Intel's plans for 2011 ?

gothic_hobbit · 1 Dec 2010 at 20:23

Does anyone know what Intel's plans for 2011 are regarding processors ?

Will there be 8 core processors, maybe even more ?

Your helpful insight is appreciated

scrlk · 2 Dec 2010 at 11:58

Intel will release the mainstream version of Sandy Bridge on LGA1155, replacing LGA1156 in Q1 (Feb. I think). The enthusiast version which will replace LGA1336 will come later in the year. Sandy Bridge will also limit overclocking on non-K branded CPUs, but early reports suggest a very healthy boost on K CPUs - rumoured to be 4.5GHZ on air.

cmndr_andi · 2 Dec 2010 at 12:11

Looks like it will be January 9th for the mainstream (LGA 1155) quad cores

Sandy Bridge's "mainstream" level will be a mix of true quad cores (i7, most of i5) and dual cores (some i5, i3 and pentium), however the dual cores seem to be coming out on the 20th February.

The "enthusiast" level Sandy Bridge platforms (LGA 2011 and LGA 1356) are expected Q3 and Q4 2011 - with no firm info on specific dates. These look like they will range from 2 to 8 physical cores, all with hyperthreading enabled. The main difference between s1356 and s2011 (apart from different CPUs being installed) is that s1356 will have one QPI connection (s2011 will have 2), s1356 will have three memory channels (s2011 will have four) and s1356 will have 24 PCI-E v3 lanes (s2011 will have 40).

DragonQ · 2 Dec 2010 at 12:12

World domination.

cjgardens · 2 Dec 2010 at 13:03

DragonQ said:
World domination.

lol

so will the sandybridge use same boards as what we have now?

cmndr_andi · 2 Dec 2010 at 13:12

cjgardens said:
lol

so will the sandybridge use same boards as what we have now?

Unfortunately not

These new chips use new sockets and new chipsets - so won't work with existing motherboards.

cjgardens · 2 Dec 2010 at 13:18

cmndr_andi said:
Unfortunately not

These new chips use new sockets and new chipsets - so won't work with existing motherboards.

hmmmm another money maker for intel then

darkwildchild79 · 2 Dec 2010 at 13:25

cmndr_andi said:
Looks like it will be January 9th for the mainstream (LGA 1155) quad cores Sandy Bridge's "mainstream" level will be a mix of true quad cores (i7, most of i5) and dual cores (some i5, i3 and pentium), however the dual cores seem to be coming out on the 20th February.

The "enthusiast" level Sandy Bridge platforms (LGA 2011 and LGA 1356) are expected Q3 and Q4 2011 - with no firm info on specific dates. These look like they will range from 2 to 8 physical cores, all with hyperthreading enabled. The main difference between s1356 and s2011 (apart from different CPUs being installed) is that s1356 will have one QPI connection (s2011 will have 2), s1356 will have three memory channels (s2011 will have four) and s1356 will have 24 PCI-E v3 lanes (s2011 will have 40).

What do you mean by true core, i thought all core are real?

manic_man · 2 Dec 2010 at 13:28

Effectively more of the same, smaller, more cores, faster, less power etc etc.

Cept this: http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/intel-unveils-knights-corner-50-core-server-chip-2010061/ which will be making it to HPC sys devs as "rental chips" for development evaluation apparently...

I love we are going back to the old stuff, vectorisation, co-processors, makes me laugh. But yeah, nothing much of interest cept the slightly barmy "GPU-esque" knights corner thing.

cmndr_andi · 2 Dec 2010 at 13:31

I was mainly just highlighting that these i5 and i7 CPUs have four physical cores, when you throw hyperthreading into the mix it creates virtual cores to double the number of threads. Hence current CPUs like the i3 may be advertised as having four threads, but this is due to hyperthreading - these chips are really only dual cores, not true quad cores.

darkwildchild79 · 2 Dec 2010 at 15:48

cmndr_andi said:
I was mainly just highlighting that these i5 and i7 CPUs have four physical cores, when you throw hyperthreading into the mix it creates virtual cores to double the number of threads. Hence current CPUs like the i3 may be advertised as having four threads, but this is due to hyperthreading - these chips are really only dual cores, not true quad cores.

okay thanks for confirming that to me i got a bit confused earlier

Mr. May2 · 2 Dec 2010 at 16:04

skt 2011 sounds like a right beast no need for nf200 controllers then and quad channel ddr3 ?? madness if you ask me only the most extreme e-peen will need this as i7 is more than enuff

cmndr_andi · 2 Dec 2010 at 16:07

Mr. May2 said:
skt 2011 sounds like a right beast no need for nf200 controllers then and quad channel ddr3 ?? madness if you ask me only the most extreme e-peen will need this as i7 is more than enuff

Yea, I sounds like the kind of system where if you buy it just for gaming then you must be certifiable.

Incidentally, I want three.

JonJ678 · 3 Dec 2010 at 01:21

I wonder if two qpi connections on the s2011 implies dual socket boards from the likes of Gigabyte and Asus which don't need server chips.

Participant · 3 Dec 2010 at 11:38

Can someone summarise how graphics will work on these chips please?

- Will there be onboard GPUs on all Sandy Bridge chips?
- If so, will said onboard GPUs be fast enough to power any decent games, or would they be more aimed towards high definition media etc.?
- Will the chips use onboard GPU in conjunction with expansion card GPUs so as to run multi-threaded graphics, e.g. onboard running physics and expansion card running everything else?

Just debating whether these are worth waiting for in terms of a gaming / HTPC.

cmndr_andi · 3 Dec 2010 at 12:24

Sure, i'll try my best

Robbie G said:
- Will there be onboard GPUs on all Sandy Bridge chips?

On all of the "mainsteam" sandy bridge (SB) chips (the ones out early next year) will have an onboard graphics core. The "enthusiast" level sandy bridge (LGA 1356 and 2011), which come out in Q3-4 2011, will not have a graphics core onboard.

Robbie G said:
- If so, will said onboard GPUs be fast enough to power any decent games, or would they be more aimed towards high definition media etc.?

As before, these are intel graphics chips and compared to most discrete graphics cards are fairly pants - but do play HD videos fine. That said, this new generation of intel IGPs used on the SB chips seems to be significantly better than before. If you look at this preview, the performance is approximately on the level of a HD 5450 graphics card - not amazing for gaming, but several times better than the previous generation. Looking at this performance I think it should be possible to play console port games at 720p, low-medium settings and playable framerates - hence making any PC using these chips about as good for gaming as a console.

Robbie G said:
- Will the chips use onboard GPU in conjunction with expansion card GPUs so as to run multi-threaded graphics, e.g. onboard running physics and expansion card running everything else?

No, I believe the current situation is that if you install a dedicated graphics card then the on-chip graphics core is bypassed.

Participant · 3 Dec 2010 at 12:37

Thanks for that

.

nightmare99 · 3 Dec 2010 at 13:04

Remember there will be two levels of graphics with the faster chips having the better performing graphics cores.

alex2k10 · 3 Dec 2010 at 15:25

Do u reckon the sandy bridge will be priced pretty close to what i7 was when it got released. I only ask because a friend of mine whants to put a new pc together and i told him to wait for sandy bridge. I just want to try and give him a ball park figure or is that unrealistic at this point.

cmndr_andi · 3 Dec 2010 at 15:32

alex2k10 said:
Do u reckon the sandy bridge will be priced pretty close to what i7 was when it got released. I only ask because a friend of mine whants to put a new pc together and i told him to wait for sandy bridge. I just want to try and give him a ball park figure or is that unrealistic at this point.

This looks like what the prices will be.

To put this in perspective, the i5 750 launched at $196 and cost ~£160 in the Uk at launch.