Intel Sures Up Graphics Market With i752 Chip

Welcome Guest. | Log In| Register | Membership Benefits

April 28, 1999 (7:25 AM EDT)

Intel Sures Up Graphics Market With i752 Chip

By Sandy Chen and Mark Hachman,

Intel rolled out on Tuesday its i752 graphics chip, replacing its older i740 chip in the mainstream PC market.

According to Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, the new chip is designed neither to attack leading-edge competitors such as Nvidia nor sell into ultra-low-cost niche markets.

"We will be competitive on the performance space. Our intent is not to be the price leader," said Gary Thomas, general manager of Intel's graphics components division. "We can fit products into various spaces to fulfill value needs, performance needs, and enthusiast needs."

According to analysts, the chip satisfies the demands of the performance PC market, a task the i740 failed to do.

"The i740 was marketed as an enthusiast part and failed," said Kathleen Maher, analyst at Tiburon, Calif.-based Jon Peddie Associates and editor-in-chief of The Peddie Report newsletter. "This time, they're being more realistic."

According to Maher, the i740 didn't support the types of graphics features that mainstream OEMs required. Meanwhile, Intel's fabs turned out the i740 in such volumes that prices fell sharply. Some analysts charged Intel with dumping the chips below cost, a charge later disproved.

With the i752 chip, Intel has enhanced graphics performance twice that of the i740 using the 3D WinBench test suite, Thomas said. The chip pairs a 128-bit 2-D engine with a 250-MHz RAMDAC.

The chip's "Precise Pixel Engine" processes 3 million triangles per second at peak rates, rendering 100 million pixels/s.

The chip's 3-D features include support for Intel's AGP 2X interface. Each pixel is only processed with per-pixel accuracy, and the chip does not produce resolutions with 32-bit color depths.

"Intel is certainly keeping up with the Joneses, but they're not bumping any of the Joneses off," Maher said. "What it comes down to is Intel has big plans for the future in graphics. It's not going away."

As proof, Intel will introduce the i754, or "Coloma" chip, in the second half of 1999, supporting the AGP 4X specification.

Intel's current i752 will ship in a 421-lead micro-BGA package in the early July to graphics-card manufacturers. OEM customers will receive chip in late July. The i752 will be priced at $19.50 in 10,000-unit quantities.