Intel's Haswell Architecture Analyzed: Building a New PC and a New Intel
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 5, 2012 2:45 AM ESTHaswell's GPU
Although Intel provided a good amount of detail on the CPU enhancements to Haswell, the graphics discussion at IDF was fairly limited. That being said, there's still some to talk about here.
Haswell builds on the same fundamental GPU architecture we saw in Ivy Bridge. We won't see a dramatic redesign/re-plumbing of the graphics hardware until Broadwell in 2014 (that one is going to be a big one).
Haswell's GPU will be available in three physical configurations: GT1, GT2 and GT3. Although Intel mentioned that the Haswell GT3 config would have twice the shader count of Haswell GT2, it was careful not to disclose the total number of EUs in any of the versions. Based on the information we have at this point, GT3 should be a 40 EU configuration while GT2 should feature 20 EUs. Intel will also be including up to one redundant EU to deal with the case where there's a defect in an EU in the array. This isn't an uncommon practice, but it does indicate just how much of the die will be dedicated to graphics in Haswell. The larger of an area the GPU covers, the greater the likelihood that you'll see unrecoverable defects in the GPU. Redundancy at the EU level is one way of mitigating that problem.
Haswell's processor graphics extends API support to DirectX 11.1, OpenCL 1.2 and OpenGL 4.0.
At the front of the graphics pipeline is a new resource streamer. The RS offloads some driver work that the CPU would normally handle and moves it to GPU hardware instead. Both AMD and NVIDIA have significant command processors so this doesn't appear to be an Intel advantage although the devil is in the (unshared) details. The point from Intel's perspective is that any amount of processing it can shift away from general purpose CPU hardware and onto the GPU can save power (CPU cores go to sleep while the RS/CS do their job).
Beyond the resource streamer, most of the fixed function graphics hardware sees a doubling of performance in Haswell.
At the shader core level, Intel separates the GPU design into two sections: slice common and sub-slice. Slice common includes the rasterizer, pixel back end and GPU L3 cache. The sub-slice includes all of the EUs, instruction caches and EUs.
In Haswell GT1 and GT2 there's a single slice common, while GT3 sees a doubling of slice common. GT3 similarly has two sub-slices, although once again Intel isn't talking specifics about EU counts or clock speeds between GT1/2/3.
The final bit of detail Intel gave out about Haswell's GPU is the texture sampler sees up to a 4x improvement in throughput over Ivy Bridge in some modes.
Now to the things that Intel didn't let loose at IDF. Although originally an option for Ivy Bridge (but higher ups at Intel killed plans for it) was a GT3 part with some form of embedded DRAM. Rumor has it that Apple was the only customer who really demanded it at the time, and Intel wasn't willing to build a SKU just for Apple.
Haswell will do what Ivy Bridge didn't. You'll see a version of Haswell with up to 128MB of embedded DRAM, with a lot of bandwidth available between it and the core. Both the CPU and GPU will be able to access this embedded DRAM, although there are obvious implications for graphics.
Overall performance gains should be about 2x for GT3 (presumably with eDRAM) over HD 4000 in a high TDP part. In Ultrabooks those gains will be limited to around 30% max given the strict power limits.
As for why Intel isn't talking about embedded DRAM on Haswell, your guess is as good as mine. The likely release timeframe for Haswell is close to June 2013, there's still tons of time between now and then. It looks like Intel still has a desire to remain quiet on some fronts.
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Kepe - Friday, October 5, 2012 - link
Let's see. I think we can agree that the Samsung Galaxy S III was the most important Android phone launch of the summer, so it should get comparable treatment if Anandtech was completely neutral. Let's compare the articles about the SGS III vs. iPhone 5Doing a search on anandtech.com gives us 8 articles/news posts about the SGS III vs. 13 articles/news posts about the iPhone 5.
SGS 3:
Five news stories about product announcements
Performance Preview article
Preview article
Review article
iPhone 5:
Why iPhone 5 isn't launched in 2011 article
Analyzing rumours about iPhone 5 article
New SoC in iPhone 5 article
iPhone 5 Live Blog from the product launch seremony
Three news stories about new features and product announcements
iPhone 5 Hands On article
Lack of simultaneous voice and LTE/EVDO article
Analyzing Geekbench results article
Sunspider Performance Analysis article
Performance Preview article
iPhone 5 Display Thoroughly Analyzed article
+ The upcoming iPhone 5 Review article
+ articles such as "iOS6 Maps Thoroughly Investigated"
Look at the difference. It's quite clear which device gets more coverage. And it's the same thing for older iPhones. Articles such as "Camping out for the new iPhone 3GS".
This is NOT equal treatment of all products. This is why my trust for Anandtech has started to slip. Yes, Anandtech still is the best place for reviews, but one really has to wonder if those reviews still are as neutral and objective as they used to be.
vFunct - Saturday, October 6, 2012 - link
It's an android device. Android devices do not matter. Everyone uses iPhones anyways, They are better. Apple makes better products, including laptops.No need to waste space on Android.
Haugenshero - Saturday, October 6, 2012 - link
Please take your pointless apple fanboy drivel to another site that doesn't care about actual hardware and software and just like shiny things.cjl - Saturday, October 6, 2012 - link
Apple's (iOS) current sales are only 20% of the overall smartphone market share, while Android is over 60%, so if either one of the two is largely irrelevant, it's apple.HisDivineOrder - Sunday, October 7, 2012 - link
Shhhh, icks-nay on the facts-nay.You might cause a fanboy's head to explode near one of those inconveniently placed explosive barrels we walk by in real life.
Just imagine a chain reaction. Caused by an Apple fan's mind being blown. You might take out an entire city block.
Do you want that kind of devastation on your karma? Think different. ;)
vFunct - Sunday, October 7, 2012 - link
The Android market is the cheap giveaways.No one willingly pays money for an Android phone.
Not everyone can afford the premium quality of an Apple product. They will have to settle for an inferior Android devices instead until they can afford higher quality products.
Kepe - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Nice trolling there. Now go back under the bridge and stay there =)Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
"Not everyone can afford the premium quality of an Apple product. They will have to settle for an inferior Android devices instead until they can afford higher quality products."Ha ha ha! Well done, if you're screwing around.
But seriously, if you actually believe that, seek psychiatric help. :-P
Spunjji - Thursday, October 18, 2012 - link
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahasolipsism - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
And how many of the 20% is on one phone? Let me know when you figure out how to cover every single Androd-based device that hits the market in a given year.