6 ms·

Intel's Ivy Bridge reviewed

47 points by mrsebastian 15y ago

rollypolly 15y ago
implements support for DirectX 11, OpenCL 1.1, and OpenGL 3.1. This should be a boon for game developers.
- angersock 15y ago
  Erm, is this real support, or just more cribbing from Mesa?
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  OpenGL 3.1? Isn't that like many years old?
K2h 15y ago
for my usage pattern, still no reason for me to move from the core 2 quad.
- luser001 15y ago
  care to elaborate? i have a core 2 quad, which i find more that enough even for some of my "serious" programming work.
  - K2h 15y ago
    At work I'm on I5 and I7 stuff and never use all that (I'm one of the few here on HN that isn't a programmer). At home, I was going to put in a 2600K at the last build but there was that whole chipset recall problem and I needed something in quick so I went back a generation and got the core2quad - 8 gig of ram. usage pattern is really office applications and a few specialized plot applications (Igor). after I added the SSD, and a newish video card the CPU is just not the problem. frankly.. there is no problem. so no incentive to upgrade. When I started using computers heavily in the 90's you were lucky to get a year out of a machine before it was just too slow to do the tasks you needed. For me, those days died when the P4 came out. Unless your super CPU bound like compiling - you just don't need it for basic office stuff.
eblume 15y ago
I guess I don't really understand why this is impressive - the GPU is still not good enough to handle modern gaming and apparently has some issues with media encoding as well (although I will admit that that section confused me somewhat), and it sounds like the CPU is just a modest upgrade in efficiency. I'm not saying it's bad, it looks like solid progress form Intel as we all continue to expect, but I don't get why this is considered 'tick+' when it seems less exciting to me than Nehalem.
- freehunter 15y ago
  Obviously it's not meant to be a high end gaming chip. Sandy Bridge was pretty excellent in The Sims 3 and Guild Wars, amongst others that I've tried. If Ivy Bridge is as better as the graphs show, there's a whole new category of games open to it. If you have a discrete video card already, this won't replace that and isn't meant to. If you are looking to buy a laptop and want to play The Sims while you're on the airplane, that's what this is meant for.
- w1ntermute 15y ago
  Yeah, the biggest thing for me is that Sandy Bridge prices will hopefully drop. That's why I've been waiting for Ivy Bridge, not anything else.
- ajross 15y ago
  Nehalem was a "tock", as was Sandy Bridge. Both rolled out lots of new features (integrated DRAM controller, QPI, hyperthreading, AVX, uop cache, etc...). So of course they were more "exciting" to a software person. Ivy Bridge is a "tick" (OK, "tick+") which means that it's fundamentally a die shrink of Sandy Bridge. It's rolling out lots of new stuff too, but it all has to do with how the 22nm Tri-Gate transistors are produced, the logic implemented is mostly the same. Compare this to Clarkdale/Arrandale, not Nehalem.
- batista 14y ago
  >I guess I don't really understand why this is impressive - the GPU is still not good enough to handle modern gaming Because the huge of majority of the population does not care about "modern gaming", but they do care about less costs and improved batter life with an integrated GPU and would like to see it offer better performance for apps where it's needed?
rwmj 15y ago
Was anyone else looking at those die photos and thinking that it'd be better to put 4 more cores in that space occupied by the GPU?
- freehunter 15y ago
  Throwing more cores at the problem isn't really terribly efficient, though. You don't see as much of a return as you might expect, especially when most things aren't properly multithreaded.
  - rwmj 15y ago
    Oh sure, I understand it's not in Intel's interests at all. But it would sure make my builds faster if I could default to 'make -j16' (hyperthreads). I guess I'm not the target audience here.
    - bunderbunder 15y ago
      I suppose it depends on the toolchain, but in my experience build time is mostly dominated by disk I/O nowadays. Even with my code stored on an SSD.
      - SamReidHughes 14y ago
        With C++ it is in my experience solidly CPU-bound, for example on 12 xeon cores, or 24 hyperthreading threads, and one 7200 RPM disk.
        freehunter 14y ago
        For any compiling work I need to do, I usually offload to my Linode install with 4 Xeons. Your mileage may vary, though.
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  Not really, allow me to explain. One of the challenges of GPU performance is getting the connection between the CPU and Memory correct. That is why for years and years you've had the 'special' video card slot which was optimized for that, and then the general purpose slots that didn't have the kinds of demands that video offered. So if I get back space for a 'regular' slot and can put the GPU inside, that is a win for me, even though I predominantly use them in servers which brings me to ... CUDA, or more accurately, running general purpose compute tasks on shader engines. Having the GPU there, even if I am not using it as a GPU, can provide some impressive benefits if I can program it to operate on in memory data in a fast parallel way. So in this regard it stops being a GPU and starts being a kind of funky but powerful co-processor. And of course the third thing is that keeping the power draw sane is important. Its a small chip and pulling a lot of heat out of it is very difficult. Additional cores, additional heat, higher operating temps (or more exotic cooling systems). One of the things that would be interesting (but won't happen on an Intel part any time soon) is if there were a bridge port so you could run dual-CPU and the GPUs could run in a crossfire/SLI mode where they each rendered every other line or something along those lines. Since I use dual cpu motherboards that would give me additional compute options that I don't have at the moment, but it won't happen at Intel because it would disrupt the market positioning of Ivy Bridge.
cdrxndr 15y ago
Agreed this report comes across a bit underwhelming, but the integrated GPU boost is really what I've been waiting for. And it's more power efficient to boot. I don't play games, but I do have a crazy-big monitor and want a bit more oomph drive the display before I get a notebook without a dedicated graphics card. Still waiting on the dual core ...
Historiopode 15y ago
A very interesting feature of the Ivy Bridge architecture is a new digital random number generator code-named Bull Mountain, which uses teetering as an integral part of its workings. [1] While consumer-oriented reviews rightfully ignore such things, I reckon that the HN crowd would be pleased to know more about such a nifty hardware solution. [1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/behind-intels-new-randomnumber-generator/0 http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/behind-intels-ne...
- aiscott 15y ago
  Teetering must be the marketing term they chose... the phenomenon in play has been known as metastability for as long as I've been a digital designer. And generally speaking, it's something you want to avoid in your designs, not only because of the unpredictability of the final output (whether it resolves to a 1 or 0), but also because of the uncertainty in how long it will take to resolve. But it seems perfect for generating randomness. Neat idea. The real trick here is that it's only theoretically unpredictable. In real life, due to "imperfections" in fabrication, the inverters will be biased to resolve one way more frequently. So you might end up with a 60/40 split, for example. I see they do address this in the article, and have added some "conditioning" to eliminate the bias... I bet it's described in a patent somewhere.
  - callan 15y ago
    Also, there is a bit set after executing RDRAND that tells you if you got a 'good' random number.
    - Natsu 15y ago
      Does anyone else feel like that's the sort of thing that will become part of a vulnerability someday?
      - batista 14y ago
        No. It's used as a measure to NOT become part of a vulnerability someday, i.e so the system recheck and ask for another random number.
comex 15y ago
This is the first time I've heard of Quick Sync. Sounds useful. It's only supported on Windows, with a proprietary SDK. No documentation. Yay...
- ajross 15y ago
  "Quick Sync" is a marketing term for the hardware video codec on the die, and a software suite built around it. The Intel software is windows-only, but I'm pretty sure the codec is documented. At least it has a section in the big SNB graphics docs dump they did a while back. But AFAIK there are no free drivers written to it.

47 points by mrsebastian 15y ago

rollypolly 15y ago

implements support for DirectX 11, OpenCL 1.1, and OpenGL 3.1. This should be a boon for game developers.

angersock 15y ago
Erm, is this real support, or just more cribbing from Mesa?
nextparadigms 15y ago
OpenGL 3.1? Isn't that like many years old?

K2h 15y ago

for my usage pattern, still no reason for me to move from the core 2 quad.

luser001 15y ago
care to elaborate? i have a core 2 quad, which i find more that enough even for some of my "serious" programming work.
- K2h 15y ago
  At work I'm on I5 and I7 stuff and never use all that (I'm one of the few here on HN that isn't a programmer). At home, I was going to put in a 2600K at the last build but there was that whole chipset recall problem and I needed something in quick so I went back a generation and got the core2quad - 8 gig of ram. usage pattern is really office applications and a few specialized plot applications (Igor). after I added the SSD, and a newish video card the CPU is just not the problem. frankly.. there is no problem. so no incentive to upgrade. When I started using computers heavily in the 90's you were lucky to get a year out of a machine before it was just too slow to do the tasks you needed. For me, those days died when the P4 came out. Unless your super CPU bound like compiling - you just don't need it for basic office stuff.

eblume 15y ago

I guess I don't really understand why this is impressive - the GPU is still not good enough to handle modern gaming and apparently has some issues with media encoding as well (although I will admit that that section confused me somewhat), and it sounds like the CPU is just a modest upgrade in efficiency. I'm not saying it's bad, it looks like solid progress form Intel as we all continue to expect, but I don't get why this is considered 'tick+' when it seems less exciting to me than Nehalem.

freehunter 15y ago
Obviously it's not meant to be a high end gaming chip. Sandy Bridge was pretty excellent in The Sims 3 and Guild Wars, amongst others that I've tried. If Ivy Bridge is as better as the graphs show, there's a whole new category of games open to it. If you have a discrete video card already, this won't replace that and isn't meant to. If you are looking to buy a laptop and want to play The Sims while you're on the airplane, that's what this is meant for.
w1ntermute 15y ago
Yeah, the biggest thing for me is that Sandy Bridge prices will hopefully drop. That's why I've been waiting for Ivy Bridge, not anything else.
ajross 15y ago
Nehalem was a "tock", as was Sandy Bridge. Both rolled out lots of new features (integrated DRAM controller, QPI, hyperthreading, AVX, uop cache, etc...). So of course they were more "exciting" to a software person. Ivy Bridge is a "tick" (OK, "tick+") which means that it's fundamentally a die shrink of Sandy Bridge. It's rolling out lots of new stuff too, but it all has to do with how the 22nm Tri-Gate transistors are produced, the logic implemented is mostly the same. Compare this to Clarkdale/Arrandale, not Nehalem.
batista 14y ago
>I guess I don't really understand why this is impressive - the GPU is still not good enough to handle modern gaming Because the huge of majority of the population does not care about "modern gaming", but they do care about less costs and improved batter life with an integrated GPU and would like to see it offer better performance for apps where it's needed?

rwmj 15y ago

Was anyone else looking at those die photos and thinking that it'd be better to put 4 more cores in that space occupied by the GPU?

freehunter 15y ago
Throwing more cores at the problem isn't really terribly efficient, though. You don't see as much of a return as you might expect, especially when most things aren't properly multithreaded.
- rwmj 15y ago
  Oh sure, I understand it's not in Intel's interests at all. But it would sure make my builds faster if I could default to 'make -j16' (hyperthreads). I guess I'm not the target audience here.
  - bunderbunder 15y ago
    I suppose it depends on the toolchain, but in my experience build time is mostly dominated by disk I/O nowadays. Even with my code stored on an SSD.
    - SamReidHughes 14y ago
      With C++ it is in my experience solidly CPU-bound, for example on 12 xeon cores, or 24 hyperthreading threads, and one 7200 RPM disk.
      - freehunter 14y ago
        For any compiling work I need to do, I usually offload to my Linode install with 4 Xeons. Your mileage may vary, though.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
Not really, allow me to explain. One of the challenges of GPU performance is getting the connection between the CPU and Memory correct. That is why for years and years you've had the 'special' video card slot which was optimized for that, and then the general purpose slots that didn't have the kinds of demands that video offered. So if I get back space for a 'regular' slot and can put the GPU inside, that is a win for me, even though I predominantly use them in servers which brings me to ... CUDA, or more accurately, running general purpose compute tasks on shader engines. Having the GPU there, even if I am not using it as a GPU, can provide some impressive benefits if I can program it to operate on in memory data in a fast parallel way. So in this regard it stops being a GPU and starts being a kind of funky but powerful co-processor. And of course the third thing is that keeping the power draw sane is important. Its a small chip and pulling a lot of heat out of it is very difficult. Additional cores, additional heat, higher operating temps (or more exotic cooling systems). One of the things that would be interesting (but won't happen on an Intel part any time soon) is if there were a bridge port so you could run dual-CPU and the GPUs could run in a crossfire/SLI mode where they each rendered every other line or something along those lines. Since I use dual cpu motherboards that would give me additional compute options that I don't have at the moment, but it won't happen at Intel because it would disrupt the market positioning of Ivy Bridge.

cdrxndr 15y ago

Agreed this report comes across a bit underwhelming, but the integrated GPU boost is really what I've been waiting for. And it's more power efficient to boot. I don't play games, but I do have a crazy-big monitor and want a bit more oomph drive the display before I get a notebook without a dedicated graphics card. Still waiting on the dual core ...

Historiopode 15y ago

A very interesting feature of the Ivy Bridge architecture is a new digital random number generator code-named Bull Mountain, which uses teetering as an integral part of its workings. [1] While consumer-oriented reviews rightfully ignore such things, I reckon that the HN crowd would be pleased to know more about such a nifty hardware solution. [1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/behind-intels-new-randomnumber-generator/0 http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/behind-intels-ne...

aiscott 15y ago
Teetering must be the marketing term they chose... the phenomenon in play has been known as metastability for as long as I've been a digital designer. And generally speaking, it's something you want to avoid in your designs, not only because of the unpredictability of the final output (whether it resolves to a 1 or 0), but also because of the uncertainty in how long it will take to resolve. But it seems perfect for generating randomness. Neat idea. The real trick here is that it's only theoretically unpredictable. In real life, due to "imperfections" in fabrication, the inverters will be biased to resolve one way more frequently. So you might end up with a 60/40 split, for example. I see they do address this in the article, and have added some "conditioning" to eliminate the bias... I bet it's described in a patent somewhere.
- callan 15y ago
  Also, there is a bit set after executing RDRAND that tells you if you got a 'good' random number.
  - Natsu 15y ago
    Does anyone else feel like that's the sort of thing that will become part of a vulnerability someday?
    - batista 14y ago
      No. It's used as a measure to NOT become part of a vulnerability someday, i.e so the system recheck and ask for another random number.

comex 15y ago

This is the first time I've heard of Quick Sync. Sounds useful. It's only supported on Windows, with a proprietary SDK. No documentation. Yay...

ajross 15y ago
"Quick Sync" is a marketing term for the hardware video codec on the die, and a software suite built around it. The Intel software is windows-only, but I'm pretty sure the codec is documented. At least it has a section in the big SNB graphics docs dump they did a while back. But AFAIK there are no free drivers written to it.