Sandy Bridge Graphics Update
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 1, 2010 8:35 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- Intel
- Sandy Bridge
Last week we published our preview of Intel's 2011 Core microarchitecture update, codenamed Sandy Bridge. In the preview we presented a conservative estimate of what shipping Sandy Bridge performance will look like in Q1 2011. I call it conservative because we were dealing with an early platform, with turbo disabled, compared to fairly well established competitors with their turbo modes enabled.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to you that this performance preview, ~5 months before launch, wasn't officially sanctioned or supported by Intel. All companies like to control the manner in which information about their products is released, regardless of whether the outcome is good or bad. We acquired the chip on our own, ran the benchmarks on our own and published the article, on our own.
As a result a number of questions remained unanswered. I measured significantly lower L3 cache latencies on SB vs. Westmere/Nehalem, I just have no idea why they were lower. I suspect many of these questions will be answered at IDF, but the point is that we were flying blind on this one.
A big unknown was the state of Sandy Bridge graphics. As I mentioned in the preview, there will be two types of integrated graphics enabled on Sandy Bridge parts: 1 core and 2 core parts. Intel refers to them as GT1 and GT2, respectively. The GT1 parts have 6 execution units (EUs), while the GT2 parts have 12.
While some desktop parts will feature GT2, all notebook parts (at launch) will feature GT2. Based on the information I had while running our tests, it looked like the Sandy Bridge sample was a GT1 part. With no official support from Intel and no way to tell how many EUs the sample had, I had no way to confirm. Since publication I've received more information that points to our sample being a GT2 part. It's not enough for me to 100% confirm that it's GT2, but that's what it looks to be at this point.
If it is indeed a GT2 part, the integrated graphics performance in our preview is indicative of the upper end of what you can expect for desktops and in the range of what we'd expect from SB notebooks (graphics turbo may move numbers up a bit but it's tough to tell at this point since our sample didn't have turbo enabled). As soon as I got this information I made updates to the articles indicating our uncertainty. I never like publishing something I'm not 100% sure of and for that, I owe you an apology. We trusted that our sources on the GT1/6EU information were accurate and in this case they may not have been. We all strive to be as accurate as possible on AnandTech and when any of us fail to live up to that standard, regardless of reasoning, it hurts. Thankfully the CPU and GPU performance data are both accurate, although we're simply unsure if the GPU performance will apply to the i5 2400 or not (it should be indicative of notebook SB GPU performance and some desktop SB GPU performance).
The desktop Sandy Bridge GPU rollout is less clear. I've heard that the enthusiast K-SKUs will have GT2 graphics while the more mainstream parts will have GT1. I'm not sure this makes sense, but we'll have to wait and see.
Many of you have been drawing the comparison to Llano and how it will do vs. Sandy Bridge. Llano is supposed to be based on a modified version of the current generation Phenom II architecture. Clock for clock, I'd expect that to be slower than Sandy Bridge. But clock for clock isn't what matters, it's performance per dollar and performance per watt that are most important. AMD has already made it clear that it can compete in the former and it's too early to tell what Llano perf per watt will be. On the CPU side I feel it's probably easy to say that Intel will have the higher absolute performance, but AMD may be competitive at certain price points (similar to how it is today). Intel likes to maintain certain profit margins and AMD doesn't mind dropping below them to maintain competitive, it's why competition is good.
Llano's GPU performance is arguably the more interesting comparison. While Intel had to do a lot of work to get Sandy Bridge to where it is today, AMD has an easier time on the graphics side (given ATI's experience). The assumption is that Llano's GPU will be more powerful than what Intel has in Sandy Bridge. If that's the case, then we're really going to have an awesome set of entry level desktops/notebooks next year.
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ssj4Gogeta - Thursday, September 2, 2010 - link
It was an engineering sample, not the retail 2400. The only thing similar it had to the 2400 was the clock speed.ssj4Gogeta - Thursday, September 2, 2010 - link
It would make sense if we had switchable graphics on the desktop.teq_zombie - Wednesday, September 1, 2010 - link
Interesting way to put it.Another way to think about it: you colluded with some one of the very limited Intel customers who have legitimate access to these chips to win unauthorized access.
At the very least, you did NOT acquire the chip on your own.
ggathagan - Wednesday, September 1, 2010 - link
Try not to be too much of an a$$hat.If you resist the urge to take that single sentence outside of the context of the whole paragraph, it's not too difficult to discern that Anand is referring to whether or not they received the chip directly from Intel as part of an Intel-sanctioned review.
MadMan007 - Wednesday, September 1, 2010 - link
Kind of a shame if only the 'K' CPUs will have the good graphics, and kind of ironic too. Most enthusiasts who get the K CPUs will have discrete cards too and won't even care about a 6 vs 12 EU IGP. Personally, I am almost fine with the Clarkdale IGP since I don't care about newer games much at all (btw Anand, when are you going to test older games running on IGPs, or perhaps give us an idea of what older GPU is equivalent to a modern IGP? We all know IGPs are too weak to provide good experiences at decent resolution/settings in newer games but there are loads of older games that are just as good) but the IGP speed of the SB would be welcomed. I just don't want to shell out for a K series CPU, was hoping to get the cheapest 4c/8t option with 12EU and oc it. Being somewhat 'forced' to buy the K CPUs doesn't sit well with me :/mino - Thursday, September 2, 2010 - link
I too would love HW sites to pay more attention to older games. Especially compatibility with Intel IGP drivers.Except flawless Diablo II, I had seen BSOD's, hard freezes, screen corruption and all other sorts of crap from latest Intel video drivers.
While it is be nice to have 10 FPS in current games and benchmarks, I do not care abou them on IGP. No one should.
ssj4Gogeta - Thursday, September 2, 2010 - link
Anand said in his article that overclocking will be very limited on the non-K variants.I just wish we had switchable graphics on desktop too, then the IGP in K-series chips would make sense.
Regenweald - Thursday, September 2, 2010 - link
I have no interest in intel integrated graphics on a desktop, but Sandy Bridge seems mightily impressive for a laptop, 12EU's that is. The bottom of the barrel has finally gotten to an acceptable height. I'm excited to see the SB and Llano form factors next year.ET - Thursday, September 2, 2010 - link
Thanks for the update. The IGP mostly matters on the laptop side, where a user can't add a discrete card and is stuck with what's available, so it's good that Intel is using the higher performing part there. I think that this performance level is a good baseline.Khato - Thursday, September 2, 2010 - link
Hopefully all the graphics performance questions revolving around Sandy Bridge will be answered then. Best of all would be if we also get to see what the turbo mode performance looks like on a GT2 part.