Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Intel’ s Core i7 is FAST but getting there isn’t

I was invited to the Intel Core i7 victory lap party in way, way downtown south of the biotech area that’s exploding in San Francisco known as the dogpatch, is an area filled with old warehouses now used by film and art studios, and a few software development firms.

On my way to the Intel i7 rollout I was making a left to the designated parking area – parking being the most unavailable thing in this area of empty lots – go figure, and when I got to the right lane of on-coming traffic (the left two lanes were stopped waiting to make their left turn) a car hit me broadside in the passenger door (I was alone) and drove my heavy (4,220 pound) little car up the street 30 ft. He careened off. His car, a 1,095 pound Chevrolet Aveo was destroyed, his airbags popped and he got a ride to the hospital in a big red truck with flashing lights. He had, what looked to be minor injuries and a very bad day. Here’s the good part, or the bad part—time will tell—he’s a SF traffic safety officer, but it would seem someone should have explained speed limits to him.

That’s my car off to the right behind the fence - which ultimately stopped by forward motion. That’s a section of the explosive biotech development area in the background – Dogpatch is south to the left.

But now I had to wait for the twenty some cops who came rushing to scene and try to find the one who was in charge. Eventually he showed up on a motorcycle, and then the cops with cameras and tape measures went to work, and I kept trying to find someone to talk to. Early on there was a sergeant who seemed to know how things worked, but for some strange reason wasn’t in charge. Eventually I got my paperwork submitted and telling anyone who would listen I had to go to a meeting. They all told me forgetablutit.

I kept asking, and finally someone said, OK you can go. AND, I made it to the Intel event just a little late thanks to the sergeant at the scene who gave me a ride.

Got there, to Dogpatch Studios in time to hear that the Core i7 is the fastest thing ever – but I knew that because we’ve been testing one for a few weeks- and it IS fast!. And also go to hear that Intel has shipped over 100,000 processors to the mobo builders in Taiwan, and that unsurprising Alienware, Dell, Gateway and others will be building super-duper high-end hi-speed systems with the wonder chip.

When it comes to CPUs there are physical speed limits and Intel seems to be breaking them. We’re still checking the data but early indications are that using dual ATI Radeon HD4970x2s (that’s’s four GPUs chugging along with the four CPUs) the Core i7 based machine as compared to a Barcelona is over twice as fast!  We’re having trouble believing this and that’s why we’re still running the tests. The final results will be posted in Mt. Tiburon Testing Labs on our front page in a few days.

F A S T ! ! !

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Monday, November 17, 2008

New Laptops defy dim market expectations

There were some interesting announcements last week in Laptop Land as the manufacturers geared up for the impending holiday madness, although it does appear that the global recession worries, and general lack of consumer confidence may dampen some of the dreams of the suppliers.

Typically, in times of economic depression non-essential purchases are postponed, or at best case, the consumer looks for the lowest priced product available. If history is any teacher, some of the high-end shiny notebooks may soon begin looking like the last doggie in the pet shop.

One contrarian is Acer, the world’s third-largest PC vendor. Acer executives expect shipments of netbooks and laptop PCs to grow 20% to 25% compared to the third quarter, while desktop PC shipments remain flat. The company’s fourth quarter revenue will also outpace the third quarter they said, but the executives did not say by how much. And, DigiTimes reports that Asus is dropping prices on several models including the Eee PC 701, 901, 904, 1000H, and 1000HD. The move is reportedly part of an effort to meet the company’s goal of shipping five million units by the end of the year and to clear out some older netbooks.

Nonetheless, the news of a pending recession didn’t stop, even if it could have stopped, the introduction of a few new laptops with some novel and exciting features. Laptops, notebooks, and mini-notes have been the high point in the industry for a while, with the mini-notes surprising some and being the big hope for price elasticity market expansion and the ultimate parity and leadership in market share over desktops.

However, due to double attach, and uses beyond the PC for GPUs, the market share of GPUs is not reaching parity as quickly as PCs.

And, within the laptop GPU market, the market shares have shifted over time from one supplier to another.

 
• The future: With laptops now such a dominate factor in the PC industry, extending all the way from the mini-note to the extreme gaming and workstation class, a supplier’s position in this segment is one of the measures of its overall success and future.
 
• ASPs: However, average notebook IGP ASPs (in low $20) are lower than desktop IGPs ASPs (high $20 to $30s), and growth in notebook discrete GPUs is challenged by the market expansion driven by IGPs and the much lower associated attach rates. So, overall, whereas it’s a segment with great growth, it’s not as rich a segment as the desktop.
 
• Must do: Nonetheless, to avoid investing in this segment is to be cutting off one’s future growth and success. And, alas, there is no Moore’s law for batteries, so power management is still the key to success in this segment.

How many GPUs can you cram in a laptop?

Ask Alienware, they’ve got two in the new M17

Although there have been phony announcements of dual GPU laptops before, this time there’s a real one available. Alienware has introduced the M17 (which is not the same thing as their M17x) and it employs ATI CrossFireX dual graphics.

Using an MXM card with two Radeon RV670 Radeon HD3870 GPUs, each with 256-bit 512MB GDDR3 frame buffer memory and 320 stream processors, the laptop pushes the envelope on thermal management by running the RV670s at their rated 775MHz clock and the GDDR3 at 1.12 GHz. (although the memory clock of a RV670 is capable of 2.25 GHz.)

Dell has maintained Alienware as its high-performance PC gaming brand and Alienware has maintained a strong loyal following. Their new 17-inch beast is not likely to disappoint those folks.

The unit isn’t small, measuring 4.3 cm (1.7-inches) thick, 39.7 cm (15.65-inches) wide, 30 cm (11.80-inches) deep and weighing 4.3 kg (9.5 lbs.) in a stealth Black, a soft-touch, matte black finish that protects the system from fingerprints and scratches

You can get a single GPU and 2.2GHz Core 2 based system with a 1440 x 900 screen for as little as $1,399, but if you configure one with dual GPUs, a 1920 x 1200 screen, a 250 GB 7200 RPM HDD and a 2.53 GHz Core 2 Extreme Quad CPU you can run the price up to $3,000.

The unit has a VGA and HDMI output, and the HDMI can use a dongle to drive an external dual-link DVI display up to 2560 x 1600.

What do we think?

Laptops have been gaining market share over desktops at an accelerating rate for the past four years, and depending on who you talk to, they may be at parity with desktops this year or next. The one stronghold for desktops has been the ability to modify and add really powerful AIBs. That had been a safe haven for desktops due to the power (wattage) and cooling requirements of the big AIBs, and for the extreme systems it will continue to be. However, the M17 is challenging those precepts and is an interesting alternative to a desktop for the gamer that travels a lot. And if you think this is interesting, read the next story.—JP

If you liked two, then how about three?

Toshiba announces laptop with three Nvidia chips

Hot on the heels of the Apple design-win announcements, Nvidia and Toshiba jointly announced the first laptop with three—that’s not a typo THREE Nvidia GPUs in it. The new Toshiba Qosmio X305 laptop uses Nvidia’s core logic and GPUs—a GeForce 9400M and two GeForce 9800M GTS GPUs in SLI mode or less power demanding operations in Hybrid. This is the first laptop to use three GPUs and also the first GeForce 9M Series SLI laptops. The GPUs run at 1.5 GHz, have 512MB per GPU, and the memory clock is 800MHz.

When the system senses that you disconnected from main power (the wall) it automatically switches off the dGPU(s) and engages the IGP, and it takes less than a second, so the user is not even aware of it happening. Thus, with the IGP you save battery life.

HybridPower transition happens automatically when you unplug. The system automatically switches off the dGPU(s) and engages the IGP in less than a second so users are unaware of what just happened, if they care. The user can also force transition. For instance, it might be useful to shut off the dGPU and the accompanying fan noise when watching Blu-ray.

There are two new models added to the Qosmio X305 line, the Q706 and Q708. The big difference between them is the Q706 offers a Core 2 Duo P8400 CPU.

Why did they do this? “We wanted to deliver an extreme-performance gaming machine that gives gamers a complete, no-compromise system in a laptop form factor,” said Carl Pinto, vice president of product development, digital products division for Toshiba America Information Systems.

The units have a 17-inch 1680 x 1050 display and weigh 9 pounds. Starting price is $1,999 for the Q706 and $4,199 for the quadcore based Q708.

What do we think?

Toshiba has been one of the leaders in high-performance laptops, and whereas this is a pretty fantastic product introduction, it isn’t too much of a surprise to see Toshiba do it. The use of Nvidia’s IGP, which they call a motherboard GPU—mGPU, with hybrid operation is a brilliant move by Toshiba in that it provides the best of both worlds, max performance, or max battery life—JP.

Two screens too

Fujitsu offers two-screen laptop

Fujitsu announced a new laptop, the Lifebook N7010 that has a secondary 4-inch 960 x 544 touchscreen LCD just above the keyboard that can be used to control media playback, display quick-launch icons, or scroll through a photo slideshow.

The Ny7010 has a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor, 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3470 GPU, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, a Blu-ray drive, a gesture-enabled touchpad, removable dust filter, and spill-resistant keyboard.

The 16-inch widescreen display has a resolution of 1366 x 768 and the system also offers an HDMI port for an external display. The second display can also help you multitask; instead of minimizing an application, you can drag it into the display below. (The example from Fujitsu: You can work on a large file in the main screen while chatting on the Webcam below).

Pricing for the Fujitsu LifeBook N7010 starts at US$1,499. The system can be ordered today and is expected to start shipping by November 10, but only in the U.S. (for now).

What do we think?

Not much. For one thing Fujitsu is a difficult company to get any information from, and their web page specifications don’t show the laptop’s dimensions. Located just above the keyboard, the second screen is not in a convenient place to actually use, and is more useful than keyboard short cuts—this has gimmick all over it.—JP

Thin, light and chrome powered

S3’s first discrete GPU to be used in ultralight-class notebooks

At 1.9kg, the Fujitsu S6520 is one of the lighter notebooks around—it’s powered by a Core2 Duo 2.4GHz processor with 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, and a S3 Chrome 430 ULP GPU, representing the first ultra light to use a discrete GPU.

The 14-inch WXGA 1280 by 800 display makes the notebook small enough for travel but wide enough to type out a market report or prepare a boardroom presentation, and the 320GB hard drive has more than enough storage space.

Its dull grey look and feel may not impress those with an eye for style, and the S6430 isn’t cheap at $2,688. There’s a 13-inch version too, the S6420

What do we think?

S3, after years—a decade actually—has broken back into the notebook market where it used to enjoy great success with IBM and others. There was a change in management at S3 about three years ago, and it’s taken that long to get things straightened out, back on track, and to win the confidence of the big brands. VIA didn’t even use S3 in their HP Mini-Note win, so maybe we will see that relationship improve too.—JP

HP uses style to sell Mini-Notes

Needless to say, the mini-note class of notebooks has proven to be a big success, despite some of the big market research firms discounting it. It’s difficult to fix the actual introduction of the mini-note, some think it was the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, which was the dream of MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte beginning in 1999. Others say it was Intel’s Classmate reference design in 2006, and still others say it was Asus’s Eee brought out last year. They’re all wrong. We put it down to the Practicality Gap (http://jonpeddie.com/back-pages/the_practicality_gap/)—prices, capabilities, and convenience got to the right point and the lack of clear standards actually freed companies to try out different form factors. So, companies like Asus and HP didn’t wait for a starting signal and just did it.

HP introduced its first Mini-Note, the 2133, in April 2008 (http://www.jonpeddie.com/MtTibTestingLabs/stories/2008/2008_09_15b.shtml) and, as we have pointed, out truly predates that with the HP Omnibook in 1993— the first Mini-Note.

Now HP has brought out its second generation of the Mini-Note, and has taken a new marketing tack—it’s not just a lower cost and slightly smaller machine, it’s an alternative and probably second (or third) machine to be called the HP Mini 1000.

At $399.99, it’s about $100 less than the HP 2133 Mini-Note that came out in April, but $100 more than the price you can pay to pick up the cheapest Mini-Note available from Amazon today.

The case looks similar to the HP 2133 Mini-Note chassis, with an HP Mini-Note 1000 available with an 8.9” or 10.2” diagonal display, both limited to 1024 x 600, as compared to the 2133 that can drive its 8.9-inch display to 1280 x 768.

HP moved (from VIA) to the Intel GMA 950 and Atom Processor N270 (1.60GHz) for this new offering and has developed a slick UI that sits on top of Linux. It comes with Open Office; however, there are also Windows XP options available too, but no Vista.

HP is positioning the new 1000 Mini-Note as a compact device so small that you can carry it in your briefcase or bag/purse, or even just in your hand. And HP has developed a stylish finish with their onyx-toned “Swirl” Imprint design—this is baked into the aluminum, not a decal or paint job, so it should wear very well.

One of the usage models for this computer is as a companion. It’s a fully functional, internet WiFi and Bluetooth aware device with an almost full-sized keyboard (92%) and a big enough screen to do such things as email, note taking, and web surfing.

What do we think?

We like it. We like the style aspect of it, the size of it, certainly the price, and the HP UI is excellent—this is an HP machine, not an Intel or Microsoft machine that HP happens to sell. HP may be taking a page out of Apple’s book, is branding their products HP and giving up the kickback from Intel and Microsoft to carry their logos on the machine—we applaud that. —JP

 

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Saturday, November 15, 2008

A Cellular Suggestion

OK so I am pretty hard on the mobile game software industry. It’s important to understand that this is mostly directed at the revenue projections that the industry advertises. I remember going to an EA analyst day last year where billions were projected for casual mobile, yet EA Casual has now been disbanded those employees sent off on new paths.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Casual mobile phone games will eventually be free. The browser will dominate the interface of future phones, and once Flash is on there, pack your bags boys and girls, most pay-for-casual-mobile-phone-gaming will be over. Casual gaming is already largely free for PC users through sites like Kongregate. There are just too many hobbiest programmers that make simple (and not so simple) games just for fun, bragging rights, and a little coin from the casual sites.

So where can game companies ring up some serious dough from the mobile crowd? One answer lies with their MMO and avatar based games. There is a market for $2-5 per month applications that let users show-off and customize their characters and avatars, Think WOW, Spore, Second Life, etc.

Another app quite a few people would pay for would be applications like location based educational trivia games. For example, if you visit San Francisco and get near the Golden Gate your phone vibrates and asks you a series of questions; offering historical information as well.  The game could have multiple nag settings ranging from only major attractions to a much higher frequency of lesser known places and perhaps even a wiki based community question set. The pricing? $1 per month maybe $2.

As a matter of fact, Kevin Lynch showed off a similar application at the Adobe Max 2008 conference keynote through a new site California Museum (californiamuseum.org). It’s championed by none other than California’s first lady Maria Shriver as an educational tool. Of course, in this case it’s free. But similar personalized, GPS powered apps also have a play as products.

Ultimately of course the mobile games industry will not exist as we know it now, nor will the console game industry, nor will the PC game industry. Our devices will stream content where we wish and our content will stream to the devices we choose. Until then game developers will have to be very creative to make a lot of money from people gaming on their phones.

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Saturday, October 25, 2008

Nvidia laid off?

Having been in this industry almost as long as Gordon Moore and Jerry Sanders I have gotten to know a lot of people in it. And having known Nvidia since before it was Nvidia, I have gotten to know every single employee in the company and all who once worked for the company.  In fact, other than Jen Hsun Huang, I’m the only one who sends them all a Christmas AND birthday card every single year for the last fourteen years – do you have any idea what that costs me in postage?

And I get thank you notes back from almost all of them (you out there reading this know who you are who don’t send the thank you cards.)

I also have all their phone numbers, office, mobile, home, and favorite bar or hockey park.

So, yesterday, at great expense I called everyone one of them, using the excuse (for the US members) to encourage them to be sure to vote, and taking the opportunity to ask them how they were enjoying their job. And, most important, everyone one of them either answered my call or called me back immediately. (There were three exceptions — one birth and two dental surgeries — but they had someone else call me back.)

All of them, every last one of them told me they were pretty happy, even Derek Perez said he felt good now that scars from the whipping have pretty much healed over. In fact they said they were as happy as tree frogs, and then inexplicably began to whistle and sing.

But what about the layoffs, I persisted. I read somewhere that there is a new wave of layoffs. Surely those reporters can’t be wrong? Surely those reports must have worried you? No one knew what I was talking about. Layoffs? We’ve had a couple of sabbaticals, and a few have quit to go back to the farm and a simpler life, one left on a religious mission, and one left to pursue a political career, but there haven’t been any layoffs other than the few that were made redundant a few months ago.

So each and every 5,500 of you are safe, happy (as tree frogs) and not anticipating or worried about a layoff?

Not only were they not worried about layoffs but 16 of the managers (my best drinking buddies, but that’s just a coincidence) asked me if I could help them find some more people – seems Nvidia may be getting ready to ramp up.

I wished them all to have a great weekend, reminded a couple of their up-coming anniversary, and hung up the phone, it was pretty warm by now.

Maybe I’ll call AMD and hear what the barking moles have to say.

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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

In Prosperous Periods Promote Tactically, In Down Times Promote Strategically

The sudden realization that the emperor had no clothes and magnitude of the financial crisis is only now being fully addressed.. But, economists are unanimous that regardless of what governments do, it will take time, a lot of time, to rebuild faith in financial institutions and rejuvenate the economy.

In a knee jerk reaction management is moving to cut costs – circling the wagons – by reducing staff and marketing budgets.On the surface it appears logical. But if you look at downturns and recessions in the past it wasn’t financial institutions or governments that led the economy back. Recovery was developed and carried out by Silicon Valley (which is somewhat symbolic of the complete PC/CE industry). And it will do it again as consumers and partners come to realize that the intellect, credibility and creativity reside in the technology areas; not in the world’s financial centers and most assuredly not in our seats of governmental power.

So while Paring overhead and “discretionary expenses” would seem to be relatively simple it has always had a greater or lesser degree of negative impact. Keep in mind that NPD recently reinforced the strength of the industry by pointing out that in downturns and upswings consumer and computer technology has consistently beat the overall market’s averages. NPD’s June retail-tracking service showed a three percent dollar increase over June 2007. This was the second consecutive month of positive news, after May’s jump of over seven percent. And this is after five straight months of flat or negative results, stretching back to December.

Before you wade into your promotional budget with a massive red pencil, consider how much should you cut from the promotional (advertising, sales support and PR) budget? To answer this, ask yourself:

* What does advertising/PR do for us? Can we accomplish this with a smaller investment? How much smaller?

* What will happen next year or a couple of years out if we cut our promotional budget, keep it the same, or increase it?

* If our competition is in the same position, is there a way to use the short-term problem to our advantage?

Long Term Investment Advertising/public relations should be an investment in both immediate sales and long-term objectives. It helps retain your share of market/image among your customers and prospects. It reinforces customers’ commitment to do business with you. Some of the more successful (profitable) manufacturers and retailers in the PC/CE industry view communications not as an expense, but as an integral part of their total marketing mix. If at all possible, they maintain an aggressive promotional policy and program. They know their advertising and PR have a favorable effect on sales and income.

Today, there is a volume of data which indicates that during deep, long recessions or other “difficult” times, the firms that trim their communications budgets suffer—and suffer hardest.Other research found that companies that accelerate advertising/PR spending during market slumps perform better in both the short- and long-term.Researcher Vernon Van Diver studied over 10,000 companies in about 800 business media sources found a relationship between promotional activities and subsequent sales.

He found two interesting patterns: 1. Companies that invest in promotion above their industry norm invariably, in succeeding years, have rising sales curves. 2. Companies that promote below their industry norm invariably, in succeeding years, have declining sales curves.

Additional Research Researchers from the BPA and several communications firms have drawn conclusions similar to Van Diver’s. Relationships between advertising/PR and sales have been proven time and again:

* Sales increases follow promotional increases, but rarely in the same year

* Sales decline with increasing momentum after promotion is cut back

* To retain your share of sales, promotion must increase as much as the overall average

* To increase your share of sales faster, communications must be increased faster than the industry norm over a period of four years or more

* If a marketer increases or decreases his traditional share of promotion relative to his competitors, similar changes occur in his share of market

* It is now possible to predict—with a high degree of accuracy—what the volume of sales will be at some future date

* It is possible to set an attainable sales objective very near maximum

* It is possible to determine the change in sales volume that follows each change in the advertising/PR budget, up or down

* It is possible to figure how much to allow for increases or decreases in competitive promotion

Using these principles, Van Diver studied 100 businesses across all industry segments. He made predictions six months or more before earnings and sales were disclosed. On the average, his predictions were within one percent of the actual figures.

Pretty remarkable.

In a similar study, it was found that over a one year period organizations that did not cut back promotional spending enjoyed increases in both sales and net profits the next year. Sales were up an average of 55 percent and net profit was up 40 percent over the base year. Marketers who cut back expenditures experienced no real growth during the period. Their net profits did not keep pace with that of consistent promoters.

Do these types of results hold true in good times and bad? Are the same results achieved when the market is flat, down, booming?

The quick answer is yes!

NPD just reported that the industry experienced a three percent dollar increase after six months of flat or negative results. The challenge in the months ahead for the industry’s players will be to can grow during this down period or be drug down with it. Growth, stagnation or shrinkage is really in the hands of senior management.

A Competitive Edge Company management should exploit opportunities that deliver an ever-greater competitive edge. If you want to be an industry player, present yourself as one. Don’t wait on your promotion until all of the marketing variables are right. If the stars are in perfect alignment for you, you can be certain they are in line for your competition as well!

By waiting, everyone starts out on an even footing.

The best plan of action is to proceed with your promotion while the competition is pulling in their horns.

In good times and bad, make your choices based on:

* Long-range, progressive promotion is synonymous with company growth

* Company strengths that hold up in hard times can be permanently molded with steadily aggressive advertising/PR

* Keeping pace with or exceeding industry communications norms is a company’s insurance of increasing sales.

* A rise or fall in ad/PR spending is followed at some later date by an increase or decrease in sales

The more aggressive your promotion, the easier it is to meet and even exceed, energetic sales and profit projections. Today’s environment is going to put past research conducted in good times and bad to the test!

Andy Marken

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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Seeing double at IBC

Welcome to Amsterdam, welcome to the International Broadcast Conference. For whatever reason the IBC seems more susceptible to the waves of fashion and new technology than its more stable US counterpart, the National Association of Broadcasters who throws their big show every spring in Las Vegas.

Every year it seems there are several consistent themes underlying the show and the conference no doubt because the conference is dominated by a fairly homogeneous crew of industry insiders—so what every gets these old boys in a tizzy is going to be “the issue.“ But, I can’t say that this is really such a bad thing because the conferences do work their way through a common problem and they’re always interesting. The same cannot be said of other conferences which often give conference slots to exhibitors first and worry about the topics second.

Anyway, this year the topic is stereographics and darned if I didn’t come back at least partially convinced. Sure, stereographic movies represent the last desperate machinations of the studios to bring people into the studios—apparently they’ll do anything short of making better movies. But, the technology is finally there so that it’s easy to site through a feature length movie and the content is even occasionally there. I did kind of like Polar Express by Robert Zemeckis and so did Jeffery Katzenberg who apparently committed to 3D movies after seeing Polar Express. He told the audience at IBC via a 3D video link that Zemeckis’ work had convinced him that 3D was the future for all movies. Ironically, the link convinced me that 3D isn’t going to be practical for most movies—even at its best, it’s distracting.

Without a doubt, though, 3D is going to bring people back into the theaters—at least for a while. It could be a great way for people to watch “the big game”, a stock car race, a rock concert, etc. Then, I think we’ll get board and all go home again. Don’t you?

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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Nvidia paints the town green

The fountains flowed a toxic green that puts all those terrible green beer St. Patrick’s hangovers in perspective. You were never that sick. But the point was made. San Jose, at least for these three days in August belongs to Nvidia.

What we find interesting is what Nvidia has chosen to concentrate on. There has been plenty of candy for the game boys, but the emphasis is on business, high end computing, entertainment and the future.
One thing is for sure, stereographics is here to stay—at least for a couple of years. Jen Hsung Huang showcased 3D video in his keynote and showed how much more fun games might be if you had a 3D view. Now, you might well say, we’ve had the opportunity for years and so far, gamers have played with 3D for a bit and their glasses wind up in the toy box with the steering wheels, old joy sticks, pedals, and t-shirts. But this time it’s differerent or at least that’s what the hardware vendors (of graphics boards, glasses, computers, glasses and displays) want us to believe. At Nvision the high quality screen and fast stereoscopic performance was pretty convincing. The next day’s keynote highlighted 3D and stereoscopic views for space exploration as if to say, again, it’s not just fun and games.
And that, really, seems to be what Nvidia is setting out to do with Nvision—bring more people into the family to share the vision of 3D and great graphics. It’s not just fun and games, it’s graphics.

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Thursday, August 07, 2008

Larry’s Bee - Part Two

Last week I posed a postulate that Intel could justify the investment in Larrabee (Larry’s Bee) on the basis of obtaining some level of parity with the incumbents, mainly ATI and Nvidia. And in my rush to post and then catch an airplane, I included the total discrete graphics semiconductor market, not just the desktop discrete market – sigh. OK, I’ll eat a little humble pie, give you the right numbers but more importantly suggest something bigger.

First the numbers

I mistakenly used the total GPU (desktop and notebook) in my calculation of Intel’s TAM – although the charts revealed the real numbers.

In any case the desktop potential in 2010 is 100 million units. I’m not including notebooks because I don’t think Intel will have a Bee mobile version by 2010.

So, same speculation, they hit parity by end of 2010, gives them a TAM of $3.3 billion, a little less than the $4.6 Billion I mistakenly quoted.  But read on….

Larry’s bee maybe more

Some of you have seen my forecasts on the expansion of the discrete GPU market due to expanded use of Crossfire and SLI down to the mainstream level, the deployment of hybrid architectures (with integrated and discrete GPUs), and GPU-compute.

Now I want to suggest that Larry’s Bee will have a synergistic impact, and not be just a spoiler for ATI, Nvidia, and others.

Not just a spoiler

Intel has been steadily leaking information about Larry’s Bee for almost two years. Some might call that salting the mine. Others suggest it is a deflection and FUD program designed to defer purchases of current parts and make the consumer wait for the Bee. Not that many, if any, would put such tactics beyond Intel, but I think there’s more going on than even Intel may realize. Intel will by the very nature of its marketing muscle and brand strength attract new attention to the 3D world and gaming in particular.

Regardless of the quality or performance of the Bee, Intel’s brand will raise the awareness of PC gaming, and give the industry increased credibility as a viable entertainment vehicle, and as a safe bet for a consumer’s purchase. No doubt my friends at ATI and Nvidia are not going to be happy with this legitimization of the Bee as I’m suggesting it will happen, but they should.

Why?

Because as the incumbents they (ATI and Nvidia) have made the industry what it is today. Others like 3Dfx, Matrox, and S3 also contributed in the past, but it was ATI and Nvidia who kept at it, had the passion, and made the investments. Their work has brought new gamers to the fold, and that has paid off handsomely for them. In fact, the numbers show why Intel, the only company with the resources needed to enter the market wants a piece of the action.

Intel also wants a piece of the action because as the graphics vendors expand their influence on users and increase the ability of accelerate functions beyond gaming, Intel is in danger of seeing the CPU over shadowed by the GPU.

At Jon Peddie Research we think there are still more people who are curious about PC gaming and would like to try to it, but just a little timid. They’ve tried the free stuff from the web and what comes bundled with a new PC and while entertaining for a while it usually doesn’t hold their interest. However, FPSs, racing, RPGs, and RTSs games would. The action, the cinematic quality of the images and in some cases the stories are attractive. Something is needed to push them over the edge. Something to get them to invest the extra $100 to $300 to get a good enough graphics board to handle the richness of today’s games. Intel will be spending a lot of money to convince them that they want to invest in a good, gaming capable machine.

and the Nintendo

And least we forget, look at how the Wii resonated with people who never thought they’d be interested games.

The vixen Vista

We think Vista is a model for such consumers. Why Vista? Because Vista introduced the notion that to use it you had to have good graphics. Rather than being a turn off and scaring people away, it was a catalyst to new PC sales and to a certain extent aftermarket sales of graphics AIBs.

If a boring, do nothing entertaining operating system can have that kind of effect, which was largely due to Microsoft’s marketing effect combined with some of their OEMs, imagine what the impact of an Intel could be on PC gaming.

So we did

We put our heads together, looked at all our models, especially the ones in our new Gaming PC Market reports we’re introducing soon, and decided that Intel’s entrance, combined with the support of the game publishers and developers (who will lavish praise and testimonials on the Bee and Intel), plus Microsoft’s and the OEMs (Dell, HP, etc) support will make the market jump a full five percentage points, or something north of 1.5 million new users growing to 10 million in three to five yerars

Newbees not loyal

I don’t think once these new PC gamers take the plunge they will remain loyal to Intel, or anyone else. The Bee is going to have to earn and keep the loyalty of these newly hatched gamers. As they get involved with PC gaming and learn more about the ins and outs, they will change allegiances annually at the least. Some new gamers in fact will enjoy tuning their machines joining communities, debating the merits of various hardware rigs and they’ll be the first to jump.

And yeah, Intel is going to steal some market share from the incumbents, that always happens and sticking your head in the sand, or putting too much effort in discrediting the Bee isn’t going to have much if any effect on the its impact. It’s at best a distraction, and at worse a drain.

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Friday, August 01, 2008

Why not Larrabee?

Anyone not stuck in outer space or maximum security knows Intel is going to introduce a new chip code named Larrabee. At Siggraph they are going to reveal, after almost two years of teases and leaks, the architecture of the device.

It is not a GPU as many have mistakenly described it, but it can do most graphics functions, Intel says it can do all, we’ll have to wait for proof. Right now its slide-ware, but development systems are supposed to become available in November.

ATI and Nvidia will be very busy discrediting the device and pointing out its shortcomings. They should, given that Intel has all but ruined their share prices with disparaging comments about GPUs. Perhaps Intel needs to be reminded of some of its past triumphs; the Itanium and XScale come immediately to mind.

Nonetheless the question is, in my mind at least, is there room in the market for a third major player in discrete graphics?

What is Larrabee’s market potential?
If you look at the market development for discrete desktop GPUs over time your answer is probably no. In the late nineties when the market was just cresting 100 million units a year, the number of suppliers swelled to over 70. Today, it is approaching 400 million units a year; but the market has consolidated to four discrete graphics chips suppliers plus two integrated (only) suppliers. And of that population, two suppliers, ATI and Nvidia, own 98% of the discrete GPU business (which was 350 million units in 2007.) And, the trend line indicates a flattening to decline in the business as the red line shows in Figure 1. However, Intel is no light-weight start up, and to enter the market today a company has to have a major infrastructure, deep IP, and marketing prowess – Intel has all that and more. So yes, there is room for a third player if that player is Intel.

Figure 1: Shipments of GPUs to date

Assuming flat growth in discrete graphics chips, if Intel could reach parity with the incumbents that would give them 33% of 20 million units a quarter. Are seven million units a quarter worth the investment? Intel won’t be able to charge any more than ATI or Nvidia.

It’s a bigger market
However, you can’t assume flat growth in discrete GPUs. We recently increased the forecast on desktop discrete GPUs to take into consideration multi-AIBs (i.e., Crossfire and SLI), and two new developments: Hybrid configurations (which have a GPU and an IGP), and GPU compute. Clearly Intel sees an opportunity for Larrabee in GPU compute, and probably in Hybrid.

This revised forecast gives Intel a market potential of 46 million units in 2010, the first full year of shipments of Larrabee. Assume they can sell the chips for $100 that represents a market value of $4.6 billion and more if they build AIBs.

Now there’s a lot of “if” in that, not the least of which is that they can bite into ATI and Nvidia’s market share. But $4.6 billion is an admirable goal and can represent Intel’s TAM.

Intel has told me they intend to push Larrabee into graphics applications first, so the GPU compute portion of the market may not be realized immediately in their TAM calculation. However, they will come out with several versions of Larrabee (various number of cores, just as ATI and Nvidia do) and so the entire discrete spectrum is open to them.

Figure 2: Potential increase in GPU shipments due to new architectures and multi-AIBs

When is a GPU not a GPU?
One final note. GPUs. Larrabee is not a GPU in the sense an ATI, Nvidia, or S3 chip is a GPU. It is gang of X86 cores that can do graphics processing, so it is a GCPU – graphics capable processing unit, as are ATI, Nvidia, and S3’s chips. It’s unlikely the industry is going to take such subtleties into consideration and adopt a new term like GCPU and rather will incorrectly label and refer to Larrabee as a GPU.

Probably Intel will come up with a catchy mnemonic for Larrabee. It would be wise of them to do that to differentiate it and to drive home their point that existing graphics processing architectures “will be a footnote in the history books However, the industry, analysts, reporters, users, and investors have demonstrated too many times that they are lazy and will find it easier to simply call Larrabee a GPU.  A GPU by any other color smellith as sweet….

Then and now
Intel is announcing a 2010 part now. Maybe that will influence some potential buyers to wait, certainly that would Intel’s ambition. However, do you think ATI and Nvidia are just going to sit on their hands till 2010 and wait for Larrabee to show up?

ATI and Nvidia are fleet-footed companies and can turn much faster than Intel. So if they chose to they could have a counter punch to Larrabee by 2010.

And lets not forget that ATI and Nvidia have been building hardware optimizations direct and OpenGL for the last 10 years, designs that are based on the APIs. Larrabee can’t do that and so there will be constraints in Larrabee which Intel is confident it can overcome in software. A lot can happen between now and 2010.

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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

First Person Second

Here’s an interesting chart Jon found which tracks the use of the term “Doom clone” versus “First Person Shooter” (FPS)

It’s fascinating how the term FPS stuck, I mean Mist is an FPE (first person explorer), rFactor is a FPR (first person racer), FSX is a FPF (first person flyer) – why does the shooter get the acronym?

As a representative of JPR, and thus a connoisseur of the pixel, I propose a petition to reclaim FPS to its rightful and appropriate place in history….

....of course we are speaking of Frames Per Second.

So the takeaway is to remember Frames Per Second first and First Person Second.

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Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Paranoid protectionists Prima Donnas of the press plead for protection

We recently sent out about a zillion invites to the press to invite them to our luncheon in LA during Siggraph.

Aside from finding out who’s not working (out of the office till…) and who’s not employed (permanent failure party does not exist) we also learned that there’s a whole bunch of press people who just can’t cope with email, especially from strangers (given such an attitude, I would guess their friends list is small) These timid and violated poor souls seek refuse from the onslaught of email from strangers offering millions from Nigeria, sex forever, and new hair in places you didn’t know you had, and have put a firewall up to block the spam that any semi intelligent Outlook user can do with his or her Junk Mail function.

Their robots says things like:

  * I apologize for this automatic reply to your email. To control spam, I now allow incoming messages only from senders I have approved beforehand. This message was created automatically by mail delivery software (TMDA).

  * Your message attached below is being held because the address

has not been verified. To release your message for delivery, please send an empty message to the following address, or use your mailer’s “Reply” feature.

  * I’m protecting myself from receiving junk mail. Since I have a simple email address, the spammers have flooded my mail box - I need to invoke this challenge in order to read messages from real people (like yourself) that need to communicate with me.

I wonder if they have a cutout service that goes through their newspapers and magazines removing all the unwanted ads, and another robot that operates the TiVo so they never have to watch an unwanted, and certainly unrequested ad. Then there’s the junk mail robot that carefully and cleverly filters all their post mail, strangely and ironically never having anything left – gee, no birthday card from mom again this year.

Such a clean, pristine and unmolested life they lead, one of their robots runs ahead and rips down all billboards, ads stuck on the side of telephone poles, and each and every banner in front of every shop – such offense shall not invade the virgin minds of our pampered press corps.

I laugh at them as I cash the checks from the Nigerian bank of the West Nile, and go off to Scotland to collect my lottery winnings, I actually don’t even have time for the $1,000 gift card at BestBuy someone sent me, and as for never being incapable of sex any time anywhere, well, what can I say, I grin a lot now. The hair thing is a bit annoying, what with a trip to the barber every other day, but with all the money I have coming in from the Bahamas, it hardly matters. And the fact that I no longer have to work for living since I took up that offer from Sam Smaltz to be my own boss, just makes my life as a real estate magnate all the more sweet. Of course I am annoyed with the offers to refinance my credit cards, house, and car, since I’ve long ago paid them off with the money that was left to me by an uncle I didn’t know I had in Egypt.

Alas, I feel sorry for the poor protected and persecuted press that deny themselves this richness and wealth, and I’ve tried to do something about it, but every time I send them a few hundred thousand dollars it comes back.

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Saturday, July 05, 2008

iPhone breaks Moore’s law

My new phone cost more than my PC or TV

I’m getting ready to buy the iPhone. I mean buy it, not lease it from AT&T. I’ve been saving my allowance, and taking bottles and cans to the recyclers, and I’m getting close to the $700 needed (plus taxes) for the 16 GB 3G iPhone, I can hardly wait.

While I’m waiting I watch a little TV on my new 32-inch HD LCD TV that only cost $449 from Circuit City. And when I get bored with TV, I turn to my new $649 Dell Inspiron notebook with a 15- inch screen.

Soon I’ll have everything I need, and all of it for under $1,000 each, although I better hurry because I know the next generation iPhone will probably be $999 plus taxes.

How come, I wonder, everything else in the universe electronic goes down in price or stays at the same price with added functionality and the iPhone goes up? Isn’t that what Moore’s law is all about?

Does Apple and AT&T know they’ve broken the law? Will they get arrested and have to go to jail? OMG – if Apple has to go to jail, what’s going to happen to all the Apple stores - will they be bought by CompUSA or Circuit City?

And how come a puny 3.5 inch 480 x 320 pocket computer costs more than my 15.4 inch 1680 x 1050 notebook computer, or my 32-inch 1900 x 1080 TV? Why does a smaller screen, with a less powerful processor cost more? I used to think I understood electronics and economics, but now, well now, I don’t know if anybody does.

You gotta give Steve Jobs credit, he is a disruptive force, breaking the law and changing the rules.

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Saturday, June 28, 2008

Missed the Boat

The loudest complainers about PC Gaming seem to have one thing in common - a failed strategy in this market.

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Friday, June 20, 2008

Attempted rapprochement

Rumor has it there was an attempt at rapprochement. Long annoyed with The Inquirer’s loose cannon Charlie Demerjian, Nvidia has been shunning him and took him off the invitee list of most events. Water to a duck in the case of Charlie, he has so many sources the only reason he goes to any event is to score food and babes – he does better on the food as not many babes go to those things either.

So Derek Perez, Nvidia’s boss of PR and infamous for having a knife fight with a former competitor and now employee Brian Burke, thought if I can live with Burke, I can live with anyone. Perez sent out a friendly “Hey, how about coffee, or breakfast,” email.

Charlie, not one to turn down a donut, and bored to tears in Taipei, said why not, and met Perez at the hotel restaurant.

If you’ve ever met Charlie, you know he doesn’t suffer fools, is quick to make decision, and not the most tactful person on the planet. Oh, and did I mention, opinionated. The annoying thing about him is he’s often right.

The coffee part went OK, but when the serious talk got started and Perez started laying down some ground rules, Charlie said, no, no, hell, no, what the F**’s wrong with you, you deaf – no.

Body builder and short fused Perez had had just about enough and before anyone could blink, karate trained Perez had ninjaed his dish of eggs right into Charlie’s face.

Swift acting guards quickly defused the situation as Demerjian was in the process of loading his quart bottle of Coke with Mentos – the carnage was avoided but it was a tense few moments. Both men were escorted out of the restaurant, through separate doors and the police took over after that.

Charlie was next seen at the Intel event, and then at the ATI event. Perez hasn’t been seen and isn’t answering email, but then the 9800 GTX+ may have been keeping him busy.

Disclaimer: This is a joke. It did not really happen. Though Derek did invite Charlie for coffee.

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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

This is a rant about spin - Intel extends command in fast-computers tally

The annual supercomputer conference was just held in Dresden Germany. At it they show off the top 500 supercomputers. Usually there are two or three new ones at the top and the rest shift downward till they fall off.

Look at how the AP reported this event:

Intel extends command in fast-computers tally
Associated Press 06.18.08, 9:14 AM ET

Microprocessors from Intel Corp. run more of the world's fastest computers than ever, according to a report released Wednesday that tracks progress in the computing industry.

The latest list of the world's 500 most powerful computers, published twice a year by academic researchers, shows that 75 percent of the machines are powered by Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ) chips, up from 71 percent in November. Chips from Intel's main rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (nyse: AMD - news - people ), showed up in 11 percent of the top 500, down from 16 percent on the last list.

The fastest computer on the list is the $100 million "Roadrunner" machine built by IBM Corp. (nyse: IBM - news - people ) for the Department of Energy's nuclear lab in Los Alamos, N.M. Roadrunner is the first computer in the world to surpass a petaflop - 1,000 trillion calculations per second. It's more than twice as fast as the IBM machine that ranks No. 2 on the list.

IBM made an industry-leading 42 percent of the supercomputers on the list, but its overall count diminished slightly. Hewlett-Packard Co. (nyse: HPQ - news - people ) gained ground, with 37 percent of the fastest machines in the latest report.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Now look at the reality of it – Intel is in the bottom fourth of the top ten, and AMD is in the top half. So why does Intel get the headline? Why not AMD or IBM, or even Cray? Because Intel has 75 machines, each one of them slower than a new AIB from ATI or Nvidia?

Are the AP folks in love with Intel or just stupid?

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