that's just speculation a year early.
I've seen articles saying that separate chips will be available in Q4 2008 or early 2009, which seems reasonable enough for Apple to get an exclusive. Then later in 2009, Larrabee will be integrated onto the Nehalem processors.
Okay, you go ahead and live in fantasy land.
There are two models: Havendale for desktops, Auburndale for laptops. They will have two Nehalem cores and a Larrabee graphics system on each chip.
Suuuuure they will.
Most articles point to a late 2009-2010 release though and only developer previews in late 2008 but there's some interesting stuff about Intel and Nvidia. They've been cross-licensing some of their stuff and sources are saying Larrabee is a joint effort between the two companies. I could see Intel and Nvidia merging in future but since Larrabee likely isn't ready, perhaps this adds to the Apple using Nvidia rumor.
You know, a lot of people that don't know squat write all sorts of crazy stuff. The idea of Intel and nVidia cooperating though seems rather tenuous given the vitriol that nVidia's CEO has been spewing. These two companies are competitors, and if any cross-licensing exists (and it hasn't that I've heard) it is likely about patents that nVidia holds and most likely acquired from SGI.
When you want to talk about reality, I'd be happy to.
Suuuuure they will
Whether or not they will be able to is certainly questionable but it's what they plan to do. I don't really care if they do or not, I want Nvidia's chips to replace all graphics chips in Apple products for now and the foreseeable future.
The idea of Intel and nVidia cooperating though seems rather tenuous given the vitriol that nVidia's CEO has been spewing.
No doubt that could have been said about Apple and Intel at some point. Their disputes are fairly recent though:
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008...standard-fight
If Larrabee becomes a success, Nvidia are in trouble. Who will buy dedicated chips if Intel's chips do everything the end user needs? An extra Nvidia chip will just be a power drain and extra cost.
Then I see one of two things happening. Either Intel buys Nvidia or Nvidia merge up with AMD and ATI. They seem to be siding with them in the USB 3 dispute.
Intel don't really need NVidia but NVidia can't survive on its own. For now yes but not in say 2 years times so they're going to have to go somewhere.
These two companies are competitors, and if any cross-licensing exists (and it hasn't that I've heard) it is likely about patents that nVidia holds and most likely acquired from SGI.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/d...507140244.html
When you want to talk about reality, I'd be happy to.
But then we wouldn't be talking about future events.
Here's some interesting 'reality' that might take away any hope for Larrabee though:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13512_3-10006184-23.html
"To render F.E.A.R. at 60 frames per second--a common definition of good-enough gaming performance--required from 7 to 25 cores, assuming each was running at 1GHz. Although there's a range here depending on the complexity of each frame, good gameplay requires maintaining a high frame rate--so it's possible that F.E.A.R. would, in practice, require at least a 16-core Larrabee processor.
And that's about the performance of a 2006-vintage Nvidia or Advanced Micro Devices/ATI graphics chip. This year's chips are three to four times as fast.
In other words, unless Intel is prepared to make big, hot Larrabee chips, I don't think it's going to be competitive with today's best graphics chips on games."
"But ray tracing merits just one paragraph and one figure in this paper, which establish merely that Larrabee is more efficient at ray tracing than an ordinary Xeon server processor. It falls well short of establishing that ray tracing is a viable option on Larrabee, however."
http://www.hpcwire.com/features/Inte..._Larrabee.html
"even with the impressive 16 single precision operations per clock (per core), a 1.0 GHz Larrabee chip would need 62 cores to equal the performance of the latest teraflop GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD that will ship this year."
So on the assumption that Intel doesn't deliver on Larrabee, which let's face it wouldn't be a huge surprise given their previous efforts in graphics processing, Apple will have to find GPUs that let OpenCL shine and they won't be from Intel.
As I said, ATI have raytracing chips now. Intel are now only saying they will have chips that might be powerful enough more than a year away. The only way Larrabee would have been interesting is if at the worst they were shipping it in very early 2009. Now it seems they will have to make a 62-core chips at the end of 2009 just to compete with what ATI and Nvidia have right now. It makes a lot of sense that this would be the case given that ATI/Nvidia chips already have over 100 cores running at more than 1GHz.
The 8600M GT has 32 stream processors at 950MHz. It would be good to see that go into the Macbook and the 8700M GT with 32 at 1.25GHz into the larger Macbook - I'm going to omit the 'pro' moniker because I think they are merging and the larger one's price will drop. I reckon the Geforce 9 series will draw too much power and not allow apple to drop the price. The MB is fine, the MBP just needs to come down so put good GPUs in the MB and drop the MBP with a minor GPU upgrade. Using OpenCL, both these GPUs will be more than enough to be competitive with laptops with higher end GPUs without OpenCL.