Intel ships 32nm Sandy Bridge CPUs without GPU

The Tech Report noticed Intel has added three new IGP-less Core i5 processors to its official price list:

The chips come with their GPUs disabled and can be identified by the model numbers 2550K, 2450P, and 2380P. That first CPU features a fully unlocked upper multiplier, so it's the one you'll want.

Versus the existing Core i5-2500K, the 2550K offers 100MHz increases in base and Turbo frequencies, bringing the chip up to 3.4GHz with a 3.8GHz Turbo peak. Those speeds match the Core i7-2600K, which offers additional cache and Hyper-Threading support missing from the i5 series. Intel is selling the 2550K at $225�$92 less than the 2600K and a $9 premium over the 2500K.

Intel ships 32nm Sandy Bridge CPUs without GPU - More news at DV Hardware

Intel Sandy Bridge Shines With Mesa 8.0 @ Phoronix

Phoronix tests Intel's Sandy Bridge in Linux under Mesa 8.0, you can check out the results over here.

"Now that the Nouveau, Radeon, and LLVMpipe graphics drivers have been tested under Mesa 8.0, what is left? The Intel DRI driver, of course! The open-source Sandy Bridge Linux graphics support is shining with Mesa 8.0 thanks to OpenGL 3.0 support and measurable performance improvements. Intel Ivy Bridge is also ready to run under Linux."

Intel Sandy Bridge Shines With Mesa 8.0 @ Phoronix - More news at DV Hardware

EVGA reveals SR-X dual-socket Sandy Bridge-E board

The Tech Report spotted EVGA's SR-X at CES 2012, you can check it out over here.This enthusiast board takes two Sandy Bridge-E Xeon processors.

The new SR-X retains the dual-Xeon design of its forebear but swaps that board's LGA1366 sockets for compatibility with Intel's 2011-pin Sandy Bridge-E silicon. Alas, you won't be able to plug a couple of desktop-oriented CPUs like the Core i7-3960X into the SR-X; it's designed for Xeons exclusively. Just two Sandy Bridge-E based Xeons offer plenty of PCI Express 3.0 connectivity, allowing the SR-X to serve its seven expansion slots without tapping the PCIe lanes built into the chipset. EVGA does use a PLX switch chip to split the PCIe 3.0 lanes between the multiple slots, though.

On the chipset front, the board features an "Intel C600" platform hub that looks an awful like what the X79 should have been. See that pair of SAS connectors in the bottom right-hand corner of the board? It seems Intel has resolved the storage-controller issues that left the X79 with no more SATA ports than a run-of-the-mill desktop chipset.

EVGA reveals SR-X dual-socket Sandy Bridge-E board - More news at DV Hardware

Intel to release new 32nm Sandy Bridge Celerons

FUD Zilla reports Intel will release new 32nm Sandy Bridge Celeron chips this quarter, full details over here.

The top of the platform dual-core V2 market segment remains the B840 dual-core with two treads and 1.9GHz core clock. This CPU has 35W TDP, 2MB cache, DDR3 1333MHz and graphics that run at 650/1000MHz. Top of the V1 dual-core market segment the one that comes to replace Celeron T3500 in Q4 2011 is called B800 and is clocked to 1.5 GHz. The rest of the specs are the same, it is a 35W TDP processor, two cores and two threads, 2MB cache, DDR3 1333MHz and graphics that works at 650MHz with a max frequency set to 1000MHz.

There will be a new Sandy Bridge 32nm dual-core Celeron, the one that fits in Huron River platform called B815. It is expected as a head of dual core V1 market in Q1 2012 and it is a 1.6GHz 35W TDP CPU, has two cores and two threads, 2MB cache, DDR3 1333MHz and graphics 650/1050MHz. A faster successor could come in Q3 2012 at the earliest.

Intel to release new 32nm Sandy Bridge Celerons - More news at DV Hardware

Intel Sandy Bridge-E to get C2 stepping after launch

VR Zone reports Intel's Sandy Bridge-E will get a C2 stepping likely sometime near the very end of the year. This new stepping will fix some issues with VT-d.

We knew that Intel's Sandy Bridge-E chips were big and complicated to make, but what we didn't expect was that Intel was going to continuously keep running into problems. The current C1 stepping is apparently having problems with VT-d, not a major issue for most consumers' maybe, but it's a huge problem when it comes to Xeon chips and as such Intel is working on the C2 stepping to fix this "errata".

The only good news here for Intel, if you look at that way, is that its current Extreme Edition CPU's don't support VT-d, neither does the Sandy Bridge K-SKU CPU's, so as far as the consumer platform is concerned it looks like there won't be any further delays, but the initial batch should be C1 stepping rather than C2. The C1 stepping should be in production by now, or by the latest by next week, although we don't know when Intel will kick off production of the C2 stepping, but it's very possible it won't be until next year as qualification samples of the C2 stepping isn't expected until the very end of the year.

Intel Sandy Bridge-E to get C2 stepping after launch - More news at DV Hardware

Intel's New Sandy Bridge and Mac OS X

type="html">Today Intel lifted the Non-Disclosure Agreement on it's new Sandy Bridge LGA 1155 next generation performance chipset and CPUs.  The good news is, we've already successfully installed Mac OS X Snow Leopard!

The bad news is, until Apple uses these CPUs, it's a bit of a science experiment, as you'll need to use a "patched" non-standard Darwin kernel in order to boot the system.  For those of you buying new systems anyway, we're opening a special section of the forum dedicated to Sandy Bridge.

PLEASE NOTE:  Sandy Bridge CPUs and chipsets are not currently supported natively by Mac OS X Snow Leopard. We can't recommend Sandy Bridge systems yet, as there is no official support.  Hence, please don't view this as buying advice.  We're providing this as a service for early Sandy Bridge adopters- and don't recommend using a patched kernel for the long-term. The vanilla kernel is a much more desirable solution for a stable system.

The patched kernel used for these experiments is based on the Mac OS X 10.0.0 kernel that has been altered to run on unsupported CPUs by Qoopz and the ProjectOSX team.

How to Install Mac OS X on Intel's Sandy Bridge

1. Download iBoot Legacy

2. Follow iBoot + MultiBeast

3. Install Combo Update - DON'T REBOOT

5. Download and install BridgeHelper

4. Run MultiBeast, checking EasyBeast

6. Reboot

-Legacy kernel by Nawcom, AnV, and Azimutz
Kernel used: Darwin Kernel Version 10.6.0: Sun Jan  9 16:40:36 EST 2011; legacy kernel v6 :xnu-1504.9.26/BUILD/obj/RELEASE_X86_640nawcom10.6.0

It's gonna be an exciting year!  Stay tuned for updates.  Good luck, and have fun!

-tonymacx86 & MacMan

For discussions on this and other topics, register today at tonymacx86.com!

Sandy Bridge Overclocked on Mac OS X

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NOTE: These results may be affected by unsupported CPU and chipset. 

For discussions on this and other topics, register today at tonymacx86.com!

Sandy Bridge Desktop CPUs and Motherboards

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Earlier this month, Intel officially announced it's new Sandy Bridge LGA 1155 CPUs and chipsets.  While we've installed and configured Mac OS X Snow Leopard successfully on these components, unfortunately they are not used in any Apple computers yet.  Therefore, they are only in the experimental stages of support, and require a non-vanilla "Legacy Kernel" to boot.

Sandy Bridge LGA 1155 CPUs are Intel's direct successor to the previous LGA 1156 Core i3/i5/i7s.  While all older Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs are able to be overclocked, all but the new K models are locked down.  The 2 unlocked models, the Core i5-2500K and Core i7-2600K show unbelievably high performance when overclocked.

Intel Sandy Bridge Desktop CPUs

• Core i7-2600K - 4 cores/8 threads - 8 MB Cache, 3.40 GHz - Unlocked for Overclocking
• Core i7-2600 - 4 cores/8 threads - 8 MB Cache, 3.40 GHz
• Core i5-2500K - 4 cores/4 threads - 6 MB Cache, 3.30 GHz - Unlocked for Overclocking
• Core i5-2500 - 4 cores/4 threads - 6 MB Cache, 3.30 GHz
• Core i5-2400 - 4 cores/4 threads - 6 MB Cache, 3.10 GHz
• Core i5-2300 - 4 cores/4 threads - 6 MB Cache, 2.80 GHz

One of the improvements that Intel included in Sandy Bridge is the new integrated graphics controller. The new integrated Intel HD 2000 or HD 3000 graphics controller offers much better performance over the previous generation Intel HD.  However, all modern Intel onboard graphics are unsupported, and there are no workarounds.  For now the only option is to use a supported graphics card.

Please note that the P67 chipset does not support the integrated graphics controller.  If you want to utilize it in other OSes, you'll need a motherboard with a H67 chipset.

Also revealed this month were most major motherboard manufacturers' LGA 1155 offerings. Interestingly, ASUS, MSI, and others have chosen to use UEFI instead of BIOS.  This allows for more user-friendly setup and customization of CPU settings, as well as providing a full OS-style graphical user interface.  Gigabyte has instead gone the traditional route, and uses the same Award BIOS most users are accustomed to.  They will however, be transitioning to a new hybrid UEFI setup within the first part of this year.  Luckily, the Chameleon bootloader works as well with UEFI as it does with BIOS.

In initial testing, it seems as if Gigabyte and ASUS motherboards could be the best bet.  They all include new features like USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 standard.  Most also feature the friendly Realtek 8111E Gigabit Ethernet network controllers, fully supported by Lnx2Mac's RealtekRTL81xx kext.  The good news continues on the audio front, as these motherboards all use Realtek ALC888b, ALC889, or ALC892- all supported codecs using MacMan's ALC8xxHDA.

Gigabyte P67 Motherboards

• GA-P67A-UD3 - ATX 
• GA-P67A-UD3P - ATX
• GA-P67A-UD3R - ATX
• GA-P67A-UD4 - ATX - eSATA
• GA-P67A-UD5 - ATX - eSATA + FW400
• GA-P67A-UD7 - ATX - eSATA + FW400 + 2 PCIEX16

Gigabyte H67 Motherboards

• GA-H67M-D2 - mATX - 2xDIMM
• GA-H67MA-D2H - mATX - 2xDIMM
• GA-H67MA-UD2H - mATX - 4xDIMM + eSATA
• GA-H67A-UD3H - ATX - eSATA + FW400

ASUS P67 Motherboards

• P8P67 - ATX
• P8P67 LE - ATX - eSATA + FW400
• P8P67 EVO - ATX - eSATA + FW400
• P8P67 PRO - ATX - eSATA + FW400 + 2 PCIEX16 
• P8P67 Deluxe - ATX - eSATA + FW400 + 2 PCIEX16
• SABERTOOTH P67 - ATX - eSATA + FW400 + 2 PCIEX16
• P8P67-M - mATX - eSATA + FW400
• P8P67-M LE - mATX - eSATA + FW400
• P8P67-M EVO - mATX - eSATA + FW400
• P8P67-M PRO - mATX - eSATA + FW400 + 2 PCIEX16

ASUS H67 Motherboards

• P8H67-M LE - mATX - 2xDIMM
• P8H67-M LX - mATX - 2xDIMM
• P8H67-M PRO - mATX - 4xDIMM
• P8H67-M EVO - mATX - 4xDIMM + eSATA + FW400

CPUs and Motherboards listed are available at the time of this posting.

All of the new Gigabyte motherboards will be added to the DSDT Database. In addition, we'll be broadening the DSDT Database beyond our current Gigabyte offerings to include a verified library of pre-edited ASUS DSDTs.

PLEASE NOTE:  Sandy Bridge CPUs and chipsets are not currently supported natively by Mac OS X Snow Leopard. We can't recommend Sandy Bridge systems yet, as there is no official support.  Hence, please don't view this as buying advice.  We don't recommend using a patched kernel for the long-term. The vanilla kernel is a much more desirable solution for a stable system.

For those of you buying new systems anyway, we've opened a special section of the forum dedicated to Sandy Bridge.  Good luck!  Let us know how it goes with these new components!

-tonymacx86 & MacMan

Intel Sandy Bridge VA-API Video Acceleration Performance @ Phoronix

There have been a number of Intel Sandy Bridge articles on Phoronix since the January launch of this next-generation Intel CPU micro-architecture. It's ranged from the Linux support being challenging to dealing with motherboard problems and then the graphics performance being fast relative to previous generations of Intel graphics and for being based upon the classic Mesa driver architecture, but much slower than Windows. Last week then the Sandy Bridge Linux performance became much more interesting after a simple patch led to a huge performance win to the point that the open-source Linux driver performance is much closer to their full-featured Microsoft Windows driver. What is the next chapter in the Intel Sandy Bridge Linux story? A look at the VA-API video acceleration playback performance.

Read more at Phoronix.

Intel Sandy Bridge VA-API Video Acceleration Performance @ Phoronix - More news at DV Hardware