Kougar
06-06-2006, 08:27 AM
Some very, very interesting excerpts from Anandtech's article for the first day of Computex. I stuck in a few comments in {}'s, but I'd just suggest reading the full Anandtech article as this post is getting incredibly long ;)
DirectX 10 GPUs to Consume up to 300W
ATI and NVIDIA have been briefing power supply manufacturers in Taiwan recently about what to expect for next year’s R600 and G80 GPUs. Both GPUs will be introduced in late 2006 or early 2007, and while we don’t know the specifications of the new cores we do know that they will be extremely power hungry. The new GPUs will range in power consumption from 130W up to 300W per card. ATI and NVIDIA won't confirm or deny our findings and we are receiving conflicting information as to the exact specifications of these new GPUs, but the one thing is for sure is that the power requirements are steep.
Power supply makers are being briefed now in order to make sure that the power supplies they are shipping by the end of this year are up to par with the high end GPU requirements for late 2006/early 2007. You will see both higher wattage PSUs (1000 - 1200W) as well as secondary units specifically for graphics cards. One configuration we’ve seen is a standard PSU mounted in your case for your motherboard, CPU and drives, running alongside a secondary PSU installed in a 5.25” drive bay. The secondary PSU would then be used to power your graphics cards.
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/2006/computex/day1/Small/PICT0239.jpg
Conroe Motherboards Arrive:
Much to our surprise, ATI recently informed all of the motherboard manufacturers that CrossFire is currently not supported on 965 (Broadwater) platforms. Apparently the chipset lacks support for peer to peer writes, which are necessary for CrossFire to function. ATI is investigating if a workaround is possible but for now the only option for CrossFire on an Intel chipset with Conroe support is using the 975X platform. {Or RD600 chipset boards}
We have also heard rumors of Intel working on a revised version of the 965 chipset with support for two PCI Express x8 slots, instead of the current x16 + x4 configuration. A 965 revision with balanced PCIe slots would make the job of running a multi-GPU configuration much easier, although the imbalance in PCIe lanes is not the reason why CrossFire currently doesn't work on the 965 as mentioned above.
While Conroe is the talk of the town, a few motherboard manufacturers have already received Kentsfield samples from Intel. Kentsfield is a quad-core version of Conroe, still for the desktop market, due out in the first quarter of next year. The motherboard makers that are fortunate enough to have Kentsfield have already confirmed that it is up and running on current P965 and 975X platforms.
Interestingly enough, despite AMD's recent announcement of its new 4x4 platform none of the motherboard manufacturers we spoke to had heard of it, much less had a design ready to go. We definitely got the impression that 4x4 was a last minute effort to compete with Conroe on the high end.
Memory Market:
The breakdown of DDR2 shipments is particularly interesting, with the majority of modules still being DDR2-533. Now that the price difference between DDR2-533 and DDR2-667 has gone down tremendously, we will see the balance shift more towards the latter.
Unfortunately DDR2-800 is still extremely expensive compared to DDR2-667, because of extremely poor yields. One source told us that DDR2-800 was yielding far below 50%, resulting in anywhere from a 30% to 100% premium over DDR2-667. Everyone expects the yields on DDR2-800 to increase tremendously later this year, which will help drive DDR2-800 prices down as well as increase the number of low latency or higher bandwidth DDR2-800 parts.
Samsung has been talking to its partners about the move to DDR3; by the end of this year Samsung is supposed to be sampling DDR3 modules, but the memory makers we spoke to believe that the schedule is too aggressive.
Currently on Samsung’s roadmaps we’ve got DDR3-800, 1066 and 1333, but things could very well change by the time DDR3 actually makes its introduction on the desktop. The memory makers we spoke to expect to see the beginning of a transition to DDR3 by the end of 2007 at the earliest, which seems plausible. {Hmm, wasn't this about the time AMD planned to offer some CPUs with DDR3 for the high-end enthusiast? ;) }
BenQ: Status of SATA Optical Drives:
We talked at great length with BenQ about the current lack of Serial ATA optical drives. While SATA optical drives don’t offer any real performance advantage over PATA drives, there are other factors that are driving our demand for and interest in the units. Intel’s new I/O Controller Hub used in the 965 (Broadwater) chipsets, ICH8, doesn’t natively support any PATA ports; motherboard manufacturers have to resort to a 3rd party controller to offer one PATA port. It’s clear that Intel wants to be rid of PATA, and with 6 - 8 SATA ports on new motherboards these days the time to transition entirely to SATA is now. {I've already seen some 965P motherboards with 10 full SATA ports, and one IDE slot :shock: }
Unfortunately, as BenQ tells us, the same desire to transition to SATA doesn’t exist with the Tier 1 OEMs that are building systems using these optical drives. Apparently there are still a number of compatibility issues with the default Windows driver and many SATA optical drives, which has made the big OEMs wary of moving away from tried and true PATA drives. With very little OEM pressure to transition to SATA optical drives, manufacturers like BenQ have no reason to push for a quicker move to SATA.
BenQ said to expect less than 5% of its drive shipments by the end of this year to be SATA; by the middle of next year that number will thankfully grow to 25%.
Gigabyte's Conroe Motherboard:
Gigabyte outfitted its P965 motherboard with a 12-phase power design, designed to support Kentsfield. This board has already been tested to work with Kentsfield, although Gigabyte's competitors insist that a 12-phase power design is not necessary for Kentsfield. {Holy mosfets, Batman! :shock:}
You'll notice that all of the capacitors on the motherboard are similar to those around the CPU in that they are not standard electrolytic capacitors filled with liquid. All of the capacitors used on the Gigabyte board use a solid chemical compound designed to better withstand higher temperatures, thus preventing leaking or other capacitor related failures. The more expensive capactiors raise the price of the motherboard by a healhty $20. Gigabyte still only offers a 3-year warranty on this board, despite the technically more reliable capacitors.
{Much better photos available here, instead of the Anandtech ones: } http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2692 (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2692)
Albatron Offers mini-ITX Athlon 64 Motherboard:
The highlight of our meeting with Albatron was most definitely its mini-ITX Socket-754 Athlon 64 motherboard based on the nForce 6150 chipset: {Linky, as it's a tiny motherboard but huge images}
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/2006/computex/day1/PICT0192.jpg (http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/2006/computex/day1/PICT0192.jpg)
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/2006/computex/day1/PICT0193.jpg (http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/2006/computex/day1/PICT0193.jpg)
Albatron says that a Socket-AM2 version is in the works and should be out by the end of this year. Coupled with an Energy Efficient Small Form Factor Athlon 64 or X2 processor, the Socket-AM2 version of this motherboard should be a very attractive option for a HTPC among other things.
Final Words:
We've got a lot more coming tomorrow, so check back later for even more from Taiwan. You may just be treated to a bit of a surprise.
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2770 (http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2770) :paw:
DirectX 10 GPUs to Consume up to 300W
ATI and NVIDIA have been briefing power supply manufacturers in Taiwan recently about what to expect for next year’s R600 and G80 GPUs. Both GPUs will be introduced in late 2006 or early 2007, and while we don’t know the specifications of the new cores we do know that they will be extremely power hungry. The new GPUs will range in power consumption from 130W up to 300W per card. ATI and NVIDIA won't confirm or deny our findings and we are receiving conflicting information as to the exact specifications of these new GPUs, but the one thing is for sure is that the power requirements are steep.
Power supply makers are being briefed now in order to make sure that the power supplies they are shipping by the end of this year are up to par with the high end GPU requirements for late 2006/early 2007. You will see both higher wattage PSUs (1000 - 1200W) as well as secondary units specifically for graphics cards. One configuration we’ve seen is a standard PSU mounted in your case for your motherboard, CPU and drives, running alongside a secondary PSU installed in a 5.25” drive bay. The secondary PSU would then be used to power your graphics cards.
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/2006/computex/day1/Small/PICT0239.jpg
Conroe Motherboards Arrive:
Much to our surprise, ATI recently informed all of the motherboard manufacturers that CrossFire is currently not supported on 965 (Broadwater) platforms. Apparently the chipset lacks support for peer to peer writes, which are necessary for CrossFire to function. ATI is investigating if a workaround is possible but for now the only option for CrossFire on an Intel chipset with Conroe support is using the 975X platform. {Or RD600 chipset boards}
We have also heard rumors of Intel working on a revised version of the 965 chipset with support for two PCI Express x8 slots, instead of the current x16 + x4 configuration. A 965 revision with balanced PCIe slots would make the job of running a multi-GPU configuration much easier, although the imbalance in PCIe lanes is not the reason why CrossFire currently doesn't work on the 965 as mentioned above.
While Conroe is the talk of the town, a few motherboard manufacturers have already received Kentsfield samples from Intel. Kentsfield is a quad-core version of Conroe, still for the desktop market, due out in the first quarter of next year. The motherboard makers that are fortunate enough to have Kentsfield have already confirmed that it is up and running on current P965 and 975X platforms.
Interestingly enough, despite AMD's recent announcement of its new 4x4 platform none of the motherboard manufacturers we spoke to had heard of it, much less had a design ready to go. We definitely got the impression that 4x4 was a last minute effort to compete with Conroe on the high end.
Memory Market:
The breakdown of DDR2 shipments is particularly interesting, with the majority of modules still being DDR2-533. Now that the price difference between DDR2-533 and DDR2-667 has gone down tremendously, we will see the balance shift more towards the latter.
Unfortunately DDR2-800 is still extremely expensive compared to DDR2-667, because of extremely poor yields. One source told us that DDR2-800 was yielding far below 50%, resulting in anywhere from a 30% to 100% premium over DDR2-667. Everyone expects the yields on DDR2-800 to increase tremendously later this year, which will help drive DDR2-800 prices down as well as increase the number of low latency or higher bandwidth DDR2-800 parts.
Samsung has been talking to its partners about the move to DDR3; by the end of this year Samsung is supposed to be sampling DDR3 modules, but the memory makers we spoke to believe that the schedule is too aggressive.
Currently on Samsung’s roadmaps we’ve got DDR3-800, 1066 and 1333, but things could very well change by the time DDR3 actually makes its introduction on the desktop. The memory makers we spoke to expect to see the beginning of a transition to DDR3 by the end of 2007 at the earliest, which seems plausible. {Hmm, wasn't this about the time AMD planned to offer some CPUs with DDR3 for the high-end enthusiast? ;) }
BenQ: Status of SATA Optical Drives:
We talked at great length with BenQ about the current lack of Serial ATA optical drives. While SATA optical drives don’t offer any real performance advantage over PATA drives, there are other factors that are driving our demand for and interest in the units. Intel’s new I/O Controller Hub used in the 965 (Broadwater) chipsets, ICH8, doesn’t natively support any PATA ports; motherboard manufacturers have to resort to a 3rd party controller to offer one PATA port. It’s clear that Intel wants to be rid of PATA, and with 6 - 8 SATA ports on new motherboards these days the time to transition entirely to SATA is now. {I've already seen some 965P motherboards with 10 full SATA ports, and one IDE slot :shock: }
Unfortunately, as BenQ tells us, the same desire to transition to SATA doesn’t exist with the Tier 1 OEMs that are building systems using these optical drives. Apparently there are still a number of compatibility issues with the default Windows driver and many SATA optical drives, which has made the big OEMs wary of moving away from tried and true PATA drives. With very little OEM pressure to transition to SATA optical drives, manufacturers like BenQ have no reason to push for a quicker move to SATA.
BenQ said to expect less than 5% of its drive shipments by the end of this year to be SATA; by the middle of next year that number will thankfully grow to 25%.
Gigabyte's Conroe Motherboard:
Gigabyte outfitted its P965 motherboard with a 12-phase power design, designed to support Kentsfield. This board has already been tested to work with Kentsfield, although Gigabyte's competitors insist that a 12-phase power design is not necessary for Kentsfield. {Holy mosfets, Batman! :shock:}
You'll notice that all of the capacitors on the motherboard are similar to those around the CPU in that they are not standard electrolytic capacitors filled with liquid. All of the capacitors used on the Gigabyte board use a solid chemical compound designed to better withstand higher temperatures, thus preventing leaking or other capacitor related failures. The more expensive capactiors raise the price of the motherboard by a healhty $20. Gigabyte still only offers a 3-year warranty on this board, despite the technically more reliable capacitors.
{Much better photos available here, instead of the Anandtech ones: } http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2692 (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2692)
Albatron Offers mini-ITX Athlon 64 Motherboard:
The highlight of our meeting with Albatron was most definitely its mini-ITX Socket-754 Athlon 64 motherboard based on the nForce 6150 chipset: {Linky, as it's a tiny motherboard but huge images}
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/2006/computex/day1/PICT0192.jpg (http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/2006/computex/day1/PICT0192.jpg)
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/2006/computex/day1/PICT0193.jpg (http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/2006/computex/day1/PICT0193.jpg)
Albatron says that a Socket-AM2 version is in the works and should be out by the end of this year. Coupled with an Energy Efficient Small Form Factor Athlon 64 or X2 processor, the Socket-AM2 version of this motherboard should be a very attractive option for a HTPC among other things.
Final Words:
We've got a lot more coming tomorrow, so check back later for even more from Taiwan. You may just be treated to a bit of a surprise.
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2770 (http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2770) :paw: