Fall 2002 IDF: Day 3 How About A Little Video? – THG.RU

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How About A Little Video?” –>

Introduction

Here at THG, we like to present you with unique things. We are going to use this occasion to release our fourth video, which will allow you, the reader, to experience a quick, five-minute glimpse into the sights and sounds of the Fall 2002 IDF. Since time constraints make it unpractical to provide a focused presentation on one topic, we chose to bring you a video collage of some of our experiences and highlights of what we have seen in the last three days at IDF.

In this video you will get to experience the following: Intel cranking the Pentium 4 up to 4.7GHz; the CEO from Starbucks talking about wireless; Microsoft showing off Tablet PC technology and Media Player 9 Video Smoothing; Intel putting the pedal to the metal with Hyper Threading; an Itanium 2 four-way server in action; Fujitsu’s announcement of 2.5″ 9.5mm Serial ATA drives; Serial ATA drives in action; ViewSonic showing off the new V1100 tablet PC; Adaptec showing iSCSI; LSI giving us a look at performance SCSI and Serial ATA solutions; Intel giving us a short tour of the Banias development platform; and some additional sights and sounds from the 2002 Fall IDF.

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Server 1

Other Intel News

We got a look at the new Serial ATA consumer motherboard that is coming from Intel. There is no real news about this, other than the picture and the fact that it supports Serial ATA as well as DDR.

A look at the new Serial ATA board from Intel.

In other news, it seems that everyone is in a virtual frenzy over the fact that Intel appears to be abandoning Rambus. This, however, is only part of the story. As we explained in our Fall 2002 IDF – Day 2 report, Samsung said that Intel will in fact qualify PC1066 Rambus for use on the 850E platform. In addition, Samsung now has officially made this fact public on their new memory road map.

While perhaps no plans appeared on the current platform road maps from Intel at IDF, many hushed discussions centered around the possibility that Quad Channel Rambus might make an appearance on the Intel road map at a later date. While many applaud Intel’s current decision to join Team DDR, this may only be a temporary solution until the Quad Channel Rambus is ready. As Samsung told us yesterday, the ramp up and design phase should go very quickly, so don’t be surprised if you hear about this sooner than later.

Samsung outlined the current and future memory technologies and things quickly become more clear.

Those who are so eager to stick a fork in Rambus because they feel that it is done might have to revise their thinking – it appears that, with the higher megahertz scaling of the Pentium 4, DDR II, and even DDR III, will not be able to offer the highest performance levels. Of course, it is game of wait-and-see for the moment, but if the past is any indication, I would not be too surprised if this really does become more of a fact of life than people care to admit.

While I have been on the road covering IDF, many of you have e-mailed me, asking for additional information on the new mobile Banias details and perhaps some pictures of new units that will offer this technology. Despite our best efforts, we were not able to find any pictures of these units, which is understandable since the platform is still in the development stage. What we were able to get was a look at the Banias test and development platform.

Intel’s Banias development test platform.

Other Intel News, Continued

To clear up some other misconceptions, you will not see notebooks on the shelf with the Banias technology till sometime around the first half of 2003. Another thing that is important to point out is that Banias is clearly focused on power management to maximize power. As we suggested yesterday, the goal will be to reach the holy grail of eight hours of battery life. From what we have seen so far (and believe me, technical details are still sketchy), Banias will not deliver eight hours of battery life out of the gate. This is what Intel is working toward, so it is important to clear that up.

Current software will run on the Banias platform without the need for special tweaks, but via software tweaks, it might be possible to tune the performance so that it is more tailored for Banias.

The Banias part will feature 77 million transistors, and it will be targeted at four specific areas of mobile design performance: improved thermals (better than the Pentium 4m or IIIm); dual band 802.11a and 802.11b wireless connectivity; much improved battery performance to reach the ten watt goal that we talked about yesterday; and, of course, performance.

The Banias microarchitecture will include advanced branch prediction, micro-op fusion, a dedicated stack manager, and a power-optimized processor bus. The chip will feature fine-grain clock/ hardware gating, which should yield additional power savings. As we have seen in the ATI mobile graphics processor technology in M7 and M9, which feature clock gating, this is an effective method of reducing the power that the chip uses.

Intel suggested that they might have a performance rating scheme for Banias that will focus on both, its higher performance attained from lower MHz, as well as enhanced platform battery life (notice the use of the term “lower MHz”!). An OEM that has provided notebook products for review to THG in the past commented, under the agreement of not revealing his identity, that it seems as if the chip’s performance will definitely be slower than a Pentium 4 desktop and also slower than the current Pentium 4m. It will be faster than the Pentium IIIm for sure, but cost is going to be a factor. He suggested the following possibility: “If I can purchase a notebook with a desktop Pentium 4 processor that clearly outperforms both the Banias and the Pentium 4m for $700 to $1000 less than what the Banias will cost, and the only advantage of Banias is extended battery life (that might only amount to an additional 35 to 50 minutes), is it really worth it if I am not that much of a mobile user?” Good question! His assumption is based on his feeling that, right out of the gate, Banias notebooks will cost more than the current crop of high-end desktop replacement notebooks.

In order to reach true power savings, OEMs will have to make more intelligent choices on the components that they use in their notebooks. Once you couple these more energy efficient components along with the Banias platform, it is going to be expensive. Breakthroughs in both, the panel/ inverter and battery technology, are necessary; a Banias-type scheme that is rated on a scale based on performance obtained from lower MHz seems like very misdirected thinking, since consumers are certainly going to have a difficult time grasping this message. The concept is a totally new way of thinking, and as we saw with the AMD performance rating system, it caused all kinds of trouble when marketing the product. This is not to say that we are already “sour” about Banias, but without having all of the details, it is a little difficult to estimate what we are going to see until Intel fills in more of the blanks.

Adaptec

Adaptec showed off their new iSCSI technology. “What is iSCSI?” you might ask. iSCS,I or Internet SCSI, is an IETF standard that allows you to map SCSI blocks into Ethernet packets. iSCSI technology is a protocol method to transport low latency SCSI blocks across IP networks. iSCSI will allow you to build storage area networks (SANS) over IP using Ethernet, which you already know. iSCSI removes limitations of direct attached storage, including the inability to share storage resources across servers and expanding storage capacity without shutting down applications. The technology is impressive and can also be coupled with the new Serial ATA RAID technology as well as traditional SCSI.

Adaptec’s ANA-7711 TCP/IP off load adapter.

Adaptec is also about to release and revamp their 2400A ATA RAID controller with the release of a new four channel Serial ATA controller. The new Serial ATA RAID controller will feature RAID levels 0,1,10, and 5. The controller will feature transfer rates of up to 150Mbytes/sec, and include a 64MB on board cache (we assume that, at some point, it will be expandable to 128MB, like the 2400A). Mike Hull from Adaptec told us that future generations will provide up to 6 Mbytes/sec of performance. Adaptec plans to release production units in 2002 in conjunction with the launch of Serial ATA. In addition, Adaptec plans a full line of Serial ATA solutions to address customer needs from desktops to mid-range servers.

It looks like an Adaptec 2400A at first glance, although it is in fact the new Adaptec Serial ATA RAID controller. We don’t know the model number or formal name yet because currently it is only available in Developer Kit form, but not for much longer. Look out for it soon with the formal launch of Serial ATA.

Adaptec also announced its new low profile external storage subsystem (SAN), called the DuraStor 7320SS, which is a Fibre Channel-to-SCSI system. The 7320SS features LUN zoning for the highest level of SAN security and manageability. LUN zoning allows you to easily allocate storage for specific applications and servers, while preventing overwrites. The DuraStor is, of course, built upon Adaptec’s proven SCSI and RAID technologies for the highest application performance, data protection and storage scalability.

Adaptec also introduced the DuraStor 6320SS, which is an SCSI-to-SCSI external storage subsystem. Both solutions consist of a RAID controller appliance and an enclosure with 12 hot-swappable one-inch drive bays to provide up to 1.7 terabytes of storage. With the addition of three 12-bay drive enclosures, the Adaptec DuraStor 7320SS scales to 7 terabytes of storage capacity. Two enclosures can be added to the Adaptec DuraStor 6320SS for scaling to 5.2 terabytes of storage.

Both subsystems are 2U appliances, enabling high-density rack mounting or pedestal use, and both include redundant, hot-swappable fans and power supplies to ensure maximum uptime. Both also feature Adaptec’s Storage Manager Pro software. The Java-based graphical user interface simplifies remote and local storage management, enabling users to create and manage RAID arrays, set up user and administrator security levels, and establish notification for disk failures.

SiS

As we reported in our Day 1 report from IDF, we got our first close look at the new SiS R658 Pentium 4 chipset from SiS that will feature PC1066 Rambus. We talked with the SiS folks at great length about what would could be considered a quantum leap for SiS, who has been more traditionally associated with more value-oriented solutions. SiS has started to change that reputation with continued excellent offerings such as the SiS 648, which we reviewed at THG and met with the approval of our motherboard guru Frank Völkel.

Again, here is yet another picture of what we are starting to call “the board with the big question mark”. At the moment, the R658 offers more questions than answers. SiS is in the process of tuning it and preparing it for us to test, and they promised to get one in our hands soon, so that we can give you the scoop on something that could offer a new option for Pentium 4 buyers.

We asked SiS where the R658 would fit in an already tough motherboard market. They responded that the R658 is aimed at users, such as gamers, who demand the highest levels of performance at reasonable prices. SiS isn’t aiming to take the market by storm, but if they did, that would be fine, too. In the meantime they are continuing to tune the performance of the R658, and they expect it to be available for purchase in the next several months. SiS told us that they want to get all of the performance possible from this combination, and that they are working toward providing a stable motherboard with excellent performance at an affordable price. Of course, this is the dream of each and every motherboard/ chipset designer, but at least the initial specs look impressive. However, don’t expect Serial ATA support with the first release of the R658 because it will not have it.

SiS will also be offering a new DDR 400 Pentium 4 solution as well, as you can see here.

In other news, SiS has already started development on the new Xabre 2. In the meantime, you can expect a new and faster version of the Xabre to be launched. In our look at the Xabre, it was clear that the Xabre is to be taken seriously. We asked SiS about their continued commitment to driver development, a key point because of some of the issues that we encountered in our testing. SiS assured us that they will continue to release new driver updates on a monthly, if not weekly, basis, as soon as enhancements and fixes are available. They are not holding things back and are starting to work more with the developers at an early stage to make sure that their software will run well on SiS cards. Of course, this is good news. When asked about better availability and more manufactures offering Xabre cards, SiS told us that more companies are in the process of rolling out new Xabre cards, so you can expect to see wider availability of the Xabre over the next several months.

Trident

As you may or may not know, Trident has started an assault on the video card market as well, with the release of their new XP 4 series cards. The XP 4 series is available in a variety of flavors for desktops as well as notebooks. The XP 4 discrete solution for mobile is a DirectX 8.1 part with 666MHz DDR, and will feature a clock speed of 250MHz.

The Trident XP 4 T1 will feature GPU core clock of 250MHz with 500MHz DDR and DirectX 9.0 support.

The desktop variation XP 4 T1, which is DirectX 9.0 compatible, will feature a core clock of 250MHz with a 64-bit memory bus with 64MB 500MHz DDR. The XP 4 T2 will feature a core clock of 250MHz with a 128-bit memory bus with 64MB 500MHz DDR, and it will also feature DirectX 9.0 support. The XP 4 T3 will feature a core clock of 300MHz with a 128-bit memory bus with 256MB of 700MHz DDR with complete DirectX 9.0 support.

The Trident XP 4 T3 will feature a GPU core clock of 300MHz with 700MHz DDR and DirectX 9.0 support.

Trident remains committed to producing video cards in tough market conditions and believes that they have a good tradition of providing an excellent performance value solution. While these numbers do perhaps look impressive, it is difficult to say what kind of performance they will in fact provide. Trident has some lofty goals here, and we have not had the chance to test the new XP 4 series Trident cards yet. However, we hope to test them soon.

Is IDF Almost Over Already?

Fall IDF 2002 is almost over already, and tomorrow afternoon it will be time to head home. We have seen some interesting new things at this year’s event and are exhausted from the vast amount of information we’ve taken in. Of course, it was only to be expected, since this is what the event is all about.

At the end of the day or in between briefings, you sometimes have time to relax, like these two attendees at a friendly game of air hockey. Most often however, you try to find a place to sit down and use the wireless on your laptop to check your e-mail. I much prefer the air hockey.

The Fall 2002 IDF perhaps didn’t offer the amount of earth shaking information that we always hope to find, but it is obvious that work is continuing in a difficult economy. While everyone is waiting for the market to rebound and the purse strings to be loosened on corporate IT budgets, development for the next generation of technology must progress.

Intel outlined its bold strategy of moving forward, and it continues to provide industry leadership. The wireless strategy, when coupled with the mobile strategy that they are moving ahead with, should pay serious dividends in the long haul. Still, obstacles remain, for example, in battery and display technology. Innovative solutions will be required in order to solve these most difficult issues.