(Some of the links could not be working now)
The CPUs
The CPUs of the Huron River platform will be based on the Sandy Bridge architecture, in fact they are most often referred to as Mobile Sandy Bridge. Overall, Sandy Bridge should be more power efficient than the current offerings. Intel has stated that it has set itself the goal of making the notebooks of this platform able to play two Blu-ray discs on a single charge. Sandy Bridge will also have a new set of instructions called Advanced Vector Extensions - AVX (a more advanced SSE) which will noticeably boost performance.
Intel reports that the top end dual-core Huron River CPU will be about 20% faster than the current top end Arrandale. The package size of the Mobile Sandy Bridge will be about 22% smaller than that of the current 32nm Westmere generation.
The Turbo boost has also been improved and now can go beyond the designated TDP for short periods of time, it's referred to as "Turbo 2.0". Intel claims Turbo Boost 2.0 will deliver more performance and more energy efficiency than its predecessor. It will incorporate new power averaging algorithms that should enable lower energy consumption and, more importantly, make more thermal headroom for overclocking (Fud). Moreover, the new Turbo will also include the GPU core in its power sharing algorithm, helping to improve performance and power consumption.
The CPU is also supposed to be better integrated with the GPU. The GPU and CPU alongside the memory controller will be put on the same die, unlike separately as they are now with Arrandale.
As Fudzilla reports,just like Sandy Bridge, the Huron River platform will have 2 and 4 core CPUs (no 6 core CPUs for now), all supporting hyper-threading and integrated graphics. Also the CPUs will have display and some audio features integrated.
One of the downsizes of Sandy Bridge is the lack of overclocking potential. Intel has linked all busses to one Base Clock (100 MHz) which controls both the CPU speed and the speed of the USB ports and SATA connection. For this reason, overclocking the Base Clock will quickly lead to the USB ports and SATA connections to fail. Thus overclocking will only be possible for multiplier unlocked CPUs. For notebooks there is no support for memories with unlocked multipliers, so memory overclocking is also out of the question.
As a last note, the new Sandy Bridge CPUs will all use a slightly different socket than current CPUs.
According to some leaked roadmaps these are the first mobile Sandy Bridge CPUs to make it to the market:
The CPUs of the Huron River platform will be based on the Sandy Bridge architecture, in fact they are most often referred to as Mobile Sandy Bridge. Overall, Sandy Bridge should be more power efficient than the current offerings. Intel has stated that it has set itself the goal of making the notebooks of this platform able to play two Blu-ray discs on a single charge. Sandy Bridge will also have a new set of instructions called Advanced Vector Extensions - AVX (a more advanced SSE) which will noticeably boost performance.
Intel reports that the top end dual-core Huron River CPU will be about 20% faster than the current top end Arrandale. The package size of the Mobile Sandy Bridge will be about 22% smaller than that of the current 32nm Westmere generation.
The Turbo boost has also been improved and now can go beyond the designated TDP for short periods of time, it's referred to as "Turbo 2.0". Intel claims Turbo Boost 2.0 will deliver more performance and more energy efficiency than its predecessor. It will incorporate new power averaging algorithms that should enable lower energy consumption and, more importantly, make more thermal headroom for overclocking (Fud). Moreover, the new Turbo will also include the GPU core in its power sharing algorithm, helping to improve performance and power consumption.
The CPU is also supposed to be better integrated with the GPU. The GPU and CPU alongside the memory controller will be put on the same die, unlike separately as they are now with Arrandale.
As Fudzilla reports,just like Sandy Bridge, the Huron River platform will have 2 and 4 core CPUs (no 6 core CPUs for now), all supporting hyper-threading and integrated graphics. Also the CPUs will have display and some audio features integrated.
One of the downsizes of Sandy Bridge is the lack of overclocking potential. Intel has linked all busses to one Base Clock (100 MHz) which controls both the CPU speed and the speed of the USB ports and SATA connection. For this reason, overclocking the Base Clock will quickly lead to the USB ports and SATA connections to fail. Thus overclocking will only be possible for multiplier unlocked CPUs. For notebooks there is no support for memories with unlocked multipliers, so memory overclocking is also out of the question.
As a last note, the new Sandy Bridge CPUs will all use a slightly different socket than current CPUs.
According to some leaked roadmaps these are the first mobile Sandy Bridge CPUs to make it to the market:
Apparently the main performance gain is for the quads in the high-end sector, for Arrandale CPUs the gain is not really impressive. Also it's interesting that Intel maintains the same naming scheme with Calpella, just adding a "2" in front of the code-name. The 2920XM seems to be the only multiplier unlocked CPU for mobile Sandy Bridge. Also it seems that the high-end mobile Huron River CPUs will support 1600 MHz DDR3. This is not yet confirmed as desktop Sandy Bridge only supports 1333 MHz DDR3 and initial reports claimed that mobile Sandy Bridge will be limited to 1333 MHz.
Integrated GPU
The GPU will be made in 32nm instead of the current 45nm and for now only DirectX 10.1 support has been confirmed but DirectX 11 is still possible. Its turbo capabilities should be significantly improved.
Intel informed some of its partners that these new GPUs will be almost twice as fast as the current integrated GPUs of the Arrandale platform. In consequence these GPUs will be able to easily play 1080p content (current generation can only do 720p).
Some sources report that the high-end mobile quads of this platform will have 2 integrated GPUs. This has not been entirely confirmed and there is no information on why would Intel want to use 2 GPUs. It is possible that by using two GPU cores the chipset may be able to shut down one core and save power (longer battery life). Some pre-release benchmarks indicate that the integrated GPU is a decent performer and is able to challenge the low-end GPUs of Nvidia and ATI.
While there may be some differences between the Sandy Bridge GPU and the Huron River one, overall specifications should be similar:
• Sandy Bridge Graphics Support
• Integrated Displayport with up to 2560x1600 resolution
• Multi-monitor display with up to 4 displays: 2 Int, 2 USB2
• HDMI1.3 support with premium audio
Wireless
In Intel's good old tradition, a new generation of mini-PCIe wireless adapters supporting WiFi and Wimax, code named Rainbow Peak and Taylor Peak, will be released at the same time as the new chipset.
It will be IEEE 802.11a/g/n (2.4GHz/5GHz) compliant and have a 3x3 antenna. What is more interesting is that the wireless module will also have integrated bluetooth capabilities.
Also the platform will be able to stream 1080p content over the wireless to an external TV.
Also now Intel will offer its own Gigabit LAN adapter.
Chipset
The chipset (Intel Mobile Express Series 6) is code named Cougar Point and seems to be the same for the mobile, desktop and server platform with slight variations for each platform. For notebooks the following chipsets will be available: HM65, HM67, QM67 and QS67 - each version is aimed at a different type of PCs, Q chipsets are designed for business orientated machines while H are for consumer gradated laptops.
Integrated GPU
The GPU will be made in 32nm instead of the current 45nm and for now only DirectX 10.1 support has been confirmed but DirectX 11 is still possible. Its turbo capabilities should be significantly improved.
Intel informed some of its partners that these new GPUs will be almost twice as fast as the current integrated GPUs of the Arrandale platform. In consequence these GPUs will be able to easily play 1080p content (current generation can only do 720p).
Some sources report that the high-end mobile quads of this platform will have 2 integrated GPUs. This has not been entirely confirmed and there is no information on why would Intel want to use 2 GPUs. It is possible that by using two GPU cores the chipset may be able to shut down one core and save power (longer battery life). Some pre-release benchmarks indicate that the integrated GPU is a decent performer and is able to challenge the low-end GPUs of Nvidia and ATI.
While there may be some differences between the Sandy Bridge GPU and the Huron River one, overall specifications should be similar:
• Sandy Bridge Graphics Support
• Integrated Displayport with up to 2560x1600 resolution
• Multi-monitor display with up to 4 displays: 2 Int, 2 USB2
• HDMI1.3 support with premium audio
Wireless
In Intel's good old tradition, a new generation of mini-PCIe wireless adapters supporting WiFi and Wimax, code named Rainbow Peak and Taylor Peak, will be released at the same time as the new chipset.
It will be IEEE 802.11a/g/n (2.4GHz/5GHz) compliant and have a 3x3 antenna. What is more interesting is that the wireless module will also have integrated bluetooth capabilities.
Also the platform will be able to stream 1080p content over the wireless to an external TV.
Also now Intel will offer its own Gigabit LAN adapter.
Chipset
The chipset (Intel Mobile Express Series 6) is code named Cougar Point and seems to be the same for the mobile, desktop and server platform with slight variations for each platform. For notebooks the following chipsets will be available: HM65, HM67, QM67 and QS67 - each version is aimed at a different type of PCs, Q chipsets are designed for business orientated machines while H are for consumer gradated laptops.
The mobile platform will support 2x DDR3 800, 1066 and 1333 and possibly 1600 MHz.
It has been confirmed that the new chipset will support SATA 6.0 GB/s but for home users the chipset will only support one SATA 6.0 connector. It appears that the platform will have native USB 3.0 support! Finally, the platform will get updated to version 10 of Intel's Matrix RAID Storage driver.
There is also a new feature called "Zero Power ODD" which should reduce the power consumption of ODDs by putting them in a sort of a sleep mode when needed.
Intel has also reported that Sandy Bridge will have an improved version of Intel Rapid Storage Technology which should improve battery life when playing DVDs or Blu-Rays.
The Huron River platform will support PCIe 3.0 16X or x8 for two cards, this feature like many others will be integrated in the platform's monolithic chip, however there are currently no specific details about SLI or CrossFire. More recent information suggests that the ability to switch between integrated and discrete GPUs will only be available for single GPU solutions. Crossfire and SLI configurations will not be able to use the integrated GPU. It is unclear at this point if this means that the mobile chipsets with dual-GPU support will be different from those that are designed just for one video card (for economic reasons this doesn't really make sense).
Related post:
http://www.computerbase.de/news/hardware/prozessoren/intel/2010/august/neue-roadmap-sandy-bridge-entschluesselt/
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