CPU QuickLinks
Chipset QuickLinks
Video QuickLinks
Software QuickLinks

20XX
Q4 2008
Q3 2008
Q2 2008
Q1 2008
Q4 2007
Q3 2007
Q2 2007
Q1 2007
Q4 2006
Q3 2006
Q2 2006
Q1 2006
Q4 2005
Q3 2005
Q2 2005
Q1 2005
Q4 2004
Q3 2004
Q2 2004
Q1 2004
Q4 2003
Q3 2003
Q2 2003
Q1 2003
Q4 2002
Q3 2002
Q2 2002
Q1 2002
Q4 2001
Q3 2001
Q2 2001
Q1 2001
Q4 2000
Q3 2000
Q2 2000
Q1 2000
Q4 1999
Q3 1999
Q2 1999
Q1 1999

mike@mikeshardware.co.uk

Q2 2007

Previous Roadmap   Next Roadmap

04

AMD Opteron 2222 SE was released on April 5th. The 822SE is a dual core processor featuring a clock speed of 3.0GHz.

AMD Opteron 8222 SE was released on April 5th. The 822SE is a dual core processor featuring a clock speed of 3.0GHz.

AMD CPU Price cuts occurred on April 9th. See the AMD CPU Prices page for more information

Intel Core 2 Quad QX6800 was released on April 9th. The QX6800 features 2 x E6800 cores in the same package, comprising a quad core CPU running at a clock speed of 2.93Ghz, 2x4MB L2 cache and running on a 1066Mhz FSB. The QX6800 will initially retail for $1199.

nVidia GeForce 8600 (G84) GPU was released on April 17th. G84 is a mid range GPU and the successor to the GeForce 7600, featuring the enhancements found in the G80 core but with 32 stream processors and a 128-bit memory interface. In addition, G84 features a new video processor with dedicated circuitry for HD video decoding and a BSP engine. The 8600 series features the following boards:

GeForce 8600GTS - 675Mhz core, 1.45Ghz stream processors, 2.0Ghz memory, 71W - $199-229
GeForce 8600GT - 540Mhz core, 1.15-1.18Ghz stream processors, 1.4Ghz memory, 43W - $149-159

Initial benchmarks show that the 8600GTX performs very slightly better than a GeForce 7900GT, and therefore slightly slower than the similarly priced Radeon X1950 Pro, in current DirectX 9 games. However, 3DMark06 performance is good, suggesting that future games utilising more shader intensive code, may perform better than the current mid range DX9 cards.

nVidia GeForce 8500 / 8400 / 8300 (G86) GPU was announced on April 17th, with availability expected on June 19th. The G86 core is a cut down version of the G84 core, featuring 16 stream processors and a 128-bit memory bus. Like the G84, the G86 features a new video processor with dedicated circuitry for HD video decoding and a BSP engine. The G86 series features the following boards:

GeForce 8500GT - 450Mhz core, 900Mhz stream processors, 1.4Ghz memory - $99
GeForce 8400GS - 450Mhz core, 900Mhz stream processors, 800Mhz memory - $89
GeForce 8300GS - 8 SPs, 450Mhz core, 900Mhz stream processors, 800Mhz memory - OEM

Intel CPU Price cuts occurred on April 22nd. See the Intel CPU Prices page for more information.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 was released on April 22nd. The E6420 is expected to feature a clock speed of 2.13GHz running on a 1066Mhz FSB and featuring 4MB (compared to 2MB in the E6400) of L2 cache. The extra L2 cache provides roughly a 0-10% performance improvement (with an average of around 2-3%), dependant upon the application. The E6420 is expected to retail for $183.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 was released on April 22nd. The E6320 is expected to feature a clock speed of 1.83GHz running on a 1066Mhz FSB and featuring 4MB (compared to 2MB in the E6300) of L2 cache. The extra L2 cache provides roughly a 0-10% performance improvement (with an average of around 2-3%). The E6320 is expected to retail for $163.

Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 was released on April 22nd. The E4400 is expected to feature a clock speed of 2.0GHz running on an 800Mhz FSB and featuring 2MB of L2 cache. The E4400 is expected to retail for $133.

05

GeForce 8800 Ultra was announced on May 2nd in preparation for the release of ATI's R600 GPU, but was not made available until May 15th. The GeForce 8800 Ultra is based around the G80 core and is effectively a higher clocked version of the 8800GTX, featuring a core clock of 612Mhz (compared to 576 of the GTX), a shader clock of 1.5Ghz (1.35Ghz GTX) and a memory clock of 2.16Ghz (1.8Ghz GTX).

nVidia GeForce 8600M GT/GS series of GPUs was released on May 9th. The GeForce 8600M is the mobile equivalent of the GeForce 8600 (G84) GPU, featuring up to 32 stream processors (SPs) interfacing to 512MB of memory over a 128-bit memory bus.
The following members of the GeForce 8600M series have been announced at launch:

GeForce 8600M GS - 32 SPs, 475Mhz core, 950Mhz SP, 700Mhz mem
GeForce 8600M GT - 16 SPs, 600Mhz core, 1200Mhz SPs, 700Mhz mem

nVidia GeForce 8400M GT/G/G series of GPUs was released on May 9th. The GeForce 8400M is the mobile equivalent of the GeForce 85/4/300 series of desktop GPUs, featuring up to 16 stream processors (SPs) interfacing to up to 512MB of memory over a 64 or 128-bit memory bus.
The following members of the GeForce 8400M series have been announced at launch:

GeForce 8400M GT - 16 SPs, 450Mhz core, 900Mhz SP, 600Mhz 128-bit memory
GeForce 8400M GS - 16 SPs, 400Mhz core, 800Mhz SPs, 600Mhz 64-bit memory
GeForce 8400M G - 8 SPs, 400Mhz core, 800Mhz SPs, 600Mhz 64-bit memory

ATI Radeon HD 2900 (R600) GPU was released on May 14th on an 80nm process. The R600 is the successor to the R580 core and is fully DirectX 10 compliant, utilising a Unified Shader Model architecture.
The architecture of R600 is based around a VLIW design, consisting of 64 superscaler unified shaders, each of which contains 5 stream processing units for a total of 320 stream processors. The first 4 stream processing units are relatively simple, being able to process 1 ADD/MAD/ Dot Product per clock. The fifth unit is more fully featured, allowing transcendental functions (SIN, COS etc). In addition to the unified shaders, R600 features 4 texture units, providing 16 ROPS, which offer improved performance and functionaility over those present in R580, allowing FP16 texture filtering at full speed (16 pixels per clock) and providing support for trilinear and anisotropic filtering on all texture formats (this was done by pixel shaders for R580). Anti-aliasing performance has also been improved, offering support for 8×MSAA and adding ATI's proprietary custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA).
Unlike the other members of the Radeon HD series, the R600 does not feature ATI's Universal Video Decoder (UVD), which provides hardware acceleration for H.264 and VC-1 decoding. As the R600 was designed before the RV6x0 chips, this element is not present.
The R600 additionally features an integrated HDMI output with 5.1 surround sound support.

Upon release, the only member of the R600 family is the Radeon HD 2900 XT:

Radeon HD 2900 XT - 9.5" board, 750Mhz core, 1.65Ghz memory, 1GB or 512MB GDDR4, Dual Slot (215W). $399

Initial benchmarks show that the Radeon HD 2900 XT performs somewhere between a GeForce 8800GTS and GeForce 8800GTX, usually closer to the former. Additionally, power usage is significantly more than nVidia's offerings. Despite having 320 stream processing units, it should be noted that they are (mostly) less capable than nVidia's stream processors, run at the core clock speed (750Mhz) rather than the 2 x core clock as found in the 8800 series (e.g. 1.35GHz for the GTX) and also have a minimum performance of 64 operations/clock as well as a maximum of 320 operations/clock - rather than the strict 128 operations/clock of the 8800 GTX. Extracting as much parallelism as possible from the core will be the goal of ATI's drivers in the future.

ATI Radeon HD 2600 (RV630) was announced on May 14th with a retail release on June 28th. The RV630 is based on a 65nm process and is the mid-range version of the R600 GPU. RV630 features 24 superscaler unified shaders, each of which contains 5 stream processing units for a total of 120 stream processors, and 4 ROPs interfacing to 256MB up to GDDR4 memory over a 128bit memory interface. The RV630 also features integrated HDMI & HDCP support and offer integrated audio functionality. RV630 additionally features support for ATI's Universal Video Decoder (UVD), providing hardware acceleration for H.264 and VC-1 decoding, as used by Blu-ray and HD DVD titles. The GPU also features support for Crossfire and PCIe 2.0 for increased interface bandwidth. The initial members of the family are expected to be as follows:

Radeon HD 2600 XT - 800Mhz GPU clock, 2.2GHz GDDR4 memory, 256MB, 121/128W TDP - $119 - $149
Radeon HD 2600 Pro - 600Mhz GPU clock, 1GHz DDR memory, 256MB, <93W TDP - $89 - $99

Initial performance results show that the 2600XT performs roughly the same as nVidia's GeForce 8600GT GPU on average under DirectX 9 titles, with the 2600 Pro offering roughly 2/3 of the performance of the XT. Initial DX10 performance appears to be higher than the 8600 series, although actual performance is so low that DX10 performance is somewhat irrelevant at this price point.

ATI Radeon HD 2400 (RV610) was announced on May 14th with a retail release on June 28th. The RV610 is based on a 65nm process and is the entry-level version of the R600 GPU, featuring 8 unified shaders / 40 stream processing units, 4 ROPs and interfaces to 128MB or 256MB of 64bit DDR2 memory. Like the RV630, RV610 feature support for HDMI & HDCP with integrated audio functionality and ATI's UVD hardware. The initial members of the family are expected to be as follows:

Radeon HD 2400 XT - 700Mhz GPU clock, 1.4GHz GDDR3 memory clock, 256MB, 35W TDP - $75 - $85
Radeon HD 2400 Pro - 525Mhz GPU clock, 800MHz DDR2 memory clock, 64-bit 256MB, <25W TDP - $50 - $59

Initial performance results show that the 2400XT offers performance roughly half that of the 2600XT under DX9, and unplayable performance under the initial DX10 games.

Intel P35 (Bearlake-P) chipset for the Core architecture was announced on May 21st with availability starting on June 4th. The Bearlake series of chipsets are the successor to Intel's 965 chipsets. Bearlake P features support for DDR3 1066 and DDR2 800 memory as well as a 1333Mhz FSB speed. Bearlake P also features support for Intel's Turbo Memory technology, either via NAND memory on the motherboard or via a PCIe x1 card. P35 also continues to support ATI's/AMD's Crossfire graphics technology and interfaces to Intel's ICH9 southbridge.

Initial benchmarks show that the P35 series offers a 16-18% increase in memory bandwidth over the 965 series, irrespective of what memory technology is used, which leads to a 2-5% increase in performance over it's predecessor.

Intel G35 (Bearlake-G) chipset for the Core architecture is expected to be released in Q3. G35 is the integrated graphics version of P35, featuring integrated Intel GMA 3100 graphics. Apart from the integrated graphics, G35 is identical to P35.

Intel ICH9 Southbride was released alongside the x35 series of chipsets from Intel. ICH9 is built on a 130nm process and features a 4W TDP and consists of 4.6 million transistors. ICH9 offers support for 12 x USB 2.0 ports, 6 x SATA 300 ports, 6 x PCIe x1 lanes, High Definition Audio, an eSATA external SATA port and optional Gigabit LAN. The R series (ICH9R) additionally provides support for an enhanced performance version of Intel's Matrix Storage technology found in ICH8.

06

Intel Pentium E2000 series budget CPUs were released on June 3rd. The E2000 series is based around the Dual Core Conroe design, but with 1MB of L2 cache disabled and Intel's Virtualization Technology (VT), ViiV and vPRO functionality disabled. The first members of the E2000 family are expected to be:

Pentium E2160 - 1.8 GHz, 800Mhz FSB, 1 MB of L2 cache, $84
Pentium E2140 - 1.6 GHz, 800Mhz FSB, 1 MB of L2 cache, $74

Initial benchmarks suggest that the E2160 offers similar performance to an Athlon X2 3600+ under gaming situations (where L2 cache size is more important), but similar to a Core 2 Duo E4300 (X2 4200+) for more processor intensive tasks such as video encoding. Additionally, these CPUs can be overclocked significantly, with around 3GHz usually possible.

Intel Celeron 400 series budget CPUs were released on June 5th. The Celeron 400 series are single core version of the Pentium E2000 series, featuring an 800Mhz FSB and 512KB L2 cache. The first members of the E2000 family are:

Celeron 440 - 2.0Ghz,  800MHz FSB,  512KB L2 cache, $59
Celeron 430 - 1.8Ghz,  800MHz FSB,  512KB L2 cache, $49
Celeron 420 - 1.6Ghz,  800MHz FSB,  512KB L2 cache, $39

AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 and 2300 were released on June 5th. These processors introduce AMD's new CPU naming convention, but are effectively 65nm Windsor cores speed binned to run at a low 45W TDP.

Athlon X2 BE-2350 - 2.1Ghz, $91
Athlon X2 BE-2300 - 1.9Ghz, $86

nVidia GeForce 8700M was released on June 13th. The GeForce 8700M is the mobile equivalent of the GeForce 8600 (G84) GPU, featuring 32 stream processors and a 625MHz core and 1250MHz SP clock speed. The GPU interfaces to up to 512MB of memory running at 800MHz over a 128-bit memory bus.

GeForce 8700M - 32 SPs, 625Mhz core, 1250Mhz SP, 800Mhz memory

The GeForce 8700M is reportedly around 10% faster than the GeForce Go 7950 GTX - the previous top of the line nVidia mobile GPU.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6400 is expected to be released in June. The Q6400 is expected to feature a clock speed of 2.13GHz running on a 1066Mhz FSB and featuring 2x4MB of L2 cache.

nVidia GeForce Go 8800GS (G80M) is expected to be released in June. The GeForce Go G80M core is the mobile equivalent of the G80 GPU, with the GS model being a lower clocked version of the GTX due subsequent release.

nVidia GeForce Go 8800GTX is expected to be released in June. The GeForce Go features the G80M core first released in the 8800GS, with the GTX being a higher performance part.

Q2

ATI Radeon Mobility M78 is expected to be released in Q2. This GPU is based on the R600 core and is targeted at the high end of the mobile market.

ATI Radeon Mobility M76 is expected to be released in Q2. This GPU is based on the R600 core and is targeted at the mid range mobile market.

ATI Radeon Mobility M72 is expected to be released in Q2. This GPU is based on the R600 core and is targeted at the low end mobile market.

H1

AMD Athlon X2 (Brisbane) is expected to be released in H1. Brisbane is the 65nm successor to Windsor and introduces the K8 Revision G core. Brisbane features either 2x1MB L2 cache or 2x512KB L2 cache and the Brisbane core will effectively replace all Athlon X2 and Opteron Dual Core Revision E and Revision F processors with a single architecture.

AMD Turion 64 (Tyler) is expected to be released in H1. Tyler is the successor to Taylor and will be built on a 65nm process. Tyler is a Dual Core Socket S1 Mobile CPU featuring 2 x 512KB L2 cache, DDR2 800 support and a 35W TDP.

AMD Mobile Sempron (Sherman) is expected to be released in H1. Sherman is the successor to Keene and will be built on a 65nm process. Sherman is a Dual Core Socket S1 Mobile CPU featuring 2 x 512KB L2 cache, DDR2 800 support and a 25W TDP.

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 is expected to be released in Mid 2007. Firefox 3.0 is the successor to Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and will be offer additional user interface enhancements and many substantial platform improvements.

Previous Roadmap   Next Roadmap