Sandy bridge Architecture

The graphics engine is DirectX 10 compatible, there is no support for DirectX 11 despite the expectations of many. The GPU core is armed with twelve EUs -- Execution Units (another name for unified processors like CUDA cores / Execution Units / Shader Cores / Stream processors). Clarkdale had eight of these but despite only four more EUs the performance increase will be well over 50% due to the fact that each execution unit can manage twice the work per clock opposed to the older ones. Now there are two different GPU configurations as Intel applied a dual-graphics core to segment their products, available with 1 core (Intel HD Graphics 2000) and 2 cores (Intel HD Graphics 3000). A single GPU core holds 6 EUs and some of Sandy Bridge Core i5 and higher products will have two of these cores, so we'll see configurations with 6 (Core i3) or 12 (Core i5/i7) EUs.

So one last time, as you can understand from the specifications, don't expect heaps of gaming and fragging fun (though very simple games should be playable) but see this more as a desktop integration and implementation for very good Windows usage and importantly, high-definition 1080P transcoding, decoding and acceleration.

Bear in mind though that once you plug a discrete graphics card into a PCIe slot, the Sandy Bridge graphics core will disable itself.

The AVX (Advanced Vector Extension) Instruction Set
One thing we are very excited about is a new instruction set extension you'll be hearing much more of this year, AVX, which stands for Advanced Vector Extensions. AVX is very well suited for floating-point-intensive applications.

AVX provides new features and instructions. The easier way to grasp AVX is to look at it as a new sophisticated form of SSE. Intel opened up the data path which has been expanded from 128 bits towards 256 bits, the two-operand instruction limit is increased to three operands, and advanced data re-arrangement functions are included. Now, AVX doesn't just add new instructions, Intel states it allows the CPU to execute older instructions more quickly over the AVX extensions as well.

AMD has it planned as well for all their next-generation processors. So let's put it really simply, SB processors will support running x87 FPU code which is capable of up to 2GB/s of double-precision throughput per core. Now here is the trick, the very same amount of work once written to be supported over the AVX extensions boils down into a 4x performance increase (theoretical) so that's 8GB/s per core (double precision), a fourfold increase in performance.

Software that caters for and supports AVX will show huge performance increasements, transcoding for example. In our review we'll show you a trick or two with AVX and Media Espresso video transcoding. Nothing to date can beat the phenomenal speed as we'll show you. Small hint, if you do pick up one of these processors, your software application needs to support the AVX extensions and you'll need Windows 7 SP1 (which is not yet released), however at the MSDN website from Microsoft you can download the SP1 RC and open up AVX support at OS level.

PCH - The Platform Controller Hub Chipsets
Paired with the new processors come new motherboard chipsets, ten in total of which five are intended for desktop processors, namely the P67, H67, Q65, Q67 and B65.

Next to the new chipsets there is also a new socket change. Previous Clarkdale series processors were seated onto a LGA 1156 package (socket). The new SB processors are not same socket compatible and Intel placed them onto socket LGA 1155. The primary reason here is that a last generation processor will not work with a series 6 chipset and vice versa.

Now, luckily this doesn't mean you'll be needing a new cooler, your old LGA 1156 CPU cooler is compatible with the LGA 1155 motherboard measurements.

Above, you can see the primary desktop chipsets released, H67 and P67 will be the two chipset you are dealing with. For end consumers like you and me the H67 chipset will be less performance targeted and comes with support for monitor connectivity. The P67 chipset is targeted at performance and enthusiast end users allowing much more tweaking and providing performance features. In the coming weeks we'll be testing a lot of these chipset based motherboards, of which some will also now have support for the new UEFI BIOS. A graphics user interface BIOS that is going to shock you.

Interesting to know is that the new 67 series chipsets will come with SATA 6G controllers and though not native, all of them will very likely come with USB 3.0 support by using a NEC controller. P67 will get two extra x8 PCIe lanes for graphics cards, hence SLI and Crossfire will run quite well on them. Another change is that the chipset now comes with an Intel Gigabit LAN controller, on the previous chipsets this was optional for ODMs, this time around... it simply sits there and can be used by the motherboard ODM without paying extra for it. So I expect a big increase in Intel based LAN connectivity the upcoming year, bad news for Realtek that is.