How Intel will benefit from AGP
OK, let me try to piece this together quickly for you. Remember Intel combined expensive math-coprocessors with the 486 which adding tremendous value to their processor at a very low cost. Now, every computer going out the door these days has a graphics sub-system and most of them have 3D, including the laptos. The reason is that manufacuteres will not buy a 2D accelerator when they can get the 3D for about the same price. Continuing, the Pentium Pro contains several chips and Intel has a process for creating and adding more blocks to the same package, in massive volume shipments, that is, they can crank them out on the cheap. Now look, Lockheed, Intel and some other gurus are developing 3D graphics, video, audio and other essential communications functionality they can stick on single slabs of silicon using the existing Pentium Pro fabrication techniques. Here is the important part: Intel will be creating an integrated system on a card that will have all of this Buck Rogers stuff including what is now and will continue to be the fastest processor in its class. Having a slower processor which claims to perform as well as a Pentium 200 simply isn't going to cut it and that is why the so-called competition is going to get crushed, flat.
Now, if you are convinced this 3D and video stuff isn't essential and only for games then sell Intel right here. While the competition keeps struggling to produce last years chip for last decades socket, Intel is busy crafting their next technological leap. Dell and IBM are waiting as are all the other box-makers. Think what these additional high-end subsystems will do for Intel's bottom line. Intel is anything but stupid.
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Intel intends to incorporate Accelerated Graphics Port support in chip sets specifically designed for the Pentium Pro family of processors which, due to their advanced floating point unit and faster cache algorithm, are much more suited for running 3D applications. In the timeframe of Accelerated Graphics Port compatible products, the Pentium Pro family of processors will be found in a wide variety of mainstream platforms. Intel therefore expects the industry to focus their Accelerated Graphics Port efforts on platforms containing Pentium Pro processors.
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Another link which tips Intel's hand insofar as 3D, they are striving to increase performance by a full order of magnitude and they will do it:
sei.com |
