Chat With Intel Engineers!!!

I'd like to first start off by asking you all to please excuse the lack of recent posts. I haven't quite been on my game over the past few months and as a result have neglected to maintain this blog for some time. Anyways, I have some interesting news for you. I was recently given the opportunity to speak with some representatives of Intel with regards to their brand new P55 chipset, along with the trusty X58 chipset. I was able to ask them some questions about their future strategies, plans for future chips and some other things. I was very impressed by their answers and have to commend them on answering as directly as they did. The full transcript can be found here, but for now I will just post the highlights as some questions were repeated quite frequently as people came and went.  Some EVGA reps also sat in on the chat to answer questions about their products as the chat was hosted by them. My username is PsychoTeddy for the duration of this chat.

Q : xfinrodx: Do i3 processors work on existing p55 motherboards?
A : EVGA_JacobF: Yes, but for video you would need a discrete graphics card for video.

Insight:  This is a nice revelation as some consumers were confused by the H55/H57 chipsets being released primarily for the i3.  This gives the consumer more freedom by allowing them to take advantage of the advanced features of the P55 chipset, albeit at the expense of not being able to use the on-die GPU of the i3.  Intel did, however, recommend a BIOS upgrade to those who wish to use an i3 on the P55 chipset to accommodate for the change.

Q : Blazen22: When will corei9 be out?
A : Intel_TonyV: From a branding perspective our processors are the Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 family of processors.

Insight: This question was asked several times throughout the session by many people.  It would appear that either Intel is not willing to comment on the Gulftown processors at all at this point, or the naming convention has been lowered to the next-gen i7.  The six-core Gulftown has already been produced (engineering samples) and benchmarked, but it appears that Intel is not willing to speculate on release dates as-of yet.  Intel seemed to over-emphasize a three-phase marketing scheme each time this question was asked, that being that the Core i3 is for home users, Core i5 is for performance users, and Core i7 is for the enthusiast/extreme users.

Q : Dispater: what is the biggest change in the i7 (X58 series) chips compaired to the i3/i5 (p55) series chips.
A : Intel_TonyV:  From a processor perspective, Core i7 provides an additional channel of DDR3 for a total of 3 memory channels. This provides greater memory capacity capability and improved theoretical bandwidths for gaming and media type applications. In addition, with the X58 chipset, the lanes dedicated for Gfxs remain on the northbridge and there are 36 lanes available whereas on the core i5 you get up to 16 lanes only. The Core i3 processors introduce integrated Gfxs targeting lower platform price points.

Insight: I liked this question because the answer explicitly sums up the differences between Intel's X58 and P55 platforms.  These marketing conventions aren't just BS, they have major differences between them and each consecutive step is a huge leap in overall performance.

Q : chizow: Will we see any 32nm Westmere Quad Core Desktop processors, or will we have to wait for 32nm Sandy Bridge for P55 and X58 platforms?
A : Intel_TonyV: For X58 (Core i7-900 processor family), expect something in 2010!!

Insight: Looks like Intel will be putting out a 32nm i7 this year!!!

Q : PsychoTeddy: Thank you so much for this event EVGA and Intel! I would like to know if Intel has any plans to integrate the onboard graphics and memory controllers that we saw in the recently-released i3s into one die? What do you predict insofar as savings on thermal efficiency and performance? How would this compare to the current setup?
A : Intel_TonyG:   Socket PIN count could be a constraining factor, along with the signal routing on the breadboard, and possibility of increase layers. eg. increased cost. Future technologies could change these constraints.


Insight:  It looks like Intel is a tad weary of committing to the idea of a single-die, all-in-one package as of yet.  Sounds like there are a lot of kinks to work out before that becomes a reality.  Personally, I hope they stick with the current X58 platform for the enthusiast market until they can achieve the all-in-one CPU architecture.

Q : PsychoTeddy:  Does Intel have any plans to eliminate the LGA 1366 socket and opt for the 1156 in it's place? Or will we continue to see high-end i7s with a 1366 socket? I presume the extra pins are for the extra memory channel?
A : Intel_TonyV: We will continue to drive processors for Core i7 that provide the best experience for the Enthusiast. I can't comment on future plans and yes, the bigger socket accommodates the third channel of memory as well as a QPI interface to the X58 IOH.

Insight: I had feared at first that, when Intel released the 1156 socket immediately following the release of the 1366, that we were seeing a subtle, fleeting chipset that wasn't dedicated to the longterm.  Surely, many people were also worried that Intel would drop the 1366 socket in favour of the 1156 mainstream socket, thus eliminating support for 1366.  It appears that this is not the case, and that the 1366 and 1156 sockets are here to stay for some time.

All-in-all, this was quite an exciting experience to be a part of, and I'll be looking forward to more events such as these in the months to come.  Stay tuned! :D