Anandtech posted an article this afternoon on Intel’s new chip that is codenamed Sandy Bridge. This processor is not due out until Q1 2011. What makes this new Intel processor exciting is that it will include an on-die graphics processing unit (GPU). The performance of the graphics system will not rival anything that NVIDIA or ATI/AMD is selling right now as far as top-of-the-line GPUs. However, getting the performance of a Radeon HD 5450 for free is pretty nice. First of all, let’s get a desription of what Sandy Bridge is from the article:
Sandy Bridge is a 32nm CPU with an on-die GPU. While Clarkdale/Arrandale have a 45nm GPU on package, Sandy Bridge moves the GPU transistors on die. Not only is the GPU on die but it shares the L3 cache of the CPU.
There are two different GPU configurations, referred to internally as 1 core or 2 cores. A single GPU core in this case refers to 6 EUs, Intel’s graphics processor equivalent (NVIDIA would call them CUDA cores). Sandy Bridge will be offered in configurations with 6 or 12 EUs.
While the numbers may not sound like much, the Sandy Bridge GPU is significantly redesigned compared to what’s out currently. Intel already announced a ~2x performance improvement compared to Clarkdale/Arrandale, and I can say that after testing Sandy Bridge Intel has been able to achieve at least that.
