Ces 2015

[witeken]

Intel Consumer Electronics Show 2015 Keynote

The next big keynote from Intel, after IDF and the Investor Meeting in Novemer, will be at CES '15, January 6 at 4:30PM PT. It will be a successor of earlier keynotes at CES. In 2013, Paul Otellini announced Bay Trail. A year ago, at the start of 2014, new CEO Brian Krzanich had a big focus on the internet of things and other "gimmicks" like RealSense and conflict free CPUs.

For 2015, besides IoT and wearables and more BDW-Y, we can expect Intel to release or announce BDW-U but according to Intel's roadmap presented at IM, there won't be a lot of volume until (early) spring. Since there's already a lot of information about BDW-U, that won't be too exciting. Intel will also focus on its goal to remove all cables with Skylake, as demonstrated at IDF and IM.

Besides Intel, there will also be press conferences of Qualcomm, Nvidia, Panasonic, LG, Samsung, Sony, etc. You can read this article from The Verge.

News:
:thumbsup: Acer announces Broadwell-U Chromebook 15
:thumbsup: Acer Broadwell-U Aspire R 13, S7; Core M Switch 12; RealSense Aspire V 17
:thumbsup: Nvidia announced Maxwell Mobile: Tegra X1
:thumbsup: Lenovo announces lots of Broadwell laptops
:thumbsup: Intel launches Broadwell-U
:thumbsup: More

 

[witeken]

Acer Debuts Industry’s First Chromebook with 15.6-inch Display

Acer today continues to lead the Chromebook space with the debut of the industry’s first Chromebook with a 15.6-inch [Full HD] display. The new Acer Chromebook 15 delivers the ideal balance of large screen size, outstanding Chrome performance and sleek, portable design, making it an excellent primary computing device.

The Acer Chromebook 15 is the company’s first Chromebook that uses 5th Generation Intel Core i3 and next generation Intel® Celeron™ processors1 based on Intel 5th Generation Core micro-architecture.

The Acer Chromebook 15 delivers the performance today’s consumers demand with several processor options based on Intel 5th Gen Core micro-architecture. The Chromebook 15 will be available with either a 5th Generation Intel Core i3 or next generation Intel Celeron processor to deliver fast performance and multi-tasking for apps and online games. The new state-of-the-art processor pairs with a solid state drive (SSD) for fast saving and accessing of data.

Several models in the Acer Chromebook 15 line (CB5-571) will be available with either a 16GB or 32GB SSD drive and either 2GB or 4GB or RAM.5 Exact specifications, prices and availability will vary by region. In the United States, prices start at $249.99.1

 

[Fjodor2001]

Should we consider CES 2015 to be the "real" release of Broadwell where most of the SKUs are released? I know some very limited amounts have been released earlier so Intel could claim a 2014 release (in fact they claim September 2014), but still?

 

[witeken]

Acer delivers 5th Generation Intel Core Processors and latest ultrafast wireless networking across mobile product lines

Acer today announced it will be expanding support for 5th Generation Intel® Core™ processors across its mobile lines, adding the CPU to its innovative line of Aspire R 13 convertible notebooks and award-winning Aspire S7 Ultrabooks. The Acer Aspire R 13 and S7 will incorporate the newest 802.11ac wireless specification for fast and more reliable Internet connections. The 5th Generation Intel Core processors have been designed to improve performance, graphics and battery life over previous versions. The ultrafast 802.11ac wireless networking standard is up to 3 times faster than the previous generation spec (802.11n) and increases network speed, range and reliability, enabling more people to use different wireless devices and simultaneously stream content with less interference(1).

The Aspire R 13 Series featuring the 5th Generation Intel Core processors and 802.11 ac will be available worldwide in January. Exact specifications, prices and availability will vary by region.
...
Aspire Switch 12 – Easily Transitions between Five Distinct Modes
The Aspire Switch 12 with five modes offers a compelling combination of performance and stunning display graphics. The new Intel processor will deliver a significant reduction in power consumption, allowing the Switch 12 to run up to 8 hours(3) during video playback. Its fan-less design makes it whisper quiet, further complementing its reduced power consumption.

The Acer Aspire Switch 12 featuring the new Intel Core M processor will be available in the United States and Canada in early 2015. Exact specifications, prices and availability will vary by region.

Acer to bring Intel RealSense 3D camera to its powerful Aspire V 17 Nitro Notebook PCs

Acer announced today it will introduce new Aspire V 17 Nitro notebooks that will feature the advanced Intel® RealSense™ 3D camera. Because the camera can understand and respond to natural movement in three dimensions, Aspire V Nitro owners will be able to interact with games, open web pages or navigate applications without even touching the notebook’s keyboard or mouse. It also enables 3D scanning, 3D model generating and then printing on a 3D printer or sharing on social media. Several intuitive apps introduce new ways to interact in gaming, entertainment, and content creation.

Acer V 17 Nitro notebook models include large 17.3-inch Full HD displays1 with IPS technology and are powered by a 4th Generation Intel Core i7-4710HQ Quad Core processor and the Nvidia® GeForce GTX 860M graphics with up to 4GB DDR5 VRAM for full-tilt performance and smooth game play, and up to16GB of memory. Speedy 128GB or 256GB solid state drives2 and up to 1TB of hard disk storage provide fast wake times and rapid access to files, movies, songs and photos.

The Aspire V 17 Nitro series of notebooks featuring the Intel RealSense 3D camera will be available in January worldwide. Exact specifications, prices and availability will vary by region.

Those Broadwell-U laptops are coming earlier than expected, which gives a bit more credit to Intel's claim that it's more like 6 months delayed instead of a year; I don't really consider January "early spring".

 

[Arachnotronic]

[
Those Broadwell-U laptops are coming earlier than expected, which gives a bit more credit to Intel's claim that it's more like 6 months delayed instead of a year; I don't really consider January "early spring".

First Haswell SKUs launched in what? June '13? Looks about right...6 month delay, not 12 months, if Intel is launching BDW-U this month.

By the way, laptop launches this month imply pretty strong shipments of processors in Q4. Looks like 14nm is good to go.

 

[North01]

Based on the teaser images from ASUS, it looks like we might finally see the T300 Chi with Intel Core M.

ASUS CES 2015 live stream on Jan. 5th @ 7:00 PM GMT - Link

 

[Fjodor2001]

First Haswell SKUs launched in what? June '13? Looks about right...6 month delay, not 12 months, if Intel is launching BDW-U this month.

Desktop Broadwell will be delayed a bit more though. Desktop Haswell was released on June 2 2013, but the Broadwell successor will not be released until 2015 Q2. I.e. about 2 years later.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

Acer Debuts Industry’s First Chromebook with 15.6-inch Display

id never buy acer but man i hope this is a glimpse of the future. chromebooks need faster cpus and higher resolution screens than similarly priced windoze lappies to make them competitive. im glad those arm/k1 and atom chromebooks arent selling man

 

[podspi]

id never buy acer but man i hope this is a glimpse of the future. chromebooks need faster cpus and higher resolution screens than similarly priced windoze lappies to make them competitive. im glad those arm/k1 and atom chromebooks arent selling man

I used to think the same thing (man I've seen some TERRIBLE Acers out there) but this C720 (Chromebook) is actually pretty awesome. Premium by no means, but completely solid for what it is and how much it cost. I've (unfortunately) seen PCs by HP and Lenovo that cost far more and feel about as well built... and that's AFTER I took a screwdriver to this thing and left out most of the screws

 

[ninaholic37]

It sounds like there will be two 15" Acer Chromebook versions, an i3 with 1920x1080 screen (price unknown) and a Celeron with 1366x768 ($249). I'm guessing (hopefully) that the Celeron is Broadwell-U like the C720 because Broadwell-Y is now named Core M, as far as I understand it...

 

[OBLAMA2009]

It sounds like there will be two 15" Acer Chromebook versions, an i3 with 1920x1080 screen (price unknown) and a Celeron with 1366x768 ($249). I'm guessing (hopefully) that the Celeron is Broadwell-U like the C720 because Broadwell-Y is now named Core M, as far as I understand it...

i bet the i3 will be like $500 which is over priced. but if it were 350 and i had the choice between that and a windows machine for the same price but a 1350x768 screen i think id take the chromebook, even if it was just 1600x 900

 

[witeken]

NVIDIA CES 2015 Press Conference Liveblog

- 256 core Maxwell GPU [up 33% from 192, together with Maxwell arch. should mean 1.8x higher performance per core and clock]
- 8 core CPU (Big.little A57 + A53)
- Tegra X1 demo, running at roughly 10W
- Sounds like we're going to be seeing Unreal Engine Elemental running on TX1
- Clearly not as high quality as the desktop GPU demos, but it still looks impressive
- NVIDIA is proclaiming it a 1 TFLOPS GPU, though this is at FP16 as opposed to the more normal FP32 metric for TFLOPS [So apples to apples performance is 512 gflops at 1GHz]
- Paper napkin math says that the GPU clockspeed needs to be 1GHz for NVIDIA's GPU performance numbers
- New NVIDIA platform: Drive CX
- Powered by Tegra X1, is a complete digital cockpit computing kit
- Also comes with an NVIDIA software suit called DRIVE Studio
- More cars, now discussing ADAS - Advanced Driver Assistance Systems
- Parking assist, lane change assist, adaptive cruise control, etc
- Second new car platform: Drive PX
- "Auto-pilot car computer"
- Neural networks in a nutshell: throw a ton of data at a network and let it figure out how to organize it to recognize it in the future
- 20nm

NVIDIA Tegra X1 Preview & Architecture Analysis
Nvidia announces new Tegra X1: 256-core mobile Maxwell with eight-core CPU, plans massive automotive push

However, rather than a somewhat standard big.LITTLE configuration as one might expect, NVIDIA continues to use their own unique system. This includes a custom interconnect rather than ARM’s CCI-400, and cluster migration rather than global task scheduling which exposes all eight cores to userspace applications. It’s important to note that NVIDIA’s solution is cache coherent, so this system won't suffer from the power/performance penalties that one might expect given experience with previous SoCs that use cluster migration.

NVIDIA continues to use System EDP (Electrical Design Point) management to control throttling and turbo rather than ARM's IPA (Intelligent Power Allocation) drivers, and in general it seems that while the CPU architecture is ARM's reference design it's quite clear that everything else is distinctly NVIDIA in design.

All of this of course raises the question of where’s Denver, and what is to happen to it? The use of the ARM Cortex A57 and A53, as NVIDIA tells it, was based on a time-to-market decision, and that NVIDIA could bring an off-the-shelf Cortex-based SoC to the market sooner than they could another Denver SoC.

e see a move from 64-bit wide LPDDR3 to 64-bit wide LPDDR4 on the memory interface, which improves peak memory bandwidth from 14.9 GB/s to 25.6 GB/s and improves power efficiency by around 40%.

As with Kepler and Fermi before it, Maxwell only features dedicated FP32 and FP64 CUDA cores, and this is still the same for X1. However in recognition of how important FP16 performance is, NVIDIA is changing how they are handling FP16 operations for X1. On K1 FP16 operations were simply promoted to FP32 operations and run on the FP32 CUDA cores; but for X1, FP16 operations can in certain cases be packed together as a single Vec2 and issued over a single FP32 CUDA core.

NVIDIA’s stated goal with X1 is to (roughly) double K1’s GPU performance, and while these controlled benchmarks for the most part don’t make it quite that far, X1 is still a significant improvement over K1. NVIDIA does meet their goal under Manhattan, where performance is almost exactly doubled, meanwhile 3DMark and BaseMark X increased by 59% and 56% respectively.

Finally, for power testing NVIDIA had an X1 reference platform and an iPad Air 2 rigged to measure the power consumption from the devices’ respective GPU power rails. The purpose of this test was to showcase that thanks to X1’s energy optimizations that X1 is capable of delivering the same GPU performance as the A8X GPU while drawing significantly less power; in other words that X1’s GPU is more efficient than A8X’s GX6850. Now to be clear here these are just GPU power measurements and not total platform power measurements, so this won’t account for CPU differences (e.g. A57 versus Enhanced Cyclone) or the power impact of LPDDR4.

NVIDIA’s tools show the X1’s GPU averages 1.51W over the run of Manhattan. Meanwhile the A8X’s GPU averages 2.67W, over a watt more for otherwise equal performance. This test is especially notable since both SoCs are manufactured on the same TSMC 20nm SoC process, which means that any performance differences between the two devices are solely a function of energy efficiency.

 

[witeken]

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon: Broadwell Version

The latest iteration upgrades the CPU to Intel’s latest 5th Generation Core processors, with support for up to Core i7. Lenovo also rates the latest X1 Carbon at up to 10.9 hours of battery life with a 50Wh battery, compared to the previous version’s 8.6 hours.

Most of the remaining design elements are similar to last year’s X1. The LCD is a 2560x1440 IPS touchscreen display (there may still be a lower resolution option), it ships with up to 8GB RAM, and the dimensions are the same 331mm x 226.5mm x 17.7mm (13.0” x 8.9” x 0.7”) with a starting weight of 1.31kg (2.88 lbs). Storage has also received an update to M.2 PCIe with up to 512GB, and WiFi is again 2x2 802.11ac.

Lenovo ThinkPad X250http://anandtech.com/show/8822/lenovo-thinkpad-x250http://anandtech.com/show/8822/lenovo-thinkpad-x250

There’s a theme with the Lenovo updates being announced today: in most cases, the new models are similar to the previous generation, only now with Intel’s Broadwell-U processors in place of Haswell-U. The ThinkPad X250 continues that trend, supporting up to Core i7 Broadwell-U processors.

Of course the big draw of the X250 is that it boasts more battery life than any other laptop I know of with the same battery capacity. Equipped with the 72Wh 6-cell battery (in addition to the built-in 3-cell 23.2Wh battery), the X250 is rated at up to 20 hours of battery life

Lenovo ThinkPad Broadwell Updates for T550, T450s, E550, E450, and L450

Wrapping up the ThinkPad updates for now, Lenovo also announced the T550, T450s, E550, E450, and L450 today. As with the X1 Carbon and X250, these replace the previous generation Haswell products and upgrade them to Broadwell processors.

Really happy with the fast replacement for Broadwell, according to Intel the fastest ramp in its history. It seems all 2015 laptops will be 14nm, excluding some 3x/4x ones. I really thought Broadwell would come in March or April, but that will be Broadwell-M and Broadwell-H, it seems. When Intel announced BDW would launch in spring, it seemed to me that a slide that said BDW-U would launch in Q1 followed by SKL in Q2, was wrong, but maybe some SKL SKUs will still launch in Q2, at Computex.

 

[witeken]

Intel Releases Broadwell-U: New SKUs, up to 48 EUs and Iris 6100

For Sweepr's summary: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37048672&postcount=1379

For Intel's information: http://newsroom.intel.com/docs/DOC-6115

Fact sheet with SKUs: http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/ces/2015/pdfs/5th_Gen_Intel_Core_Factsheet.pdf

Intel also started shipping its next generation 14nm processor for tablets, codenamed “Cherry Trail”, to device manufacturers. The new system on a chip (SoC) offers 64-bit computing, improved graphics with Intel® Generation 8-LP graphics, great performance and battery life for mainstream tablets. The platform offers world-class modem capabilities with LTE-Advanced on Intel® XMM™ 726x platform, which supports Cat-6 speeds and carrier aggregation. Customers will introduce new products based on this platform starting in the first half of this year

 

[witeken]

HP Introduces Multiple Monitors At CES Including 5K 27” Display

LG Press Conference, CES 2015

Intel Shipping 14nm Cherry Trailhttp://anandtech.com/show/8831/intel-shipping-14nm-cherry-trailhttp://anandtech.com/show/8831/intel-shipping-14nm-cherry-trail

This is also much better than the earlier rumored ~March start of production, now there might even be some 14nm tablets in Q2.

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...-nodes-upstart-companies-fuel-dynamic-market/

Asus Press Conference: Asus launched 3 Chi's and also Intel powered Zenphone 2 with fast charging and 4GB RAM (starting at $199 with 2GB).

Qualcomm Press Conference

 

[mikk]

No Broadwell launch reviews, this is poor. Also the slides are a joke.

 

[Ramses]

They tryin real hard to price/grow those chromebooks right out of their market segment.
Treating them like a laptop is asking for some stiff competition/comparison imo.

 

[witeken]

When you look at following slide ("our leading position"), I think we'll see an interesting battle emerge in the coming 2 years as Intel launches one product after another in response to Qualcomm, with and without the help from Spreadtrum and Rockchip.

From http://anandtech.com/show/8834/qualcomm-ces-2015-live-blog.

Edit:

Asus claims its Core M Chi T300 is 18% faster than the Yoga 3 Pro. http://press.asus.com/events/

 

[witeken]

Intel has updated its CES site, which is probably everything BK will cover in his keynote later today, including the Intel Compute Stick.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/events/intel-ces-keynote.html

 

[Idontcare]

Intel has updated its CES site, which is probably everything BK will cover in his keynote later today, including the Intel Compute Stick.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/events/intel-ces-keynote.html

Compute stick sounds cool. Would like to see more about that.

 

[GreenChile]

Compute stick sounds cool. Would like to see more about that.

Wow that is innovative!

 

[OBLAMA2009]

Wow that is innovative!

thats gonna be a really low grade experience tho

 

[GreenChile]

thats gonna be a really low grade experience tho

It's not supposed to replace your desktop. I expect there will be loads of uses for a computer on a HDMI stick. What's not to be intrigued by?

 

[Burpo]

http://live.theverge.com/intel-ces-2015-keynote-liveblog/

 

[erunion]

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/07/intel-compute-stick/