Chip giant pledges integrated graphics boost

IDF Intel's mobile integrated graphics technology is just going to keep on getting better, the chip giant effused today, pledging its next-but-one built-in GPU will deliver a 25 per cent improvement over the one inside the upcoming 965GM chipset.

Beyond that, future chipsets will boost IGP performance by 50 per cent, Intel's mobility head, Dadi Perlmutter, promised.

The 965GM will launch next month, Perlmutter said, finally narrowing the debut of the next generation of Intel's Centrino platform, 'Santa Rosa', down beyond H1 2007.

The 965GM's successor, 'Cantiga' - part of 'Montevina' - will ship in the "second quarter of 2008", Perlmutter said. That's the chipset that will bring the promised 25 per cent improvement as measured using the 3DMark 06 testing suite.

"Architectural innovation", process technology and "optimized integration" were the factors that will allow Cantiga's follow-ons in 2009 and 2010 to deliver, generation over generation, 50 per cent higher 3DMark 06 scores, Perlmutter claimed.

Intel owns the integrated graphics market, out-shipping both arch-rival AMD - thanks to the latter's ATI acquisition - and Nvidia, according to stats from the likes of Mercury Research and Jon Peddie Research. Not that ATI was mentioned much here at Intel Developer Forum, for obvious reasons. Instead, Nvidia got all the third-party graphics limelight.