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Hardware Intel DDR3 and Multi-GPU Desktop Chipsets Next Year
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - August 17, 2006 12:15 AM

39 comment(s) - last by Xavian.. on Aug 25 at 7:47 PM

Intel's next generation chipsets revealed

Intel's "Bearlake" chipset has some interesting surprises

DailyTech has received a new Intel roadmap that outlines more details on Intel’s upcoming Bearlake chipset family, which is the successor to the recently released Broadwater 96x chipset family. Intel’s Bearlake will arrive in four variants that will ship in Q2’07 and Q3’07. The first two variants to ship in Q2’07 will be the regular Bearlake-G and Bearlake-P variants. Not many details are mentioned on these vanilla Bearlake products except support for 1333 MHz FSB and Intel Clear Video Technology for the Bearlake-G variant.

Q3’07 will bring two new Bearlake variants—Bearlake-X and Bearlake-G+. Bearlake-X will replace the current 975X Express which has been carried over from the previous generation. It sports two full-speed PCI Express x16 slots for dual-graphics capabilities, though there’s no mention if ATI’s CrossFire or NVIDIA’s SLI technologies are supported. There will also be support for quad-core processors too. PCI Express 2.0 is also supported too. Bearlake-X will only support DDR3 1333 MHz memory only, a feature Bearlake-G and Bearlake-P variants lack.

Bearlake-G+ will have greater graphics processing power than Bearlake-G. The integrated graphics core will be DirectX 10 compliant and have support for Intel’s Clear Video Technology. There’s also built in support for HDMI audio and video output with HDCP compliance for high definition video playback. Bearlake-G+ chipsets will support DDR2-800 or DDR3-1066 memory and 1333 MHz front-side bus processors. There doesn’t seem to be any mention of quad-core processor support though.

There’s no mention as to why the DDR3 touting Bearlake-X and Bearlake-G+ will arrive a quarter after the DDR2 supporting Bearlake-G and Bearlake-P variants, though it could be possible that Intel wants greater channel availability of DDR3. Company guidance claims less than 10% of desktop chipset sales in Q2'07 will be from Bearlake.

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DDR3 why?

By FITCamaro on 8/17/2006 9:00:34 AM , Rating: 2

DDR2 is just coming into full swing and they still haven't mastered creating low latency chips. Now Intel wants to throw DDR3 out there and further increase latencies? We've already got DDR2-1066, why do we need DDR3-1333? I'm pretty sure DDR3 is pin-compatible with DDR2 but still.

RE: DDR3 why?

By ShapeGSX on 8/17/2006 9:25:21 AM , Rating: 4

This is why:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3

quote:
The memory comes with a promise of a power consumption reduction of 40% compared to current commercial DDR2 modules, due to DDR3's 90nm fabrication technology, allowing for lower operating currents and voltages (1.5 V, compared to DDR2's 1.8 V or DDR's 2.5 V). "Dual-gate" transistors will be used to reduce leakage of current.

DDR3's prefetch buffer width is 8 bit, whereas DDR2's is 4 bit, and DDR's is 2 bit.

Theoretically, these modules could transfer data at the effective clockrate of 400-800 MHz (for a single clock bandwidth of 800-1600 MHz), compared to DDR2's current range of 200-533 MHz (400-1066 MHz) or DDR's range of 100-300 MHz (200-600 MHz). To date, such bandwidth requirements have been mainly on the graphics market, where vast transfer of information between framebuffers is required.

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RE: DDR3 why?

By xsilver on 8/23/2006 9:04:48 AM , Rating: 2

wow, good answer, put them in their place! :P
are there still people that believe that low latency is some kind of miracle leprechaun that will cure all problems.
just as intel has moved away from netburst and high ghz thinking, maybe these users need to break free of this old memory mentality too.

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RE: DDR3 why?

By sxr7171 on 8/24/2006 9:24:22 AM , Rating: 2

Yeah right. Ironic considering that high bandwidth high latency is a similar vein of thought as bumping up the megahertz at the expense of doing less per clock cycle. This tendency towards higher clock speed and less effectiveness in terms getting data where it needs to be faster is the same thing as Netburst. But obviously you weren't able to see that. What happens when memory clock speeds get so high that it is untenable again, you probably had to really think this one through very slowly, but you guessed it - they need to make the memory perform better at lower clockspeeds.

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RE: DDR3 why?

By therealnickdanger on 8/17/2006 9:35:32 AM , Rating: 2

Why do we need faster CPUs, GPUs, hard drives, DVD-burners, and LCD refresh timings? Why do we need more storage, more megapixels, and more Internet bandwidth? Why does every technology seem outdated the second we buy it? It's just the pace of things, my good sir. DDR3 latencies will improve just as DDR2 latencies have, perhaps even more quickly... we'll see.

More + faster = better. :D

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RE: DDR3 why?

By cuban0l0c0 on 8/17/2006 12:25:29 PM , Rating: 2

Why even bother with DDR, I wanna see some QDR already.

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RE: DDR3 why?

By ksherman on 8/17/2006 1:01:37 PM , Rating: 2

theres some FB-DIMMs for your liking then :-)

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RE: DDR3 why?

By sxr7171 on 8/24/2006 9:26:45 AM , Rating: 2

That's what we really need, not this latency increasing more "megahurtz" mentality.

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RE: DDR3 why?

By UNHchabo on 8/17/2006 1:02:59 PM , Rating: 2

I mean really, who needs 10-gig ethernet anyway, it's not like it's backwards-compat... oh wait...

The plus-side about things getting better and faster on the high end is that anyone who doesn't feel like buying top-of-the-line can get more for their money. Think about it, you can build a new system with a 2GHz Sempron AM2 for well under $400, and it will be much better than that $800 computer you bought 5 years ago.

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RE: DDR3 why?

By Great Googly Moogly on 8/17/2006 3:23:39 PM , Rating: 4

The problem is that DDR2 already does absolutely NOTHING for the Core 2 Duo (or AM2) in terms of performance. Check Anandtech's latest Asrock ConRoe test thingy.

And DDR3 won't do it either. Also, I bought fancypants memory when I bought my last computer 3 years ago. Corsair XMS 2-2-2-5 PC3200. Man, did I regret that. I should've bought double the amount of budget RAM instead. Lower latency RAM is the silliest novelty, and I scorn all hardware sites for recommending it. I'm never buying expensive fancypants RAM again, because it just doesn't make any difference worth talking about.

In fact, hell, that lone i945-based Core mobo is just as fast as any $250 monster. Almost nothing substantial (more S-ATA penetration being the major exception, but that's beginning to be a problem with optical drives) has happened in the mobo realm for the last 3 years, except for PCIe, and that hasn't increased any performance either, and almost no one's making non-graphics PCIe cards. I mean, my 3-year-old Asus P4P800D isn't really at all outdated, feature-wise, compared to any new chipsets (except for lack of PCIe, and just 2 S-ATA ports). The move to PCIe seems, in hindsight, almost premature, as does the move to DDR2. Sure, those high-end monster video cards need PCIe for the power requirements, but they're still just enthusiast thingies. And what's with almost all new motherboards being SLI/CrossFire? Do they really sell that many SLI rigs? In my experience, that's mostly just a hardware review sites' thing.

IMO, the biggest bottleneck in the contemporary computer is those goddamn HDDs. They really need to do something about that. I wouldn't mind so much if they concentrated on reliability (5 years of continuous use without failing instead of 2) over capacity, but of course, that means they wouldn't sell as many harddrives! Not only are they slow, but they die like flies. Bah. Unacceptable.

<sorry for the rant, I've had so many hardware failures of late that I'm getting really disillusioned with the whole thing>

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RE: DDR3 why?

By podknocker on 8/17/2006 5:13:12 PM , Rating: 2

At last, Someone who's talking sense!!!

My PC:

Lian Li case with 465W Enermax PSU
ASUS A7V600 mobo with Athlon XP2000+
512Mb PC2100 DDR266 Samsung memory
Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card
2 Seagate 80Gb HDDs NOT RAIDed
Using onboard sound and 17" monitor

Now then. This thing does everything I want, it even allows me to play FEAR although not very well.

I am a fan of new technology but have realised that the PC industry is evolving a bit too quick for my liking.

First we have SATA even though most you'll get sustained from a drive is 45 to 50Mb/s so why the new interface?

To give the theoretical 150Mb/s stated, these things would need to spin at stupid rates, which they don't.

Then we have PCI-E which I admit will improve with the 2nd incarnation next year, but why not stick to the AGP spec and try to get more throughput with that?

Then we have DDR2 which gives a bit more bandwidth but you may as well get loads of the old stuff and stick to your old motherboard, CPU, graphics card and memory for the time being.

When PCs are cool, quiet and quick as standard and don't cost a months wages to upgrade, then I'm interested.

Even though my PC would be regarded as old and past it, my machine is still realistically a fast computer capable of fulfilling all my modern multimedia requirements.

I do think many people feel the need to spend a fortune upgrading just for the sake of it. What is the point in spending a months wages every year or even twice a year to get a high score in 3Dmark or another 10 to 20fps extra in your favorite FPS?

It's ludicrous.

Enjoyed your rant, by the way. I feel the same.

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RE: DDR3 why?

By Ringold on 8/17/2006 6:01:48 PM , Rating: 2

You guys feel about computers how I feel about riced-up cars. :P

Totally, completely, absolutely agree about HDDs though. Laptop just died, 2 weeks after the warranty ended. WTF. I know we live in a displosable society but if you know it's going to quit, PLEASE, I'll pay your ransom money for a new HD but PLEASE have windows pop-up a window saying "Warranty expiration in 48 hours. Hard Drive failure imminent within 72 hours. Begin backing up all data now. Visit NewEgg.com or other industry retail partners to see new perpindicular recording hard drives."

Thank god the only thing lost was three seasons of Deep Space Nine.

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RE: DDR3 why?

By splines on 8/17/2006 10:55:46 PM , Rating: 2

I absolutely agree. I recently took the plunge into AM2/DDR2/PCIe from my old reliable AthlonXP system, and for day-to-day work there's absolutely no difference in speed worth mentioning (excepting, as usual, games).

Hell, Apple can sell iMacs with a mobile processor and still sell well. Most people (ie the vast, vast, vast majority of users today) don't want or need all this incredible CPU power or sub-zero latency RAM, because it doesn't make Word load any faster after a given point. I'd say that since we hit 1.5 to 2GHz (in the P4 scale), everything else has pretty much been window dressing to appease the so-called 'elite'. RAM has had a bigger impact in scaling with XP, but after 1Gb you're not seeing huge gains there either.

If we want to see real increases in performance - get rid of Optical and Hard disks. That's where we need innovation.

This isn't to say I don't like my new system. Splinter Cell 3 in 1600x1200 is fine, in my book :)

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RE: DDR3 why?

By sxr7171 on 8/24/2006 9:56:30 AM , Rating: 2

Some of these technologies come out to give room for the future. You complain that these interfaces are so fast that they aren't needed (you are right). But I'd rather complain that hard drives and video cards haven't gotten fast enough to better use the potential of these new interfaces (if however they did max out these interfaces then we'd be bitching and whining for faster interfaces). So manufacturers in the industry can never win. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head asking them get SATA or PCI-E, it's just there if you want it and not really that much more expensive.

Sure hard drives top out around 90-100 MB/s now and yes, ATA-133 would have handled it, but it's nice to room for overhead and the thinner, simpler cables are nice (those parallel ribbons sucked) as well as the option for external drives, and it all really didn't cost me all that much.

As for PCI-E, that's a little crazy with these dual 16x boards and crap. I'll bet that even today's best cards don't use up all of 8x PCI-E bandwidth. Still, it's good to give the people at ATI and nVidia some extra space so they don't come back and blame the interface for their lackluster performance increases.

Anyway, the rationale for PCI-E and SATA beyond incresed performance was cost. It was getting way too expensive for motherboard manufacturers to find ways to route these crazy amounts of parallel runs on the board so these new serial technologies actually cost less to implement.

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RE: DDR3 why?

By chinna on 8/17/2006 6:39:48 PM , Rating: 2

I could not agree more with your comments. HDD is main thing that slow down everything in todays computers( ofcourse those Raptors helps little). And all this hype about PCIe, and SATA is too much I think. I hardly can find any PCIe TV Tuners, or sound card ( may be some fancy expensive ones exist), and also I hardly see any SATA DVD Drives. But what I am seeing is the trend to get rid of PCI slots as well as IDE.

Additionally, about the RAM, I was in the same boat, I bought Kingston HyperX RAM 4 years ago paying 1.5 times regular ram, and saw some boost in overall bench marks, but it is hardly changes anything about the speed of my computer( may be damn two seconds shaved in encoding!!?).
After that I am sticking to Value RAM.

Now, with DDR3, DDR2 itself did not reach its full speeds as per the specs( other than few hand picked modules). It is nothing but forcing the consumer to just upgrade things for no reason.

Anyways, I was little tired of not having enough PCI slots and unable to use good DDR RAM I guess.

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RE: DDR3 why?

By Xavian on 8/25/2006 7:47:50 PM , Rating: 2

Then i guess we need to move away from the 'spinning disc' construction of hard drives. Since we all know that any spinning media has to spin up to obtain maximum theorectical and it can take a long time to do that or never.

This is the great advantage of the Holographic Media coming out within the next 3-5 years, its not spinning media, can hold a lot of data and has much much faster seek and transfer speeds, it also doesn't have to spin up to maximum speed.

When that comes out, we will need SATA, however i believe SATA wasn't for performance benefits (that was a side effect). You see over the past 2-3 years computers have been moving from parallel architecture to serial architecture allowing a much more flexible system. This is what SATA was for, to allow greater flexibility then the old parallel system (remember that with the old system, you had 4 drives maximum in your system unless you went SCSI or brought an additional IDE controller.), the same can be seen with PCIe with SLi.

So PCIe and SATA provide serial architectures which allow greater flexibility in the short term and greater performance in the long term.

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975X Replacement.

By Nightmare225 on 8/17/2006 7:43:32 AM , Rating: 2

Why is it taking Intel so long to replace their high-end chipset?

RE: 975X Replacement.

By Lord 666 on 8/17/2006 8:48:12 AM , Rating: 2

It appears they are trying to time it with Vista/DX10 support.

But even worse is DRM at the chipset level in Q3 '07 with ..."Content Protection"

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RE: 975X Replacement.

By Suomynona on 8/17/2006 9:04:12 AM , Rating: 3

If you don't want to use the DRM features, you don't have to. Hardware that supports DRM is in no way, shape or form worse than hardware that lacks such support. It's akin to the comparison between an iPod that can play music purchased from the iTunes Music Store in addition to unprotected content and one that can only play unprotected content -- the former is better for everyone.

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RE: 975X Replacement.

By oTAL on 8/20/2006 1:23:31 AM , Rating: 2

At least until the trusted computing thing doesn't take off and software doesn't start demanding that you use the features to work.... which you might say would still be ok... until it doesn't work well and messes up regular Joe's PC... except the cracked version will work flawlessly which is why it is so much more convenient to download mp3s than to buy them... the options are: "free" for the unrestricted version or pay to get a restricted version... does it sound stupid to the rest of you?

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RE: 975X Replacement.

By SixFour on 8/17/2006 9:49:47 AM , Rating: 2

Intel isn't in a rush to replace 975X chipset beacuse with the release of C2D and the lack of Broadwater motherboards, 975X is getting just to the its peak.

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RE: 975X Replacement.

By peternelson on 8/17/2006 10:03:16 AM , Rating: 2

Annoying that it will not be refreshing the flagship range until pretty much a whole year from now (and the industry can change a lot in that time). So we are stuck with 975X.

But 975X is quite good.

I'd have bought them ages ago if it wasn't for the fact that virtually none supported Conroe.

What we need now is manufacturers to revisit 975 chipset.

They need to make NEW boards and LABEL them as Core2Duo compliant. Anandtech need to roundup these eg the Badaxe, the Badaxe2, Asus' offering, maybe a redone Gigabyte 975 (with/without the turbojet fans) etc.

A 975 coupled with the more recent ICH8 would bring things up to date from the 975/ICH6 generation boards.

If they can't get this together then NVIDIA are set to take some market share with their 570 and 590 chipsets for Intel processors.

975 may not have reached its peak provided new board designs keep pushing things forward over the next year.

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RE: 975X Replacement.

By EarthsDM on 8/17/2006 10:51:14 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Why is it taking Intel so long to replace their high-end chipset?

Because the 975X was made after the 965. We got the better chipset early. Why? Because Intel needed dual graphics and the 965 (while being good enough for consumers in Intel's mind) simply wasn't good enough for CrossFire.
Intel releases its high-end products through an eye-dropper whenever they can get away with it, partly to protect their profit margins, and partly to hide how long it takes their manufacturing to transition to new products. Hyper-threading, for example, was disabled on chips that supported it to encourage people to buy the “better” processors. My 2 cents.

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RE: 975X Replacement.

By ltcommanderdata on 8/17/2006 7:32:34 PM , Rating: 3

quote:
Because the 975X was made after the 965.

I don't believe that's true. The i975X is directly based on the i955X, which was in turn based on the i945P. The i945/i955/i975 are all the same series. In contrast, the i965 series is completely separate and new, which is why it has a new memory controller design that the i975X doesn't Essentially, the i975X is just an i955X that has Crossfire support added and was heavily tweaked and rolled out to counter nForce4.

Personally, I think Intel really dropped the ball on high end chipsets. Granted they didn't have to introduce a completely new chipset, but they could have still continued to tweak the i975X. A possible i975XE (like the i925XE) could have added official DDR2 800 and 1333MHz FSB support. I think all i975X motherboards already offer DDR2 800 support and Bad-Axe already has a BIOS option for a 1333MHz FSB. All they had to do was make these official and maybe tighten the motherboard specs a bit to ensure stability. That would have at least ensured Kentsfield had a decent FSB to work with instead of the limiting 1067MHz FSB. What's even more grating than the little effort that was needed on Intel's part was the fact that all i975X motherboards had to be redesigned to new VRM standards to be compatible with Conroe anyways. It would cost motherboard makers some additional time and validation, but not that much considering they had to do that anyways for the new VRM and a i975X refresh would be pin compatible.

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RE: 975X Replacement.

By zsdersw on 8/17/2006 8:37:05 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Because the 975X was made after the 965

Incorrect. 975X existed before 965.

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I wish Intel would take a hint from AMD

By alexsch8 on 8/17/2006 8:48:44 AM , Rating: 2

I wish Intel would take a hint from AMD in regards to making a motherboard that will support future CPUs. I remember buying a 925XE motherboard only to find out that 1 1/2 months later it was basically "old" and to use the new processors I'd have to get a new board. AMD has been able to stretch Socket 939 over a long time. AMD's new socket apparently will support the current type of processors but also the next generations. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to shell out $200 each time.

RE: I wish Intel would take a hint from AMD

By defter on 8/17/2006 8:51:45 AM , Rating: 1

quote:
AMD has been able to stretch Socket 939 over a long time.

Long time??? Socket 939 was replaced by AM2 in less than two years. Current Conroe motherboards will work with 1066MHz FSB Conroes for some time.

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RE: I wish Intel would take a hint from AMD

By Laitainion on 8/17/2006 9:03:52 AM , Rating: 2

S754/940/939 was a bit of a fiasco for AMD, but it looks like AM2 is here to stay, almost like Socket A was. Besides, didn't Intel S775 boards have problems with dual/single-core's only working with certain chipsets because they swapped a couple of pins around, or was that fixed in some kind of BIOS release? (assuming that's possible)
If not, simply having different sockets to denote compatibility makes a lot more sense than a load of motherboards and a load of CPUs that are all physically compatible but only occasionally electronically.

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RE: I wish Intel would take a hint from AMD

By gamara on 8/20/2006 4:57:46 PM , Rating: 2

Ok. 23+months. You're right, its less than 2 years. When was the last time Intel had 2 years from a chipset. That might have been the 440.

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RE: I wish Intel would take a hint from AMD

By xsilver on 8/23/2006 8:57:14 AM , Rating: 2

True, however it is possible that a mobo purchased from day 1 of s939 release can still potentially run the latest/greatest s939 chip
that is only a pipe dream for intel users

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RE: I wish Intel would take a hint from AMD

By TomZ on 8/17/2006 9:03:48 AM , Rating: 1

quote:
I wish Intel would take a hint from AMD in regards to making a motherboard that will support future CPUs.

I personally see this as a non-issue, because usually when I am ready to upgrade, there is also faster memory available, as well as cheap motherboards with more features. Therefore, when I upgrade, I always get a new motherboard + CPU + memory together.

I would also add that this is a time of fast technology churn, with Intel pushing a lot of new products through their pipeline. I think it is better than they be less constrained in terms of having to support past, present, and future processors if it means they can bring better performing products to market faster.

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dang slow disks

By CalaverasGrande on 8/17/2006 8:19:02 PM , Rating: 2

DDR3 meh...while it may be nice for memory to get faster, it isnt keeping up with speed increases we see from dual and quad cores.
Whatever happened to ECC? Now that 1gb is standard and 4gb is power user I find it hard to ignore teh everest warning about using registered memory. I would just feel better about the reliability of my systems if the ECC thing had caught on.
Then we got hard drives, it doesnt matter how fast your computer is. only one company make 10k drives for home users. And nobody makes 15k or 20k drives for home use.

Something tells me we are going to have to wait until another big switch somes along before we see local storage speeds increase by any magnitude. Maybe some new technology that bridges the difference between drives and ram. Like an all solid state computer with no moving parts (fans notwithstanding).
I find nothig more annoying than spending an absurd amount of money on fast chips, fast ram, fast everything only to be beholden to a magnetic spinning disc.

RE: dang slow disks

By shadowzz on 8/17/2006 8:39:01 PM , Rating: 2

What about NAND? The bottleneck is the bus!

http://dailytech.com/searchresults.aspx?keyword=na...

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RE: dang slow disks

By ADDAvenger on 8/20/2006 2:34:44 PM , Rating: 2

Flash seems to have a load of promise for HDDs, even if it doesn't replace it (because of reliability issues) this hybrid drive idea sounds sweet to me.
In the long-term, there's MRAM, it's about as fast as SRAM but is a kind of NVRAM, unfortunately the only current commercial production is of 4Mbit chips (512KB). Anyway, it's a completely different technology from Flash, it lasts a whole lot longer than flash because it doesn't have to surge itself everytime you delete some data. I'm hoping we'll see this stuff in memory keys within five years, but there's no telling where technology'll go in the long term.

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RE: dang slow disks

By JeffDM on 8/21/2006 11:31:58 AM , Rating: 2

Are there 20k drives? 10k drives aren't cost efficient for home use, and the platter sizes are smaller to be able endure the higher RPM, meaning that it forces a smaller capacity.

How much money do you want to spend on storage just to get away from something that's "obsolete"? I mean if 4GB costs $100, 400GB in flash would be $10,000. As far as I'm concerned, there's no need to obsolete the wheel unless there's an adequately economical alternative to replace it.

I do like having ECC memory, I think it's unfortunate that most consumer boards don't offer the capability, I've tried to use it in a consumer system. It's still around but it is probably not deemed necessary for consumer computers. ECC/parity used to be required because memory is a lot more error prone. Now, you might see a bit flip or two per GB in a week. If you data isn't highly valuable then it's hard to justify the extra memory.

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ICH9DH?

By FightingChance on 8/17/2006 1:36:16 PM , Rating: 2

Could someone clue me in to what the 'DH' stands for in ICH9DH?

It'll be tough for me to pass on these Broadwater systems for a Bear Lake one; I really want to put together a microBTX system but I'd have to wait about a year to do that.

RE: ICH9DH?

By coldpower27 on 8/17/2006 2:25:50 PM , Rating: 2

DH stands for Digital Home.

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Oh Great

By Baked on 8/20/2006 9:44:58 AM , Rating: 2

This is just the type of news I need after I bought a new C2D system. Now they're gonna release new chipset and memory type? @#$%, I hate Intel. They'll probably release a new socket type to go along w/ the new chipset. >_<

half and half

By barjebus on 8/23/2006 12:41:24 PM , Rating: 2

Raptor drives are down in cost quite alot these days. You can get 10k RPM 80gb drives for under 200$. If you need more storage than this then get a second drive, perhaps a 320gb drive from seagate or maxtor that have decent access times and SATA-II. Use the first drive for your OS and games for fast access speeds and then store media on the second drive which, although doesn't access as fast, it can still obtain high bandwidth over long transfers, i.e. such as media.

Although, if 7200 rpm isn't fast enough to make SATA-II actually work then I guess thats not the greatest idea, but its what I did. The 320gb drives go for 100$ now adays. It cost me 280$ canadian after shipping for 400gb of storage, 80 of that being at 10k rpm.