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mike@mikeshardware.co.uk

Q4 2002

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10/02

AMD Athlon XP 2800+ & 2700+ (Thoroughbred) were released on October 1st, although OEM shipments are not expected until November and Retail shipments in December. These CPUs are the first to feature a 333Mhz FSB speed. The increased FSB bandwidth, along with memory latency improvements due to a synchronous memory clock with DDR333, should allow the 2800+ (2.25Ghz) to generally offer slightly more of a performance improvement than the 5% clock speed increase over the 2600+ (2.133Ghz) would suggest. This is, however, platform dependant - chipsets such as nForce2 make much better use of this hardware change than older chipsets such as KT333. Never the less, performance is generally lower than Intel's 2.8Ghz P4, although this is application dependant - Athlon CPU's tend to be fairly competitive in games, but less so in office applications.

Intel i845PE chipset for the Pentium 4 was released on October 7th. The i845PE is the successor to the i845E, officially providing support for PC2700/DDR333 SDRAM. The i845PE incorporates Intel's ICH4 South Bridge.

Intel i845GE chipset for the Pentium 4 was released on October 7th. The i845GE is based around the i845G, but officially supports PC2700/DDR333 SDRAM. The graphics core of the i845GE is identical to that found in the i845G, but it operates at 266Mhz rather than 200Mhz. The i845GE incorporates Intel's ICH4 South Bridge.

Intel i845GV chipset was released on October 7th. The i845GV is the successor to the i845GL, offering support for a 533Mhz FSB in addition to the featureset provided by the i845GL. The Graphics core will operate at the same speed as the i845GL (200Mhz), which is slower than that provided by the i845GE.

Intel i850E chipset, with official PC1066 RDRAM support, was released on October 7th. The name of the chipset and it's featureset have not changed - Intel have only announced official support for the PC1066 standard. See the original i850E Roadmap entry for additional information.

nVidia GeForce4 Go 460 was released on October 14th. The details of the GeForce4 Go core can be found on he announcement Roadmap entry. The GeForce4 Go 460 offers a core clock speed of 250Mhz and a memory clock of 500Mhz. The GeForce4 Go 460 performs very similarly to the GeForce4 MX 460.

Microsoft Office 11 Beta 1 was released on October 22nd. See the final Office 11 Roadmap entry for additional information. Office 11 Beta 1 will only run under Windows 2000 SP3 and Windows XP.

ATI Radeon 9500 was released on October 24th. The Radeon 9500 is based around a cut down version of the R300 core used in the Radeon 9700, featuring 4 pixel pipelines and 2 vertex decoders (compared to the R300's 8 pixel pipelines and 4 vertex decoders) and 2 64-bit memory controllers (compared to 4 in the R300). The Radeon 9500 is intended to replace the DirectX 8.1 compliant Radeon 8500 LE in the mid-range market with a DirectX 9 compliant core. The featureset of the Radeon 9500 is identical to that of the Radeon 9700 Pro (R300), but the performance has been reduced to lower manufacturing costs. The clock speed of the Radeon 9500 is 275Mhz core and 540Mhz DDR memory (the Radeon 9700 Pro clocks at 325/620Mhz). It should be noted that memory is accessed over a 128-bit bus (compared to the Radeon 9700 Pro's 256-bit bus).

Initial benchmarks suggest that the Radeon 9500 performs at a slightly lower level than the GeForce4 Ti 4200 although, of course, it has full DirectX 9 capabilities. The Radeon 9500 is expected to retail for around $179.

ATI Radeon 9500 Pro was released on October 24th. The Radeon 9500 Pro is based around a slightly cut down version of the R300 core, as used in the Radeon 9700 series. The number of rendering pipelines is the same as the R300, but the core contains only 2 64-bit memory controllers (compared to 4 in the R300). The Radeon 9500 Pro operates at a clock speed of 275Mhz core and 540Mhz DDR memory.

Initial benchmarks suggest that the Radeon 9500 Pro performs at a level usually between the GeForce4 Ti 4200 and the GeForce4 Ti 4400, but it does have the added advantage of full DirectX 9 capabilities. The Radeon 9500 Pro is expected to retail for around $199.

ATI Radeon 9700 was released on October 24th. The Radeon 9700 uses the same R300 core as the Radeon 9700 Pro, but operates at the lower clock speed of 275Mhz core and 540Mhz DDR memory (the Radeon 9700 Pro clocks at 325/620Mhz). The Radeon 9700, like the Radeon 9700 Pro, uses 256-bit memory access.

Initial pre-release benchmarks suggest that the Radeon 9700 performs noticeably faster than the GeForce4 Ti 4600 although, of course, its performance is lower than the Radeon 9700 Pro. The Radeon 9700 is expected to retail for around $299.

Windows XP Media Center Edition was released on October 29th. See the RTM Roadmap entry for more information.

11/02

Windows Media Player 9 Release Candidate was released on November 1st.

Intel Xeon MP (Gallatin) 1.5, 1.9 & 2Ghz were released on November 4th. Gallatin is the 0.13micron successor to Foster MP, and is expected to be available with either 1Mb or 2Mb of L3 cache and feature Intel's HyperThreading SMT technology (See the Prestonia Roadmap entry for additional details). Today's 1.5Ghz and 1.9Ghz processors come with 1Mb L3. The 2Ghz model comes with 2Mb L3.

Intel Price cuts occurred on November 10th. See the Intel CPU Prices page for additional information.

Mobile AMD Athlon XP 2200+ was released on November 11th.

Microsoft DirectX 9 RC0 was released on November 11th.

nVidia Quadro4 XGL AGP8X series were released on November 12th. The Quadro4 XGL AGP 8X are based around the NV28GL core, the successor to the NV25GL which powered the Quadro4 XGL series. The only difference between the cores is the support for AGP8X.

The members of the Quadro4 XGL AGP8X series are as follows:

Quadro4 980 XGL - NV28GL core 300Mhz, 128Mb 650Mhz DDR SDRAM
Quadro4 580 XGL - NV18GL core,  low end clock speed, 64Mb DDR SDRAM
Quadro4 380 XGL - NV18GL core,  low end clock speed, 64Mb SDR SDRAM

nVidia Quadro4 NVS AGP8X series were released on November 12th. The Quadro4 XGL AGP 8X are based around the NV28GL core, the successor to the NV18GL which powered the Quadro4 NVS series. The only difference between the cores is the support for AGP8X.

The members of the Quadro4 NVS AGP8X series are as follows:

Quadro4 280 NVS - AGP, 128-bit SDR SDRAM, 2 monitor outputs (1 x NV18GL chip)

Intel Pentium 4 3.06Ghz (Northwood B) CPU was released on November 14th. This processor will be the first Desktop P4 (Northwood) to enable Intel's HyperThreading technology. HyperThreading has been improved since its first appearance in Intel's Xeon processors, meaning that there are now very few applications which will show any speed decrease with HT technology enabled.

nVidia GeForce4 4200 Go (NV28M) was released on November 14th. The NV28M, the successor to the GeForce4 4x0 Go series based on the NV17M core, is nVidia's first DirectX8 compliant Mobile solution. The NV28M core is a mixture between the technology found in the NV17M core and the GeForce4 Ti 8X's NV28 core. NV28 does not have the integrated TV encoder (for TV out) or LVDS transmitter (for outputting the display to the laptop's display) found in the NV17M, but it does integrate the NV17M's PowerMizer technology. PowerMizer is able to dynamically vary the core voltage between 1.05 and 1.25v, the core clock speed between 25Mhz and 200Mhz (1/8 clock) and the memory clock between 100Mhz and 200Mhz DDR. NV28M chips will only be available in discrete packaging (rather than the MAP packaging found in the NV17M) due to the chips physical size.

The GeForce4 4200 Go features a maximum core clock speed of 200Mhz combined with 200Mhz DDR (effectively 400Mhz) memory.

AMD Price Cuts occurred on November 14th. See the AMD CPU Prices page for additional information.

Intel E7205 chipset, formally known as Granite Bay, for the Pentium 4 Northwood was released on November 18th. Granite Bay features 533Mhz FSB support, dual channel DDR200/266 DDR SDRAM (giving a memory bandwidth of 4.2Gb/s at DDR266), AGP 8X and AC97 5.1 sound. The E7205 chipset includes Intel's ICH4 South Bridge, providing 6 x USB2 ports.

Intel E7505 chipset, formally known as Placer, for the Xeon processor (Prestonia) was released on November 18th. Placer is the Dual Processor version of Granite Bay, offering 533Mhz FSB support, Dual Channel DDR200/266 and AGP 8X and AC97 5.1 sound. The E7505 chipset includes Intel's ICH4 South Bridge, providing 6 x USB2 ports.

Intel E7501 chipset, formally known as Plumas 533, for Intel Xeon (Prestonia) was released on November 18th. Plumas 533 is the 533Mhz FSB capable version of Intel's E7500 Plumas chipset, providing support for Prestonia B. This chipset is identical to the E7500 apart from official support for a 533Mhz FSB speed, the support of Socket 604 and DDR266 SDRAM . Plumas 533 will use the same ICH3-S South Bridge as the E7500. It should be noted that Socket 604 is backwardly compatible with Socket 603.

Intel Xeon (Prestonia B) 2.0, 2.4, 2.6 & 2.8Ghz were released on November 18th. These CPUs have a 533Mhz FSB and are manufactured for the Socket 604 platform (previous Xeons used Socket 603).

Intel Price changes, for Xeon processors, occurred on November 18th. See the Intel CPU Prices page for additional information.

nVidia GeForce FX (NV30) was announced on November 18th, with availability expected in February. The NV30 is built on a 0.13micron process and features full DirectX 9 support, much like the Radeon 9700. Both the pixel shader and vertex shaders are beyond DirectX 9's specification. Vertex shader programs can be up to 1024 instructions long, with up to 65536 instructions being executed including those in loops, branches and subroutines. Pixel shader programs can also be up to 1024 instructions long. The clock speed of NV30 will be higher than that of ATI's R300, although exact speeds are still to be decided (the top end model is expected to clock at 500Mhz). NV30 features support for AGP 8X and GDDR II SDRAM. The memory interface is 128-bit (half the width of the R300), but NV30 boards can contain 1Ghz GDDR II SDRAM to counteract this deficiency.

It is expected that two speeds of NV30 will initially be made available - the GeForce FX 5800 (400Mhz) and GeForce FX 5800 Ultra (500Mhz).

Intel Pentium 4 Celeron (Northwood) 2.1 & 2.2Ghz were released on November 20th.

Intel Price changes, for Celeron processors, occurred on November 20th. See the Intel CPU Prices page for additional information.

SiS Xabre 600 GPU was released on November 26th. The Xabre 600 is built around the same Xabre core as the Xabre 400, but the reduction in manufacturing process to 0.13 micron has allowed an increase in the core clock speed to 300Mhz. The Xabre 600 will be paired with 300Mhz DDR memory over a 128-bit bus, offering 9.6GB/s of bandwidth.

Initial benchmarks show that the Xabre 600 can outperform the GeForce4 MX 440 and Radeon 9000 Pro given default settings and a fast processor. However, the 3D image quality is noticeably lower than its competitors, and increasing the quality to similar levels makes the Xabre perform slightly worse than the competition. Additionally, as the Vertex Shader is implemented in software rather than hardware, performance issues can arise when using a low end CPU or if a game is CPU bound.

Mozilla 1.2 was released on November 26th. Mozilla 1.2 adds a host of new functionality, including Type Ahead Find, where the user can type directly in the browser window to find text on the page, customizable toolbars, better native UI widgets under Windows XP, improvements to tabbed browsing, and Mail improvements.

12/02

ATI All-In-Wonder VE was released on December 2nd. The All-In-Wonder VE combines the Radeon 7500 core with the THEATER 200 video chip, providing a 125 channel Stereo TV Tuner alongside video capture and editing facilities.  The AIW VE features 64Mb of DDR memory and utilises the PCI bus.

Windows.NET Server RC2 was released on December 5th. See the Windows.NET Server Roadmap entry for additional info.

ATI Radeon 9100 was released on December 6th. The Radeon 9100 is simply a Radeon 8500 renamed for marketing purposes - notably to reflect its increased performance over the Radeon 9000 Pro under the majority of circumstances.

AMD Athlon MP 2400+ was released on December 10th.

DirectX 9 was released on December 19th. The main improvements made in the DirectX 9 specification are a higher level of precision throughout the graphics pipeline (most noticeably 32, 40 and 64-bit integer colours and 128-bit Floating Point colours, but also in areas such as the Z Buffer and frame buffer) and a higher degree of programmability offered in Vertex shaders 2.0 and Pixel shaders 2.0. The major improvements made to the shader languages are the support for flow control, allowing loops, jumps and subroutines, additions to the instruction sets, and improvements to the functionality offered per rendering pass. DirectX 9 also incorporates a C-style high-level pixel and vertex shader language to reduce the learning curve of the current assembler level shader languages and to hide hardware specific details. DirectX 9 will also feature improvements to higher order surfaces, including Displacement mapping and Adaptive tessellation. Displacement mapping allowing a 2D texture, representing height data, to be blended with an objects geometry allowing an object to be geometrically deformed on the fly. Adaptive tessellation provides the ability to alter the polygon counts of objects dynamically, allowing objects further from the viewpoint to have reduced polygon counts and hence offer faster rendering speeds. A new animation API will be introduced in DirectX 9, allowing multiple 3D animations to be blended together.

nVidia GeForce4 Ti 4800 was quietly released in December. The Ti 4800 is based around the NV28 core, but is expected to offer exactly the same core and memory clock speeds as the GeForce4 Ti 4600. The Ti 4800 will feature AGP 8X support.

nVidia GeForce4 Ti 4800 SE was quietly released in December. The Ti 4800 SE is based around the NV28 core, but is expected to offer the same core and memory clock speeds as the GeForce4 Ti 4400. The Ti 4800 SE will feature AGP 8X support.

VIA P4M266A chipset for the Pentium 4 processor is expected to be released in December. The P4M266A will be based around the P4X266A, but will include an integrated 'Castle Rock' graphics core.

VIA P4M400 chipset for the Pentium 4 processor is expected to be released in December. The P4M400 will be based around the P4X400, but will include an integrated 'Castle Rock' graphics core.

Q4 02

VIA C5XL core CPU is expected to be released in Q4, with clock speeds from 1.2 to 1.5Ghz. The C5XL core is a cut-down version of the C5X Nehemiah core containing one decoder, MMX unit and SSE unit (!?) along with a half-size branch table and a smaller 64Kb L2 cache.

VIA KM333 chipset for the AMD Athlon processor is expected to be released in Q4. The KM333 is the AMD version of the P4M333 Intel chipset, featuring integrated Zoetrope graphics.

ALi MAGiK 2 (M1667) chipset for the AMD platform is expected to be released in H2 2002. The M1667 is the successor to the original MAGiK 1 chipset, adding support for DDR333 and AGP 8X. The M1667 is expected to use AMD's Hypertransport bus protocol, presumably to connect to the M1563 South Bridge. The M1563 South Bridge supports 6 USB 2.0 ports, ATA133, a Software Audio/Modem, 1/10/100 Ethernet MAC, HomePNA 2.0 and a memory stick interface.

Infiniband technology is expected to become available in Late 2000/2003. Infiniband is a high-end I/O architecture, designed for server and enterprise class systems. Inifiniband will be used for both external I/O, e.g. connecting servers to remote storage and networking devices, and internal I/O, e.g. inter processor communication. Unlike the relatively simple local bus interconnects offered by PCI-X and 3GIO, Infiniband offers a high-bandwidth, reliable network fabric both inside and outside of the server. Infiniband is based around a peer to peer, message passing, switched fabric which allows for significantly improved scalability (due to its modularity), performance (low latency, serial, point to point connections, multiple channels and low kernel involvement) and reliability (through redundant paths between nodes and fault tolerance).
The Infiniband architecture consists of three components - A Host Channel Adapter (HCA), Infiniband Switches (IB Switches) and Target Channel Adapters (TCA). The HCA connects the Infiniband fabric to the System Controller (e.g. a direct link to the South Bridge or via a 3GIO or PCI-X slot). The TCA's are the 'nodes' of the network, interfacing to the I/O controllers, and the IB Switches provide the data routing.
Infiniband will be available in 1X (5Gb/s), 4X (20Gb/s) and 12X (60Gb/s).

Rambus QRSL memory is expected to become available in Mid 2002. Rambus' Quad Rambus Signalling Level (QRSL) signal technology is expected to offer a peak bandwidth of 8GB/s over a 2Ghz bus.

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