Official Sandy Bridge / LGA1155 for HTPCs Thread - Page 69

Well, I can't wait for the Intel Atom to hit 22nm with tri-gate transistors. Reports say it could have 1 mW of idle power. 1 milliwatt? That is insane.

Intel Desktop Platform Roadmap 2011 WW46 - 2012 WW03 (a 128 page, 13.21 MB pdf file)

3rd Gen Intel Core Processor Family Feature Chart (page 20)

Core i7-3770 (IVB) compared to Core i7-2600 (SNB) (page 26, 28, 29)

So how good is Intel HD Graphics 4000 for madVR?

In 3DMarkVange, Intel HD Graphics 2000 is compared to 4000. Intel HD Graphics 3000 (integrated in 2600K) should be twice better than 2000. So Intel HD Graphics 4000 may be 1.2-1.5 times better than Intel HD Graphics 3000, that should be fast enough for madVR High Quality settings: SoftCubic (softness: 100)/Lanczos (4 taps)/Lanczos (4 taps) based on my measurements.

Intel's Official Ivy Bridge Benchmark Slides Leaked

BTW all these leaked slides on the Internet come from the single source: Intel Desktop Platform Roadmap 2011 WW46 - 2012 WW03 (a 128 page, 13.21 MB pdf file).

A 17% increase in the CPU tests. Really worth it?

Personally, no. The only reason to upgrade to IVB is the improved iGPU, in particular

- Refresh rate closer to 23.976Hz (no information on how close it is yet)
- More EUs (12 EUs vs 16 EUs means 33% increase; in fact 20-50% performance increase is expected in Intel HD Graphics 4000 over 3000 as shown in the slide)

To me its going to depend on pricing, i build around a 2500K saving $100 for an ivy bridge upgrade, to me its a little more than 17% and hyperthreading going from i5 2500K to i7 3770K, but i might just skip it if the prices are too high.

I have a 2600k in my main PC right now, and upgrading that to IVB is rather unlikely.

However my HTPC skipped the SNB generation, still using some old AMD quad core, so it will surely get a IVB refresh.

Can't wait for IVB. I am waiting on those to build my ultimate HTPC/server .

If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It definitely is in this case. The 22nm Atoms will be low power, remarkably low power compared to desktops, but not as low as 1 milliwatt. And there is some ambiguity as to what "idle" means. Idle like what your cellphone is doing when it is in your pocket, or idle like a PC that is displaying your desktop at 1080p while you read a webpage -- there is a big difference as to which blocks can be "power gated" and turned on/off as needed.

Has anybody tried graphics drivers 2259 yet?

Well, If you're talking about just the CPU the lowest Watt Max TDP Intel Atom CPU currently is the Z500 at 0.65 W. I know TDP doesn't mean much in real world terms but with those low figures I think it would be pretty close with just the CPU alone so it isn't exactly impossible in a couple of years. We'll see what the CPU alone idle power is in a couple of years. When I read "Idle" I just think the lowest voltage threshold state of the CPU to stay powered on and do nothing but of course it differs if you're testing it while powering on, in BIOS, or in the OS doing nothing.

Mobile Ivy Bridge Specs leaked



Core i7 3920XM - 4/8 - 2.90GHz - 3.6GHz turbo boost - Intel 4000 GPU - 55W TDP
Core i7 3820QM - 4/8 - 2.70GHz - 3.50GHz turbo boost - Intel 4000 GPU - 45W TDP
Core i7 3720QM - 4/8 - 2.60GHz - 3.40GHz turbo boost - Intel 4000 GPU - 45W TDP
Core i7 3520M - 2/4 - 2.90GHz - 3.40GHz turbo boost - Intel 4000 GPU - 35W TDP

Core i5 3360M - 2/4 - 2.80GHz - 3.30GHz turbo boost - Intel 4000 GPU - 35W TDP
Core i5 3320M - 2/4 - 2.60GHz - 3.10GHz turbo boost - Intel 4000 GPU - 35W TDP

So basically all of them will come out with the best iGPU.

Is there an ivy bridge equivalent of this thread?

Great info here

Not yet because Ivy is not out yet.

There probably will be closer to the actual launch date and when IVY is actually available...

Until it hits the streets and bench marked most of this is just gossip..

I'm sure there are engineering samples of IVB out there, and some people know exactly what it is capable of, but they are probably under an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) to not tell the rest of the world what it can do. NDAs are a common practice in the industry, and are a legally binding contract, but that doesn't stop everybody. The first page of that presentation is "NDA Desktop Platform Roadmap", so somebody thinks they can get away with leaking it.

I think everyone knows it's about 17% faster than it's Sandy bridge counterpart without using any more power....

This has been reported 200,000,000 times so far- originally released by Intel and re-released and published by every PC site out there...

Protypes and 1-off's, or review sample "ringer's" are not considered "actual".

Most enthusiasts wait for a retail purchased sample to be bench marked by a reputable site before a final conclusion is drawn.

That said- Expect it to be about 17% better then Sandy-E

It's looking to me like: Update your GPU(s) every other cycle, update your CPU(s) every three cycles. (i7, SB, Ivy)

How are Intel's graphic drivers compared to nvidia and amd?

Probably more stable than both put together. Not a single problem ever with any Intel driver.

I wouldn't say that.. I didn't have NVIDIA drivers cause BSODs yet, but Intel does that quite frequently. It all depends on your system make up, your BIOS version, etc etc.

In general they work fine, except if they don't.

There is something seriously not right with the new Intel driver. I"ve run into these issues:

(1) Watch something DTS-HD/etc. switch to LiveTV... lose all audio, you have to close media center/restart to get it back..

(2) Aero is now dead. Just non-functional.

(3) Issue with performance, which seems to be in the toilet.

This is with .2559

Rolled back and all problems fixed. *shrug* Anyone else experience similar, or is there something newer out there?

They may not manifest in time for Christmas, but price drops for Intel's Sandy Bridge processors are reportedly on the horizon. Word on the Web is that Intel has already given its hardware partners a heads up on plans to reduce Sandy Bridge CPU prices, and that some Core i3 and i5 processor price cuts will run as deep as 10-15 percent.

DigiTimes claims Intel is hoping the price reduction will spur market demand between now and the time Ivy Bridge comes out, which is set to debut in April 2012. It's unclear whether standalone processors will see a discount, but it's at least looking like there will be lower priced notebooks as a result.

First generation Ultrabook models sporting Core i5 processors are also expected to drop in price and settle in at around $800 to $900 starting in January 2012. The idea is to clear existing inventory in preparation for newer, faster Ultrabooks

got a i3 2100 running lav decoder 0.42 default settings

video using intel with latest driver

video seems to skip from time to time

system has 4gb win 7 pro 64 bit



any suggestions?

Forget about price cuts. Some Sandybridge CPUs are being discontinued too. There are just too many CPUs at too many price points plus I think the future of the integration of the gpu with the cpu into one chip and lower power consumption is going to change the dynamic of what desktop or htpc you want.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5216/i...e-desktop-cpus

This is true. You can save money and not get a video card, while saving energy.

The Intel QuickSync decoder is now "officially" part of LAV video decoder.

Each EUs are 2x as powerful though: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4830/i...ture-exposed/5

"Ivy Bridge can do twice as many MADs per clock. As a result, a single Ivy Bridge EU gets close to twice the IPC of a Sandy Bridge EU - in other words, you're looking at nearly 2x the GFLOPS in shader bound operations as Sandy Bridge per EU."

Of course 2x in Flops never turns out to be 2x in performance.

It depends on whether you are talking on a chip-level, core-level or the entire system.

Smartphones that are in standby use 15-30mW. The CPU core might be single digit miliwatt though.

In desktops, some systems use way more than that even with the system entirely off. So I don't think you'll ever see a desktop that low.

Has anyone compared the image quality of progressive video content using lav splitter/video/audio as the software decoder and madvr as the renderer on sandybridge, latest nvidia video card, and the latest amd/ati video card?

Somehow I feel Sandybridge's EUs aren't up to par for rendering purposes.