Ivy Bridge GPU to Support Resolutions of up to 4096x4096
by Kristian Vättö on September 19, 2011 11:38 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Ivy Bridge
- IDF 2011
- GPUs
Thanks VR-Zone for the image!
IDF 2011 ended on last Thursday but there is still lots of data showing up because sites are processing the data they have gathered. VR-Zone is now reporting that Ivy Bridge's GPU will support resolutions of up to 4096x4096 (commonly referred as 4Kx4K). We took a deeper look at the IB GPU in our Ivy Bridge Architecture piece, but we missed this upgrade. Sandy Bridge's GPU supports only resolutions of up to 2560x1600, so this is a huge jump since 4Kx4K has over four times more pixels.
It's unlikely that we will see any 4Kx4K displays though, given that 16:9 is the standard nowadays (some higher-end are 16:10 though). That suggests a resolution of 4096x2304, which actually makes more sense given the bandwidth limitations. 4096x4096 at 60Hz with 24-bit color would require a bandwidth of roughly 36Gb/s, more than any of the current display interfaces supports (DisplayPort 1.2 is the king at 21.6Gb/s). 4096x2304 requires only ~20.2Gb/s, and that DP 1.2 can easily provide. 4096x4096 should, however, work with DP 1.2 by lowering the refresh rate to e.g. 30Hz, which would reduce the required bandwidth to be within DisplayPort's range.
Displays with +2560x1600 resolution are very rare and expensive at the moment though. Back in June, EIZO announced a 36" monitor with resolution of 4096x2160, with a whopping price tag of $36,000 (yes, that is three zeros). However, considering that 10.1" tablets with 2560x1600 will soon be reality, it sounds likely that displays with 4096x2XXX resolution will soon be available at reasonable price points too.
Source: VR-Zone
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repoman27 - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
Your formula is correct, but to reiterate: (horizontal pixels*vertical lines*vertical scan frame rate*color bits per pixel)/10^9 = the raw bandwidth required before any protocol overhead in Gb/s.The tricky part is figuring out how many horizontal pixels and vertical lines are actually required for a given screen resolution and frame rate. I was using a Coordinated Video Timing generator that I downloaded from the VESA website. I also used the Reduced Blanking option for LCD displays at 60 Hz.
I also took the 8b/10b encoding out of the equation right from the start, because it applies across the board. The only reason for including it would be to make the numbers larger for marketing purposes. I imagine there is additional protocol overhead from the likes of framing symbols and other such things that I didn't take into account. Your numbers might be including all that stuff.
Kristian Vättö - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
Technically Radeon 6000 series already supports 4Kx2K due to DisplayPort 1.2http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/amds-radeon-687...
GullLars - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
Actually, the radeon 5xxx series and on support Eyefinity, and can run at 7680x3200, though that's split over 6 monitors of 2560x1600 in a 3x2 configuration.I'm wondering if we'll se a "McGuyver"-style display of 5760x2400 of 6 1920x1200 panels in a 3x2 with bezels only around the outer side of the screen, and 6 DP ports on the back (or 2 DP 2.1 with internal daisy-chaining?).
GullLars - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
I meant DP 1.2, not 2.1.ANANDTECH NEEDS AN EDIT BUTTON on article comments.
Kristian Vättö - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
That is true too, though you need DP 1.2 to support 4Kx2K on a single monitor through a single cable. 6x 1920x1200 sounds pretty epic though, a wall of screens :PPersonally I'm getting two Dell U2311Hs with my new PC soon. Pretty excited, and six of them would be even better.
As for the edit button, we are aware of the comment system's limitations. I have complained about this same thing to Anand as well. He have discussed of improving the comment system as a whole but to be honest, I don't know how far that project is and what are the possible changes.
Kristian Vättö - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
*We have discussed - LOL. The evil strikes again.DanNeely - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
Two vertical rows of screens has similar problems to two horizontal rows in many games, your cross-hair ends up on a bezel line instead of in the middle of a screen making aiming difficult. Some genre's like racing games are badly affected by this; but it hobbled many other efinity supporting games severely. The other caveat is that even with SLI/xFire modern GPUs struggle to run many games at native resolution at 3x1920x1080/1200. The GPU hardware to game on 6 screens isn't really here yet. The real beneficiaries of the 6 display mode are video wall makers with relatively simple graphics and daytraders/etc who run with a huge number of monitors running at once.Jingato - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
I want 8K x 4K !!!!!!!!!!!!!MGSsancho - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
that 36" 4K monitor is already $36,000 USD..Slaimus - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
This reminded me of all the flak 3dfx received when it launched the Voodoo3 without support for 4096x4096 textures like the Nvidia Riva TNT2. 12 years later we may finally be able to display a 4096x4096 texture at full resolution.