The Real Conroe Successor: Clarkdale & All You Need to Know about Westmere
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 24, 2009 6:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
On-package GPU and Graphics Turbo
Arrandale and Clarkdale are two-die packages. There's the 32nm CPU die and next to it is a 45nm DirectX 10 GPU die (no DX11 support until possibly Larrabee).
This isn't Larrabee (yet), it's a direct descendent of the graphics in G45. While G45 was built on a 65nm process, the 'dale graphics is built on a 45nm process.
The smaller transistors enable much higher performance. While G45 had 10 shader cores, the 'dale GPU increases that to 12. A number of performance limiting issues have now been resolved, so we should see much more competitive performance from Intel's graphics.
The memory controller has been moved off of the CPU die and is on the GPU die instead. It's still on-package so you get decently low latencies, but it shouldn't technically be as low as on Lynnfield. This is a temporary problem that fixes itself once the CPU/GPU are on the same die with Sandy Bridge.
Sandy Bridge brings on-die graphics
I've already explained turbo mode quite a bit so I won't rehash it here. The technology basically allows you to run your CPU at the fastest possible frequency regardless of how many cores are active. Westmere has this.
Arrandale will support graphics turbo modes, while Clarkdale won't. Clarkdale graphics is already running as fast as possible regardless of TDP.
If the GPU demand is higher than the CPU demand, the CPU will allocate more of its TDP to the GPU and vice versa.
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MonkeyPaw - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link
Yeah, every new iteration of Intel graphics is always promised to be fully functional and competitive. Yet every time, they aren't. Their IGPs ship with stuff disabled or not supported by drivers. 3D is a joke thanks to what has to be a one-man driver team. 2D usually works great, but that was mastered that almost a decade ago. I really don't have high expectations of Larribee. From what I gather, it will require a 6 pin and an 8 pin power connector, and all Intel can do is show it raytracing QuakeWars. Raytracing is great, but developers are not going to abandon rasterization as long as game consoles use it!Camikazi - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - link
Intel BoxStation i3720, featuring Larrabee raytracing and i3 CPU, coming soon! That would take care of rasterization :PBen90 - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
Yea its fairly annoying; especially in the forums when people arnt the most educated that there is a difference...I would love to be the person at intel responsible for creating their tick/tock drawings, must be the easiest, most secure job in the world...
Intel: Drawing boy! we need another tick tock picture now!
Drawing boy: Howbout we put some overlapping semi-circles
Intel:Perfect! That will work for another 2 weeks
Griswold - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link
What happened to the original tick-tock drawing boy? The one way back in 2006 who made that penis shaped tick-tock pattern - was he fired?kiwik - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
You mean these tick-tock drawings?http://tweakers.net/ext/i/1190631924.png">http://tweakers.net/ext/i/1190631924.png
VooDooAddict - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - link
He went to work for Disney.MadMan007 - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link
Pat Gaysinger decided to go to a different company.the zorro - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link
these days the tic-toc seems more like a tic tac.AnnonymousCoward - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link
hilariousmdbusa - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
the clarkdale processor includes nehelem and westmere features--that really clears things up for me.
The problem is that when we go to buy a pc all we see is a processor name--i7 , i5, blah blah