Posted on Tuesday, January 24 2012 @ 22:24 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
VR Zone reports Intel is trying to get a slice of the workstation CAD graphics market, you can read about it
over here.
So, Intel came up with an interesting strategy for their Xeon versions of the Sandy Bridge LGA1155 processor line. These Xeon E3-1200 series CPUs are now OpenGL certified, including support and certifications for a bunch of these high end architecture and engineering design applications. Therefore, you can get a 'certified 3D engineering workstation' base within a simple miniITX or microATX (if in need for more memory) mainboard, for a very compact system.
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This way, Intel takes a part of Nvidia and AMD's highest profit market, workstation graphics cards, by cutting into their entry level with 'good enough' solution that yet gives peace of mind to the users without requiring to buy an extra GPU anyway - this saving is welcome as, even if later in design cycle the user feels a need for faster graphics, it can be done by adding a discrete GPU. Or, more cost effectively in the Intel case, upgrading the CPU to an Ivy Bridge-class Xeon E3 with doubled graphics speed in the same socket, plus the side CPU benefits.
