Eracer:
How many low cost Nehalems are there? Answer a big fat zero. Not many are likely because of the MB costs amongst other things. It will be sometime next year for that to happen. And there will be Fusion raising the bar. Too bad Nehalem.
As to why not get a $150 discrete card, money, power and/or heat. 4850s and 4870s go into desktop gaming systems, not the cheap PCs offered at places like Walmart. Your original post stated "low cost" Nehalems. Since HD4850s are about 3x HD3850s, a HD4650 should be about what a HD3850 is and a 4450, about what a HD3650 is. That would be about where a RS880G would be, a R700 class IGPU.
If R800 class is used (HD5450 based IGPU), with a 5850 being about 2x (and it could be 3x again) a 4850, it would be about where a 4650 is or a current 3850. Thus it would be about where a $100-150 discrete card was in Q2/08. It would not be atypical of GPU speed ups over a year given that two transitions would be made, 55nm to 45nm and bulk to SOI. It seems you at least have a hard time with quickly moving targets. Don't be too hard on yourself though, Intel has trouble with that too as do many others. Its ironic given Intel's stated "tick-tock" strategy. GPUs being quite a bit better at scaling given the nature of the task, move to a faster beat than CPUs.
As to 780G not being able to do DX10 games at playable rates, it depends on the eye candy level desired. When most reviewers do a GPU test, they crank up the resolution and settings up as high as they will go. That is not what a casual gamer does with his laptop or desktop. They turn down the settings until playing becomes relatively smooth. Problem is that a GMA4500 needs settings below the minimum offered by the game to do reasonable playing frame rates. 780G OTOH is above those minimums, so it can play them.
That is not where Fusion wil be though. Its 3x to HD4200 and 2-3x again to HD5200. That's 6-9x a 780G. 8x of a 780G, is roughly the HD3850.
As to getting Fusion out the door, they could do a MCM version now with a Turion Ultra die on the same substrate as a 780G or 790G NB with all necessary pins for a new socket. More likely though is a Shanghai derived dual core with a R820/NB die. Only the video/audio RAMDACs and RAMADCs would be on the complementing SB. Then sometime later would the R820, or its successor, be directly put on die along with the rest of the NB. The SB, beyond a video rate increase, would be roughly the same.
Pete |
