The Open-Source Linux Graphics Card Showdown

[Kano]

@Qaridarium

First of all intel produces already cpus for other companies. Also until recently when amd paid lots of money to be fully independent from the factory part they had a contract that they needed to produce the cpus there. Now they could produce anywhere but i do not know if they want to pay intel to create their chips. Usually the layout needs to be optimizied for the production way as well, so you can not only shrink it and it still works. amd already pays for x86 patents, so intel gets a few cents from every cpu amd sells (or maybe $, dont know the contract). the 22nm production is most likely not fully optimized as intel only sells the quad cores right now. those are much more expensive compared to the dual cores. For better profit the yield must be high enough, that was the main problem for amd and their factory as well as for tsmc who produces the gpus for amd + nvidia. Every shrink needs some time to be fully optimized. if amd pays well and intel has spare capacities i dont see a problem why intel would not produce the chips, they get money in any way, but of course less when amd produces em somewhere else.

[droidhacker]

@Qaridarium

First of all intel produces already cpus for other companies. Also until recently when amd paid lots of money to be fully independent from the factory part they had a contract that they needed to produce the cpus there. Now they could produce anywhere but i do not know if they want to pay intel to create their chips. Usually the layout needs to be optimizied for the production way as well, so you can not only shrink it and it still works. amd already pays for x86 patents, so intel gets a few cents from every cpu amd sells (or maybe $, dont know the contract). the 22nm production is most likely not fully optimized as intel only sells the quad cores right now. those are much more expensive compared to the dual cores. For better profit the yield must be high enough, that was the main problem for amd and their factory as well as for tsmc who produces the gpus for amd + nvidia. Every shrink needs some time to be fully optimized. if amd pays well and intel has spare capacities i dont see a problem why intel would not produce the chips, they get money in any way, but of course less when amd produces em somewhere else.

None of that matters.
All that matters is that AMD's got

[Kivada]

I also question the performance tests. Intel is known for playing games in order to benchmark higher. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if there was something sneaky in the CPU that knows when someone else's GPU is attached and does something like cutting memory bandwidth. Intel is known for pulling sneaky crap, like designing CPUs FOR the benchmarks, rather than the real workload.

This is also why Intel was sued over ICC, At best it only allows non Intel 64 bit CPUs have SSE2, in 32 bit it pushes them into 486 mode. The most obvious example of this is the SuperPi benchmark.

[Kivada]

Thats incorrect. The gpu part has got different voltage pins, you can select the differently to gpu voltag on Z boards. The default is that it is disabled as soon as you add a PCI-E gfx card, but you can force it to stay enabled if you want to use it together with virtu (on win). Intel even sells chips with disabled gpu part, not yet for ivb, but for snb like:

http://ark.intel.com/compare/52273,52274

Just a matter of time, then intel has got too many ivb cpus without working gpu and wants to sell those too

If I'm not mistken aren't Intel's GPUs just a 2nd chip on the same CPU package while AMD's have both as part of the same chip? Hence why the APUs have their own CPU socket?

As for the non IGP parts, thats not what the OEMs want, they want just the single chips so they can cut costs, they don't want to have to install a GPU as well.

[Kano]

Often you get pci-e cards together with cpus with gpu integrated. Not because of so much higher speed (as they mainly use low cost cards that could not be the real reason), but just to write some fancy things like 2gb vram (for the extra slow chip) or similar onto the flyer.

[Gusar]

If I'm not mistken aren't Intel's GPUs just a 2nd chip on the same CPU package while AMD's have both as part of the same chip?

No. The Clarkdale/Ironlake combo was what you describe (hence the different name for CPU and GPU), but Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge are a combined CPU+GPU chip, just like AMD APU.

[Luke_Wolf]

No. The Clarkdale/Ironlake combo was what you describe (hence the different name for CPU and GPU), but Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge are a combined CPU+GPU chip, just like AMD APU.

Actually no what he's talking about is CPU+GPU on the same CPU die, his question relates to it being two chips on the same die, or one that's just one chip, and at least Sandy Bridge it is still 2 chips on one package according to the analysis, with a pipe between them, I haven't seen an analysis of Ivy Bridge yet, but since it's a die shrink + more units I would imagine that it would be the same for that too

[Hamish Wilson]

So, in conclusion: at the moment the free Intel drivers are the best at using the most of the hardware.

Sounds fair enough to me. I am still happy with my Radeon HD 4670 though - I like hardware with a developing future.

Still, credit where credit is due - well done Intel.

[Gusar]

Sandy Bridge it is still 2 chips on one package according to the analysis, with a pipe between them

Hmm, can someone (preferably an Intel dev) confirm that? If I'm wrong, I'd like to know, so that I won't be saying wrong stuff in the future anymore.

[smitty3268]

Colors are funny things to work with mathematically. The main thing you need to keep in mind is that you have to treat colors as THREE numbers, not just ONE.

To make it even more complicated, the human eye is naturally more sensitive to certain colors than others, so it makes sense to divide into smaller regions in certain spectrums and not others.