Intel Demos Game-Boosting Chip
Got a look at Intel's new processor in action, set for release in the third quarter. David Tuhy, general manager for the company's desktop division, told me the new processor is designed specifically to make games run better, with about 40% higher performance, and on notebooks a little bit of battery savings as well.
They're calling it Core 2 -- with two versions: Core 2 Single Processor and Core 2 Duo, which will go on top of Intel's dual-core architecture.
They ran a demo of Quake 4 running on a system with a standard processor, then on one using Core 2. Both worked really well, looked good, but the one running the new processor had a frame rate about 20 frames per second faster.
One of the criticisms of the dual processor in the gaming world has been that people have to be running multiple apps to take advantage of it. So Intel is also launching a major effort with game companies, like Id and Microsoft, teaching them how to design games to take advantage of the new processor. Moving forward, we will probably see more games designed for the dual-processor architecture.
By Bob Greiner |
May 10, 2006; 1:57 PM ET
| Category:
E3: Dispatches
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