Intel is releasing a somewhat revolutionary processor - codename Clarkdale - to integrate CPU, memory controller, PCIe interface and, most importantly, 3rd generation integrated graphics on a single processor. Interestigly, the processor is not using a monolithic die, rather it features the 32 nm process Westmere dual core "CPU" along with an ancillary processor manufactured on a 45 nm process node and harboring the memory controller, peripheral interfaces and integrated graphics. On paper, the concept sounds intriguing, moreover, there are a number of highly advanced novel features, at least for the world of integrated graphics. Still some of the novel features like xvYCC have to be highly anticipated by anyone who loathes the shortcomings of current display output technology. After all, what good is a 128-bit internal color depth when the output is compressed to a mere 32-bit RGB gamut?

In the first part of this article, we are covering the theoretical aspects of Clarkdale and will follow up very shortly with the actual performance and power numbers for a plethora of applications and benchmarks.

Over time, most of the DSPs fell victim to the increase in CPU power and the excess of CPU cycles that were never used for anything during the normal operation hours of a computer. Instead, modern PCs, particularly those at the entry level market segment have “soft modem”, audio CODECs, network Phys and whatever else is required in the digital information age, including soft RAID or Matrix Storage controllers that are nonetheless powered by the central processor.

The consolidation of all vital resources into a single integrated conglomerate has certainly hurt some of the third party vendors, at the same time, though, it has not hurt compatibility and ease of integration and, by extension, total cost of ownership of any system, including the OS. For those who still need specialized hardware, there is always the option of add-on hardware through the ubiquitous expansion slots.

The specialized market needing expansion slots, though, is a small drop in the bucket of the overall PC total accessible market or “TAM”; this does include the gaming community which, regardless of whether they are the show and tell of the progress in PC technology, are only a few percent of the TAM. The brutal truth is that approximately 90% of all PCs nowadays spend their existence as wall flowers in the corporate environment, where entertainment is restricted to corporate YouTube presentations if they are not blocked altogether.

Centralization of processing devices to soft implementation still carries the burden of bandwidth allocation, in fact, the bandwidth requirements are even higher than before in that even locally carried out functions (on the device) as for example parity or ECC data need to be sent to the CPU, thereby potentially clogging up the system interconnect. Particularly in the case of Intel’s prevailing architecture using the “Front Side Bus” to interface with the memory controller, this “cloggage” of traffic including snoop transactions has become more and more of a hindrance for the overall system performance, leaving the CPU more idle than not.

Early approaches to integrate more devices, for example the all-in-one Timna design featuring an integrated memory controller and integrated graphics on a monolithic design fell short of commercialization because of strategic mis-judgement of the market (e.g. Rambus acceptance), leaving it to AMD to release the first integrated memory controllers to solve some of the data bottlenecks.

Intel wouldn’t be Intel if they hadn't reacted to the change in architectural landscape. The Core i7/i5 series came back with a vengeance to recapture the lost terrain in the high end market segment, where the Nehalem (Bloomfield) is still the undisputed force majeur. At the same time, AMD’s low cost processors have been nibbling at Intel’s bread and butter, particularly when it came to integrated graphics where thus far, AMD’s 785G Northbridge with its integrated RADEON 4200 core has been dominating.