Yesterday we reported Intel ran a video of a DX11 title instead of running the actual game itself on a live Ivy Bridge notebook during Mooly Eden's press conference. After the press conference Intel let me know that the demo was a late addition to the presentation and they didn't have time to set it up live but insisted that it worked. I believed Intel (I spent a lot of time with Ivy Bridge at the end of last year and saw no reason to believe that DX11 functionality was broken) but I needed definitive proof that there wasn't some issue that Intel was trying to deliberately hide. Intel promptly invited me to check out the demo live on an Ivy Bridge notebook which I just finished doing.

The notebook isn't the exact same one used yesterday (Mooly apparently has that one in some meetings today) but I confirmed that it was running with a single GPU that reported itself as Intel's HD Graphics 4000 (Ivy Bridge graphics):

The system was running an IVB engineering sample running at 2.5GHz:

And below is a video of F1 2011 running live on the system in DirectX 11 mode:

Case closed.

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  • piesquared - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

    Ah, I see we have the first victim.....

    If there was no need to fake it, they 'wooden't' have faked it.
  • baldun - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

    or maybe they just run out of time to prepare?
  • grrrrr - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

    should be: Intel confirms controlling VLC with steering wheel!
  • sepht - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

    I'd bet Intel would be more likely to screw up showmanship than screw up this product.

    I've known some people from corporate demos teams (including some people on the current Intel team), and I can assure you: things break on stage, backups exist. Demo lineups change in the last minute, or another demo can fall through & they'll change it up. The demoed product is often still in development and is prone to errors/fixes/bugs/etc.

    I don't know exactly what happened, but I bet it's no big deal, maybe they didn't have time, maybe something unexpected happened & they used a backup option and decided to keep the show running smoothly.

    Even SNB can run F1 2011 at 25 FPS on medium settings. There's no reason to try and fake anything. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-300...
  • Alchemist07 - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

    Not on an ULTRABOOK.......even an AMD E-350 beats any sandybridge cpu in a ultrabook for graphics
  • davepermen - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

    ultrabooks have SNB, too. identical gpu settings. so yes, it runs at identical settings.
  • Alchemist07 - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

    Um, ultrabook processors are ULV versions, the GPU is underclocked, and also has to run slower if it gets a bit hot.
  • Hector2 - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

    You don't have a clue. ALL laptops from either Intel or AMD typically use thinner mobile versions of processors which are cherry-picked to operate at lower voltages and be more energy efficient to run cooler. Yes, Ultrabooks with current 32nm Sandy Bridge processors consume more power than these new faster, molre energy-efficient 22nm Ivy Bridge processors. But there already Ultrabooks that have top-of-the-line i7 SNB processors. It's not clear how this one with pre-production 22nm IVB processors compares to those, but it's very unlikey that Intel would bring an i3 or i5 equivalent to CES.

    Pay attention. When people say that 22nm IVB cpus are "hot", they aren't talking about temperature.
  • Alchemist07 - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

    Oh dear, you really don't understand ULV range...nevermind, enjoy your IVB graphics ;-)
  • jeremyshaw - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

    It get's better. Not only is the max clock lower... the base clock is much lower, too. So when (and it's a case of when) it throttles, it will be worse. Not only that, Intel's texture/image quality is worse than absolute crap, anyways. Even vs low and AMD GPU/APU.

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