Intel to exit motherboard business after Haswell platform
Subject: Motherboards | January 22, 2013 - 08:52 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: Intel, haswell
Word reached us tonight of some interesting and somewhat disappointing news out of Intel. The company has announced a reorganization that will include the spinning down of the retail motherboard development team and product line after the release of the upcoming Haswell line of processors.
We disclosed internally today that Intel’s Desktop Motherboard Business will begin slowly ramping down over the course of the next three years. As Intel gradually ramps down its motherboard business we are ramping up critical areas of the desktop space including integration of innovative solutions for the PC ecosystem such as reference design development, NUC and other areas to be discussed later.
The internal talent and experience of twenty years in the boards business (which until recently has been largely focused on desktop tower type designs) is being redistributed to address emerging new form factors -- desktop and mobile – and to expand Intel’s Form Factor Reference Design (FFRD) work and enable our partners to develop exciting new computing solutions.
Intel's DX79SI was a launch board for Sandy Bridge-E
Many of our readers might not see this as an important decision with the likes of ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte to accommodate the needs of builders, but any time a company that has been in a business segment for more than 20 years exits, you need to pay attention. And while Intel boards have traditional been used only on business and stability-dependent applications, the boards team has in the past few years been producing fantastic, high quality enthusiast class platforms and innovating on the UEFI design, etc. Many boutique system builders were even using Intel motherboards in $5,000+ systems.
As recently as CES earlier in the month, we met with the board team at Intel to discuss future plans for additional features as well new compelling changes to UEFI coming up in Haswell offerings. Instead it appears that members of that product team will be slowly transitioned to the world of new form factors (like the recently announced Next Unit of Computing) and more.
Intel's Next Unit of Computing platform
Intel noted confidence in other companies like ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte for future motherboards and to "fully support Intel's growing roadmap." And for those companies this will likely be good news in the short term as builders and OEMs will be transitioning away, looking for new options. Still, this will no doubt fuel the fire of rumors about Intel's desire to move out of the socketed CPU business as quickly as possible.
CES 2013: Intel Haswell HD Graphics Compared to GeForce GT 650M
Subject: Graphics Cards | January 12, 2013 - 12:02 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: CES, ces 2013, Intel, haswell, hd graphics, 650m, geforce, nvidia, dirt 3
While wandering around the Intel booth we were offered a demo of the graphics performance of the upcoming Haswell processor, due out in the middle of 2013. One of the big changes on this architecture will be another jump up in graphics performance, even more than we saw going from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge.
On the left is the Intel Haswell system and on the right is a mobile system powered by the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M. For reference, that discrete GPU has 384 cores and a 128-bit memory bus so we aren't talking about flagship performance here. Haswell GT3 graphics is rumored to have double the performance of the GT2 found in Ivy Bridge based on talks at IDF this past September.
While I am not able to report the benchmark results, I can tell you what I "saw" in my viewing. First, the Haswell graphics loaded the game up more slowly than the NVIDIA card. That isn't a big deal really and could change with driver updates closer to launch, but it is was a lingering problem we have seen with Intel HD graphics over the years.
During the actual benchmark run, both looked great while running at 1080p and High quality presets. I did notice during part of the loading of the level, the Haswell system seemed to "stutter" a bit and was a little less fluid in the animation. I did NOT notice that during the actually benchmark gameplay though.
I also inquired with Intel's graphics team about how dedicated they were to providing updated graphics drivers for HD graphics users. They were defensive about their current output saying they have released quarterly drivers since the Sandy Bridge release but that perhaps they should be more vocal about it (I agree). While I tried to get some kind of formal commitment from them going forward to monthly releases with game support added within X number of days, they weren't willing to do that quite yet.
If AMD and NVIDIA discrete notebook (and low cost desktop) graphics divisions are to push an edge, game support and frequent updates are going to be the best place to start. Still, seeing Intel continue to push forward on the path of improved processor graphics is great if they can follow through for gamers!
PC Perspective's CES 2013 coverage is sponsored by AMD.
Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!
CES 2013: Intel Announces Three Future NUC Systems, Coming Later This Year
Subject: Systems | January 10, 2013 - 02:06 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: CES, nuc, next unit of computing, Intel, htpc, haswell, core i5, celeron 847, ces 2013
Intel released its first Next Unit of Computing system last year, and it seems that the 4 x 4-inch computer was enough of a success that Intel is ready to introduce new models. The Tech Report managed to talk to Intel on the CES show floor, and the x86 chip-maker is planning as many as three new models for release later this year.
Intel is reportedly planning a cheaper model as well as two higher-performance models. The former is a NUC system that switches out the current-generation’s Core i3-3217U processor for a cheaper Celeron 847 chip. While the Core i3-3217U is a dual core part with HyperThreading clocked at 1.8GHz. It is a 22nm, 17W part with 3MB of cache. On the other hand, the Intel Celeron 847 CPU that will allegedly be at the heart of the next NUC is an older 32nm chip with two physical cores, no HyperThreading, 2MB of cache, and a clockspeed of 1.1GHz. It does retain the same 17W TDP, but it is an older and slower part (and cheaper as a result).
This new NUC is said to be available for around $220 with a Thunderbolt port or $190 without Thunderbolt. That makes it as much as $100 cheaper than the current-generation NUC that we reviewed in December 2012.
In addition to the Celeron-powered model, Intel is also ramping up the performance with a Core-i5 powered NUC due in April 2013. There is no word on pricing but it should be available for purchase sometime in April 2013. It will have USB 3.0, triple monitor, and vPro support. The article in question was not clear on whether the Core i5 NUC will keep the Thunderbolt port in addition to USB 3.0 or if it will simply be swapped out. One concern I have is heat as the Core i5 chip will be faster and run hotter than the Core i3-3217U. With the current generation NUC, there were issues of heat that caused the system to hard lock during large file transfers over the network. Granted that particular issue is thought to be caused from heat generated by the NIC and SSD heat causing a component to overheat, but any new/additional heat (like that of a faster CPU) in the same NUC form factor may be problematic. Here’s hoping that Intel has found a way to resolve the overheating issue with the new 2013 models.
Finally, Intel is reportedly also planning to release a Haswell-powered processor in Q4 of this year. IT seems that Intel is preparing a trifecta of NUCs aimed at lower cost, higher performance, and higher efficiency (Haswell) respectively.
Are you excited about the Next Unit of Computing form factor?
PC Perspective's CES 2013 coverage is sponsored by AMD.
Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!
Ultrabooks 2.0
Intel is a yearly presence at CES and typically have a few interesting things to talk about. Last year we got to see Will.I.Am on stage telling us all about how the Ultrabook has changed his artistic life. Oddly enough, things have not changed dramatically for the company. Ultrabooks have inherited the latest Ivy Bridge processors which were released last Spring. Medfield is still the primary cell phone processor for Intel.
The first area they covered is the cellphone market. Medfield is still the go-to processor and Intel claims that it has better performance and battery life than even the latest Qualcomm products. Intel is introducing a new reference phone for emerging markets around the world codenamed Lexington. Based on the Z2420 and the XMM6265 modem, this budget smartphone will be Android based with certain optimizations instituted by Intel in collaboration with Google.
Intel has achieved more wins throughout the next few months. Acer, Safaricom, and Lava will all be announcing new smart phones based on Intel silicon. Details of these products will be released later in the quarter.
Medfield will be replaced by Clover Tail+ and then further on with their next gen 22 nm product.
CES 2013: Haswell Ultrabooks Have New Requirements
Subject: General Tech, Processors, Mobile, Shows and Expos | January 7, 2013 - 05:05 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: CES, ces 2013, haswell, Intel
Oh certification, how I loathe thee.
At the Intel CES 2013 keynote, Intel announced a few new requirements for OEMs to manufacture Haswell-based ultrabooks. Intel clearly wants to push OEMs to utilize several of their more cherished features and as such they will not allow products to be released without these features.
Threat detected.
A fourth-generation ultrabook must contain the following features:
- Touch interaction support
- Intel WiDi support
- Installed Antivirus and Anti-Malware, Intel-owned McAfee will have an announcement soon.
These three certification requirements lead to two major points of contention with me: non-Windows 8 operating systems as well as Intel potentially strong-arming McAfee into your machine. When Intel requires touch support for Haswell-based ultrabooks, they basically declare that Windows 7 and Linux will not be around.
That requirement could seem minor depending on what Intel McAfee will soon announce after Intel’s announcement that Antivirus and Anti-Malware will be required on ultrabooks. Windows 8 already comes with Microsoft Security Essentials pre-installed and as such Intel might strong-arm vendors into using McAfee. It would not be a stretch to speculate that McAfee will have some deep attachment to the Haswell architecture. Unfortunately we will need to wait until Intel makes their announcement.
Intel also claims that ultrabooks will have touch-based products in the $599 price points very soon.
PC Perspective's CES 2013 coverage is sponsored by AMD.
Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!
Leaked Intel Roadmap: Pretty Much No Changes
Subject: General Tech, Processors | January 3, 2013 - 06:00 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Intel, haswell, Ivy Bridge-E
Intel creates a bunch of roadmaps as portions of their corporate slideshows and similarly to their development cycles: they get leaked like clockwork.
Last quarter’s roadmap revealed intentions for Intel to release the higher-end Ivy Bridge-E processors a whole quarter after dropping non-enthusiast Ivy Bridge from retail. That leak ended speculation from the prior quarter about the fate of Ivy Bridge-E with Haswell and Sandy Bridge-E pushing Ivy Bridge out of Intel’s second quarter 2013 lineup. After all, would Intel push higher-end SKUs of obsolete components? Would they just skip to Haswell-E? Could Sandy Bridge-E be slowly eaten away by the Xeon and lower end markets and left without a replacement? Apparently not the latters.
This quarter was much less dramatic but still interesting none-the-less.
I cannot Haswell-E'sburger.
The most obvious data point to pull from this slide is that nothing changed; information was only added. Ivy Bridge-E is still on target to launch a little less than a year from now. What we were given is expected SKUs names of the Haswell parts.
From i5 up to Sandy Bridge-E we will have approximately 5 SKUs ranging from the i5-4570 up to the i7-4770K. Room is still left for SKUs above the i7-4770K and the i5-4670K although Intel does not show any direct intentions to produce such chips. WCCF Tech believes from previous rumors that Ivy Bridge-E will consist of four SKUs: i7-4930, i7-4960, i7-4970, and i7-4990.
I also cannot Haswell at all???
Intel’s lower-end roadmap was also leaked within the same post. Apparently Ivy Bridge has more legs in that price range with Haswell being delayed for a quarter for Pentium and i3 processors. Haswell is completely absent in the Celeron price point with the original Sandy Bridge sticking around for a whole year from now.
This clearly is not a panicked situation for Intel on the high-end. Three leaked roadmaps in a row show for all practical purposes the same identical vision. I will be curious to see how performance compares between Ivy Bridge-E and its older little brother Haswell; clearly Ivy Bridge-E will make more sense from the point of view of RAM-intensive applications, but will certain applications be able to better utilize Haswell and its new architecture?
Who do you think will win in a fistfight, Ha’s well Ghul or Poison Ivy Bridge-E?
Podcast #230 - EVGA Stinger Z77 Mini ITX board, Our Holiday Gift Guide, Steam Box and more!
Subject: General Tech | December 13, 2012 - 02:43 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: Z77, valve, stinger, Steam Box, steam, podcast, pcper, itx, i7-4770k, haswell, gift guide, evga, Crysis 3, 4770k, video
PC Perspective Podcast #230 - 12/13/2012
Join us this week as we talk about the EVGA Stinger Z77 Mini ITX board, Our Holiday Gift Guide, Steam Box and more!
You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.
The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!
- iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
- RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
- MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file
Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, Allyn Malventano and Chris Barbere
This Podcast is brought to you by MSI!
Program length: 1:29:11
Podcast topics of discussion:
- We are going to try Planetside 2 after the podcast!
-
Week in Reviews:
- 0:03:30 EVGA Stinger Z77 Mini-ITX Motherboard
- 0:06:45 Cutting the Cord Series
- 0:09:00 Seasonic G Series 360 watt PSU
- 0:11:30 PC Perspective Holiday Gift Guide!
- 0:40:15 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI!
-
News items of interest:
- 0:41:30 Transporter Private Storage
- 0:47:00 Intel will support sockets into foreseeable future as well
- 0:51:00 Crysis 3 will have advanced PC options
- 0:53:30 Valve Confirms the Steam Box is coming
- 1:06:15 Low power Atom chips for servers
- 1:10:20 ASRock Board with pass through for Thunderbolt
- 1:13:00 Haswell 4000 series CPUs will be 84 watt
-
Closing:
-
1:16:30 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
- Ryan: Lenovo X230 + Slice Battery
- Jeremy: ASUS VS229H-P Same in the US and Canada, though we get free shipping
- Josh: Intel 335 SSD for Cheap
- Allyn: iStarUSA BPU-126-SA
-
1:16:30 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
- 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
- http://pcper.com/podcast
- http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
- Closing/outro
Be sure to subscribe to the PC Perspective YouTube channel!!
New Details of Haswell, Intel Core 4000 Series Processors
Subject: Processors | December 12, 2012 - 05:07 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: haswell, Intel, i7-4770k
A (translated) report coming from VR-Zone shows a table that is giving us just a bit more information about the upcoming Intel Haswell architecture and processors.
First, it looks like Intel is going to lean into the same naming scheme for these parts calling them the Core i3/i5/i7 4000 series parts, starting with the Core i7-4770K as the highest end option. It will be a quad-core HyperThreaded part with a maximum Turbo Boost frequency of 3.9 GHz, very similar to the speeds and feed of today.
Graphics will be updated and called the HD 4600 with a clock rate as high as 1250 MHz. The memory controller will remain dual-channel with support for DDR3-1600.
The only other item worth mentioning is the 84 watt TDP, up from the 77 watt TDP of the current Ivy Bridge lineup.
All that is left to know now is ... pretty much everything including the performance of these new cores, the new graphics architecture and how that higher TDP will be utilized.
Moving Towards BGA Only?
The sky is falling. Does this mean that Chicken Little is panicking for no reason or is Chicken Little the Cassandra of our time? It has been widely reported that Intel will not be offering the next generation Broadwell architecture as a LGA based product. Broadwell is a 14 nm product that will integrate southbridge functions into the chip, making it essentially a SOC. It will be offered only as a BGA only product, which means that it will be soldered onto a motherboard with no chance of being able to be swapped out. Broadwell is the successor to the upcoming Haswell, itself a 22 nm product that features many architectural changes to both the CPU and graphics portion as compared to the current 22 nm Ivy Bridge.
Will Broadwell be the death of the desktop industry and enthusiasts? Will LGA become as scarce as chicken teeth? Will we ever see a product with a swappable CPU after 2014?
Broadwell is aimed at TDPs ranging from 10 watts to 57 watts. Current high end Ivy Bridge parts max out at 77 watts and do not feature any southbridge type functionality. So that means that another 5 to 7 watts are added in for the chipset when discussing basic system TDPs. So we are looking at around 87 watts for a top end product when including SATA and USB functionality. 30 watts is a pretty big deal in OEM circles. We see right off the bat that Intel is aiming this architecture at a slightly different market, or at least a changing marketplace.
The unease that we are seeing is essentially this; Intel appears to be trying to take more profits from this setup and pass more costs onto the motherboard industry. This is not necessarily new for Intel, as they did this when transitioning to the LGA socket. LGA sockets are more expensive and more troublesome for the motherboard manufacturers as compared to a more traditional pin based interface. AMD continues to use pin based chips as this lowers the cost that is incurred by the motherboard manufacturers, and it also lowers overall support issues. LGAs are pretty solid, but it is very easy to bend one or more of those contacts so that they in fact do not create a solid connection with the CPU. This is something that is uncommon with pin based CPUS, but the downside of pin based is that it is more expensive to produce the CPU in the first place as compared to a LGA chip which only features the pads on the substrate of the CPU.
Continue reading our thoughts on Intel's move to BGA processors...
The Ultrabook Revoltion ... is all in the mind of the professional fortune tellers
Subject: General Tech, Mobile | October 2, 2012 - 04:27 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: ultrabook, Intel, haswell, told you so, fail
We've not been kind to the idea of Ultrabooks here at PC Perspective, even some of the models we reviewed were rated very highly. The product is nice for those who want an ultra-light, ultra-thin computer with instant resume from sleep and a very long battery life and frankly, who wouldn't like that. The problem was in the implementation of the design, in order to meet the hardware requirements and the materials required to make a sturdy yet thin device the price soared well above the $600 price point that Intel originally reported an Ultrabook would sell for. In order to meet all the specifications from the original PR, the price was over $1000 which significantly shrunk the number of consumers willing to purchase an Ultrabook. Some manufacturers chose instead to compromise and not include all of the hardware originally listed, often the SSD but in other cases we saw lesser LCD panels used or a less sturdy chassis, which lowered the price but also made less consumers interested in purchasing an Ultrabook.
The Ultrabook dream has taken a big hit today as those in the market who predict sales have finally admitted they vastly overestimated the success of the Ultrabook. Most of these companies sales predictions, such as the iSuppli numbers referenced by The Register, have been sliced in half. Instead of admitting the numbers were inflated they referenced the growing tablet and smartphone market, neither of which devices can manage any task an Ultrabook could apart from the mobility. An Ultrabook was originally touted as a full computer, not a low powered mobile device.
From what DigiTimes heard Intel is convinced that Haswell will change all of that somehow, with the new processor making the Ultrabook much more attractive to customers. Of course they don't mention the pricing, which may fall a bit over the next year thanks to the dropping prices of SSDs but it is doubtful that Haswell will be cheaper than its predecessors. It is unknown at this point if Intel will continue to provide the cash incentives to manufacturers that they have over the past year but if they want any hope of manufacturers producing the next generation of Ultrabook. As it stands many major vendors are not interested in designing a new generation of Ultrabook as it is not a product that they made much profit on during the first generation. SemiAccurate also harbours the same doubts about next generation Ultrabooks they had for the first generation, with more numbers to back up their beliefs. The analysts still think that the next generation of Ultrabook will do well though ... for some strange reason.
"The basic problem for Ultrabooks at the moment is one of price, Stice explained. Intel's original vision for the platform was for a price point of around $600, but even with the $300m in support and subsidies that Chipzilla is pushing out to manufacturers, prices are much closer to a grand – and at that price, customers aren't biting."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- The TR Podcast 120: Borderlands 2, iOS 6, and the problem with staged releases
- Windows System Center 2012: The review @ The Register
- Globalfoundries 28/32nm foundry capacity hits as high as 80,000 wafers @ DigiTimes
- AMD, Oracle tag-team on GPU acceleration for Java apps @ The Register
- Mid Ohio Comic Con 2012 @ LanOC Reviews
- AMD launches Android app store for Windows PCs @ The Register
- Hard drive shipments rebound to record level in 2012, says IHS @ DigiTimes
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