Intel's Pentium seen broadening graphics opportunities

Electronic News, Dec 14, 1992 by Jonathan Cassell

BURLINGAME, CALIF. -- Even though Intel is positioning the Pentium microprocessor as a stand-alone solution to full-motion video and graphics acceleration on the desktop, makers of video controllers and accelerators still see a market opportunity in Pentium-based systems.

Speaking at the Personal Computer Outlook conference here last week, Intel president and CEO Andrew Grove said the combination of Intel's Pentium and Indeo video codec technology for Windows will spur a new era in computers where low-cost platforms will be able to run full-motion video.

Demonstrating a Pentium-based system running a full-motion video clip, he said "What you see here is digital video in a word processing application powered by a Pentium without any hardware assist. It's not science fiction, but rather a common garden-variety application of Pentium's power." Dr. Grove noted the combination of the Pentium with the Microsoft version of Indeo video codec technology, Video for Windows, will "be like a chemical reaction" for digital video, spurring a flurry of new uses for video applications.

While the Pentium is expected to initially be priced at the high end of the market, Intel has said pricing will rapidly come into the range of the 486. In addition, Microsoft is selling Video for Windows at $199. The combination of a low-cost processor and inexpensive software will enable users to take advantage of full-motion video without buying additional hardware or software, according to Dr. Grove.

Despite the threat of having their products outdated by the two technologies, makers of graphics controllers still view their products as complementary to the Pentium.

"Certainly there are things that can be moved onto the Pentium, such as basic BIT-BLT engines, but there's always going to be room for value-added by companies like S3 and others," said Terry Holdt, president and CEO of S3.

S3 has a line of graphical user interface accelerators that can support multimedia applications. Its latest video accelerators can support 32-bit local bus architectures, enabling them to transfer data at the high speeds required for multimedia.

"We've never viewed Intel as a competitor, but rather as a leader," Mr. Holdt explained. "We like to look where Intel is going and see the areas they may have missed. Their processors have really long life cycles, which are getting longer. We're in the business of coming out with products as fast as possible and that's what we'll continue to do."

Examples of areas where graphics accelerators may still be required in Pentium/Indeo systems include JPEG and MPEG compression and decompression, according to Morris Jones, senior VP of technology at Chips and Technologies.

"The compute power of the Pentium is definitely a solution looking for a problem," said Michael Hackworth, president and CEO of Cirrus Logic.

"Such functions as real time video compression and decompression, PAL and NTSC conversion, window scaling, codec functions, all these things are definitely viewed as miscellaneous by Intel and are not likely to be done by Pentium," Mr. Hackworth said.