As the NDAs lift, the web explodes with information from dozens of publications, each with their own take on the latest and greatest.

While most of our readers are end-users who reap personal benefit from new products, they too are equally afflicted. As you can imagine, a large scale tech product launch is both nerve-wracking and arduous for the company involved, their partners, the retailers, and the press covering it. The next salvo from Intel takes place today, the release of yet another processor microarchitecture, dubbed Sandy Bridge. Its 3D performance was significantly faster than its predecessors, although it still didn’t have enough mustard to take on AMD’s best IGP. Dubbed Intel GMA HD, this GPU turned out to be just about perfect for decoding high definition content. In Q1 of 2009, LGA1156 finally got dual core processors manufactured using the new 32nm fabrication process and an integrated graphics chip (albeit a 45nm one) placed on the same package to further improve efficiency. This made the platform more energy efficient, enabling broad appeal for both home and enterprise markets. They also split up some of the functions of the northbridge chip (eliminating it), putting some on the processor and bundling the rest with the southbridge in a new chip called the PCH. Like most budget CPUs, they were cut down, this time with lower clock speeds, a slower interface, and a dual channel memory controller instead of triple. A year later, they released more cost-effective processors on a new socket, LGA1156. Both the CPUs and motherboards for the new LGA1366 socket were (and still are) relatively expensive, so only power users and enthusiasts were willing to plunk down the cash for the new hardware. In the Fall of 2008, Intel launched the Nehalem processor architecture, the first major change to their chip designs in a couple of years. Januby Lawrence Lee POSTSCRIPT 2: GMA HD 2000 Test Results It has inherent advantages from residing on the same die as the CPU, and it also has a clever dynamic clock generator. In our first piece on Sandy Bridge aka LGA1155, we examine Intel’s new high-end integrated graphics chip (if there is such a thing), GMA HD 3000.

Intel graphic 3000