Just to make things difficult for purchasers looking to buy now...

[Ravich]

What sorts of things are we expecting from Sandy Bridge?

[Ravich]

For example:

Sandy Bridge's biggest feature is the incorporating of graphics processing directly on the cpu, rather than having a gpu on the motherboard in tandum. It also bumps the clock speed of the 6 cores to around 6.5ghz...

True?

[alphaod]

For example:



True?

There are already threads on this.

Not only that, we already have integrated GPUs in our CPUs with Arrandale (the processors used in the current 15" and 17" MacBook Pro). Yes clocks will most likely increase with the improved technology just like the Gulftown improved the clock over the Bloomfield via a die shrink.

[Ravich]

Yeah, but that's pretty much exactly doubled clock speed.

[J the Ninja]

May I ask where you found that 6.5Ghz figure? I'd heard 4Ghz with Turbo Boost, which seems a lot more realistic.

[Ravich]

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5714939-post15.html

[goMac]

The integrated graphics will be mostly useless on the Mac Pro.

That said, I'm interested in Sandy Bridge too. I'll likely be upgrading from my 2008 Mac Pro to the 2011.

[nanofrog]

The integrated graphics will be mostly useless on the Mac Pro.

That said, I'm interested in Sandy Bridge too. I'll likely be upgrading from my 2008 Mac Pro to the 2011.
The consumer parts will have the Integrated Graphics Processor (LGA1155 socket), while the Xeons won't (LGA2011 socket), and release a year later than the consumer units.

[VirtualRain]

From what little I've come across, it seems that SB will be a very incremental evolution in the microarchitecture. Some added instructions, quad channel RAM, up to 8 cores on a die, and some expanded turbo modes. None of this will matter except in very isolated circumstances as we're still waiting for software to catch up to yester year.

The big change for this decade has already happened with Nehalem and the introduction of an integrated memory controller, and QPI interconnect.

Of most interest to me will be the turbo capacity of the new CPU's, as that's the only thing that will likely improve performance for my applications. :(

[alphaod]

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5714939-post15.html

That's not a good source; it's some guy saying it, not an Intel documentation.

[VirtualRain]

Here's some interesting insights into the ICH (southbridge) I/O chip which is where we really need some updates...

The new Southbridge seems like a complete update with a real focus on the single-socket workstation and server market as it houses two SATA 3Gbps and ten SATA/SAS 6Gbps ports. The interconnect is still a 4x PCI-E 2.0 DMI link between this and the CPU, providing some 2Gbit/s of bandwidth.

The DMI bandwidth is a typo... it should be 2GB/s... enough to handle half-a-dozen SSD's in RAID0 without throttling! :D

If this turns-out to be true, Sandy Bridge could be the impetus behind a Mac Pro case update.