Intel To Redesign PC With "Grantsdale" Chip

MarkRH writes "Over at ExtremeTech, we tracked down some Intel roadmaps that discuss "Grantsdale", Intel's most important chipset in nearly a decade. Grantsdale brings PCI Express to the PC, so get ready to toss out your motherboard, AGP graphics card, and maybe a host of other components, too. Also check out our articles on the "Tejas" microprocessor, Intel's first CPU to forego pins (check out the waffle iron socket!), as well as the real reason Banias saves so much power."

Big deal

[Jason1729]

so get ready to toss out your motherboard

Since when can you upgrade to a new generation CPU and not have to replace the motherboard?

Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]

Re:I hope APPLE uses this chip!

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah! grantsdale is a chipset for controlling pci, ram access etc.

wow! let's add this into an apple! then what will we have.

uhhh. G4s at the same speed, using a different chipset.

Did you RTFA?

Re:Not necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is doing a great job boosting the Macintosh. There is no way I will install software with product activation, so when win2k gets too obsolete, I'll have to switch to a mac. Linux still isn't an option on the desktop, I used it for 2 years and switched back to windows. I want to use my computer, not spend half a day configuring for any change.

Re:PCI Express effect on graphics cards

[Max Romantschuk]

It's going to be really interesting, I think, to see what this does for the holiday selling season. Since it's out there now that Grantsdale is going to have such a dramatic effect on PC architecture, what is this going to do for sales of graphics cards? Of sound cards?

I doubt this holiday season will be any big break for PCI Express. Remember when PCI was introduced? Roughly around the time of the first Pentiums. You can still buy motherboards with ISA slots...

It looks like PCI will be supported in some way, but it's almost up to a motherboard manufacturer to come forward and say, "OK, we're only going to support one PCI slot, so figure out what you want to keep, now."

The same applies here, the transition won't happen over night. There is lots of stuff which runs just fine on the bandwidth that PCI has to offer. You will have to decide what to keep, but I'd say that years from now.

Forced Obsolecense?

[Low2000]

I'm all for improving hardware but... Why would this be done other then to foce people to buy new hardware? Is the current PCI spec so bad?

I just see this happening.

Hey. So you want a new sound card? Great! What? You only have regular PCI? I'm sorry we only have it in PCI Express. No worries. We offer this brand new Intel board and chip and ram that will solve your problem. Only $1,200!

What am I missing? I hope I'm missing somthing =/

Bloody tricks!

[HoneyBunchesOfGoats]

From the second page of the article on Banias:

EBL encompasses four features: a non-synchronous vertical refresh control for displays, which will save between 200 and 800 milliwatts; an optimized LCD inverter design, expected to cut an additional 550 mW to 880mW; device performance state monitoring, which will reduce overall power by an additional 900 mW; and a device power profile utility tool, designed to monitor the power of all devices in the system.

So basically, their "über-cool" power-saving processor isn't what's really saving power, but a bunch of other little tricks in the rest of the system. All they did with the processor was take a PIII-M, ramp up the frequency, and slap on a bigger cache.

Not that I hold this against them or anything; if in the end it increases battery life, that's a Good Thing. I just wish they wouldn't hype up their new processor as being so great, when really there isn't much more improvement over the PIII.

Nice

[pheared]

<rant>

I can't wait until I have no choice but to buy some hardware that's not compatible with anything I might possibly already own. What's even cooler is that I get to do my part and add my obsoleted hardware to our local dump.

P.S.: It would be nice to get the computing companies to do a bit more in the way of reuse. I don't think it's a good idea to use until there's no more, and then just move on to a new resource.

</rant>

Re:hmmm

[cheezedawg]

Um, considering PCI Express is an industry standard [pcisig.com], it probably will be a chipset with PCI Express. Of course AMD has already developed Hypertransport to use in some places where PCI Express would fit also.

Re:Nice

[cheezedawg]

So are you suggesting that the industry should ignore the increasing system bandwidth needs (gigabit ethernet, USB2, 1394, Infiniband, SATA, etc) just so you can use your old hardware for longer?

And your hardware will be compatible for years to come. Legacy interfaces linger for a LOOOONG time.

Cost implications ?

[bushboy]

It would be great to have an idea of the cost implications of the new chipset - the fact that you'll need a new motherboard, CPU and graphics card means this setup isn't going to be for the masses right away.
The price to upgrade could easily reach $1200 US for early adopters.

I don't see much of a problem with the PCI slots as the majority of current modern systems have a lot of components onboard already, such as LAN, Sound, Video etc.
I guess the safe bet is they'll include 2xPCI slots which should be enough for most peoples purposes.

Re:PCI Express effect on graphics cards

[Zork the Almighty]

Why don't major vendors get the fact that some of us like our legacy stuff and don't want to move just because we "have" to?

Oh I'm sure they do, it's just they make more money this way.

Re:Big deal

[kfg]

I have to toss out the motherboard pretty much every time I buy a cpu, which makes the "quick change" feature of this unit rather moot.

If they're going to hold the basic architecture steady for at least a few years this is going to be quite handy, but if each iteration is going to require a general upgrade to properly utilize the new speed and features anyway. . .big deal.

The motherboard manufacturers like to see a steady upgrade cycle too you know and it almost always comes down to "gut the case" and hope a few cards are still usable.

KFG

first to forgoe pins?

[mesach]

there were pins on the slot1's?

What's Obsolete?

[maizena]

No matter how long you wait, the day after you buy/upgrade your PC it will be already obsolete.

We shall not forget that, as any other enterprise, Intel's business is to make MONEY. Cutting edge technology is just a plus...

It's in their best interest to push forward the their latest family of products. This is how Intel works and obsolescence is carefully planed by them.

It's up to us, as consumers, to set the pace and not get swept by the low-tech fears. An upgrade is really only necessary when your PC performance gets in the way of you doing your usual tasks.

Therefore, we must keep in our minds that obsolescence is dictated by our needs, not by theirs.

Who exactly is in the PR/Graphic/Ad Design Dept at

[adzoox]

Who exactly is in the PR/Graphic/Ad Design Dept at Intel? I think the only markettable ideas Intel has ever come out with were the names Pentium and little tone at the end of commercials. The names they come out with are very rarely tongue rolling or memorable. Same goes for their commercials. I mean, one campaign has Homer Simpson getting his brain replaced by a Pentium. The next campaign has aliens using it. The first tells me that stupid people use the Pentium, the second tells me that only aliens think a Pentium is cool,

Not being Apple bias, but you have to hand it to Apple Computer's PR/Design/Ad/Graphic Design Departments. They even get press for what they name variations of the operating system. It's not goofy either. Jaguar and all the promotional material has spawned the entire design industry into using animal prints, especially Jaguar.

However?

[AyeRoxor!]

"Tejas uses a 775-contact pinless Land Grid Array (LGA) that far exceeds the 478 pins used on the Pentium 4, and Prescott. However, the additional pins were required for the additional I/O and power requirements of Tejas, the documents say."

Ohh, for I/O and power ! I thought they would be used for..... umm... Well, that's about all they can be used for. Why does that sentence begin with "However"?

Re:Joy of joys

[jejones]

[PCI Express] removes the PCI bottleneck problem, but I don't see where it removes the HDD bottleneck in terms of raw speed.

I thought that was what serial ATA [explosivelabs.com] is supposed to do.

Re:Has anyone upgraded from Athlon to Athlon XP?

[ShavenYak]

The motherboard that my 750MHz Duron was on would support the AthlonXP with a BIOS upgrade, but I wound up getting a new motherboard so I could have DDR memory and more USB ports.

Actually thinking about it, every time I've upgraded CPUs, I've gotten a new motherboard - even though it wasn't really necessary every time. There's always either something else the new boards support that I "gotta have", or my mother's computer is getting old and she wants my old board.

By the time I start to feel like my XP1600 is slow, I won't want to just buy a 3000 and slap it on this board, even if I can. I'll want a new board with DDR2, Serial ATA, and FireWire. CPU upgradability is overrated, IMHO.

How could PCI Express possibly be a benefit?

[default luser]

Did I read that right? 250MB/s?

PCI spec is 133MB/s, which is hardly a marked improvement. 16-bit ISA, by contrast, was barely 16MB/s.

If I am to believe the theoretical numbers for AGP, then PCI Express as a graphics bus makes even less sense:

AGP 1x = 264MB/s ( 66.6 mHz, 64-bit )
AGP 2x = 528MB/s ( 66.6 mHz rise and fall, 64-bit )
AGP 4x ~ 1GB/s ( 66.6 mHz - 4 strobe, 64-bit )
AGP 8x ... you get the picture.

What in the hell do we need a PCI replacement for that has zero potential for handling enormous video bandwidth as well as or better than AGP?

What in hell do we need a PCI replacement for that doesn't even utilize the PCI-X or 64-bit, 66MHz PCI already being pushed for servers? Not to mention that fact that any device that can push the bandwidth of PCI is already available in one of the above formats, who wants to build yet another model for PCI Express?

Honestly, if you need to find emerging technologies, just look to the server path. Intel has always been about trickle-down, this move doesn't make any sense.