Fall IDF Speculations

[ltcommander_data]

Well, the Fall IDF is scheduled to begin September 26 so I'm hoping to get an idea of what people think we should expect.

It'll obviously be all about Kentsfield and Cloverton. Hopefully, they'll present more data on Tigerton and it's new quad FSB platform. Confirmation on whether Cloverton will have 1333MHz FSB models would also be nice. I doubt we'll see any Nehalem details, but we may see a 45nm demo. Probably Wolfsdale or Penryn. They probably won't let anyone touch it, just have it run PPT presentations like what they did to Kentsfield when Conroe had the official limelight.

ATI also mentions IDF on their home page as if to say they're still in the game. We'll probably see RD600, RS600, RC600, RV560, and RV570 demos as well as R600 details. Probably no product launches since they'll want their own event, but it'll be close enough. Some details on Mobility Radeon refreshes would also be nice like the MR X1450 and the MR X1700.

Since there is movement toward getting formal Crossfire support for the 965 chipsets we may see a more definitive announcement in that direction. Supposedly, Catalyst 10 betas already have Crossfire support enabled for 965 chipsets.

nVidia is supposed to have a nForce 590 refresh for Kentsfield to improve overclocking so we'll probably also see details at IDF. Hopefully some G80 details too.

I'm hoping to get some product launches too like new ASUS notebook Core 2 Duo refreshes. It'd also be nice for Apple to announce a Merom refresh for the Macbook Pro at IDF too. It doesn't really require it's own MacWorld or dedicated event being only a refresh and doing it at IDF will definitely be a welcome into the Intel familiy so to speak.

So what are you looking for?

 

[joset]

So what are you looking for?

Well, some insights on 'new' technologies would be interesting, such as the Silicon Hybrid Laser chip (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4200) and, in particular, development in an on-package CMOS voltage regulator (demoed at IDF 2005: http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2511)...


Cheers!

 

[Legenic]

apparently they're going to be talking about santa rosa and mobile as well as quad core.

This year, Intel is expected to focus much of the product briefings on the upcoming mobile Santa Rosa chipset platform for the Core 2 Duo T5000/T7000 series as well as the first quad-core processors Core 2 Extreme QX6700 ("Kentsfield", desktop) and Xeon 3200 ("Clovertown", 2P server)...

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/09/20/amd_skips_idf/

 

[will14]

RD600 was that the code for the new ati DX10 card or the chipset for core 2 that allowed OCing well past 500 mhz?
I believe it was the ATI chipset which OMGWTF pwned.
I hope DFI or whoever release one so I can pick it up.
I remember how Intel pushed Mobo manufacturers to not use it.

Too much info too poorly catalogued in my mind.

 

[ltcommander_data]

Too additional IDF announcements are going to be about CSI and nVidia's Physics platform.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/09/21/asus_spills_nvidia_beans/

There is a new ASUS board coming out and this one has 3 PCIe x16 connectors like ATI's RD600. This is bad news for ATI since their constant delays means that nVidia may actually beat them to the triple connectivity punch. 2 are for Quad SLI and the third will be a nVidia physics card. Whether this card is simply a regular graphics card or a new dedicated physics chip/card is yet to be seen. Note that if the physics connector is just a regular graphics card then AMD's 4x4 (quad core/quad SLI) will be beaten to market by this 4x6 (quad core/hexa SLI from 3 7950GX2s).

http://www.theregister.com/2006/09/21/intel_open_chips/

In other news, Intel is going to be making additional CSI announcements including opening up the standard for co-processor development. However, while CSI will show up in Itanium chips in 2008 it won't be in regular Xeons until 2009. This means that a desktop introduction is probably even latter, probably part of the 2010 architecture. The question is with CSI and probably IMCs for Xeon in 2009, that would appear to be a separate architecture in itself so does the 2008 Gesher include it? Or perhaps Gesher is a desktop/mobile architecture and servers will be getting their own.

The other development avenue for co-processors is 2nd generation PCIe which Intel will probably also be talking more about. PCIe is obviously already very open to develepment and the 2nd generation version will probably make it more competitive with HT and CSI in terms of latency improvements. Certainly, an integrated 2nd generation PCIe controller would be very helpful, and will enable desktop and mobile processors to take part in the co-processor craze even if they don't have CSI.