Ivy Bridge processors

Jan 18, 2012 by Ivy Fan

The first details of Ivy Bridge processors already leaked in month of May last year, and the newest roadmaps suggest an early April 2012 release. We could have seen some of that goodies already on the IDF and CES. Without strethching it off,  let’s take a look at what is planned for Ivy Bridge CPUs lineup.

100MHz difference in Ivy Bridge processors

Up there you may think there is at least one typo. But it isn’t. It doesn’t make sense that i7-3770 has base frequency of 3.4GHz, whereas i7-3770K has 3.5GHz, yet they have the same frequency of Turbo at very high 3.9 GHz. Turbo Boost works as he increases the CPU multiplier by a set amount of bins, and all the other CPUs have a maximum of five bins. As you shall see the clock frequencies of Ivy Bridge processors are fairly similar. We have expected that the Core i7 3770 will have a base frequency of 3.5GHz to follow the pattern of the other CPUs, not to mention it shares a name with the i7-3770K (the K is an indicating of unlocked processors multiplier). Although that information is probably right, it’s only 100MHz difference in Ivy Bridge processors, regardless on that we were a bit conspicuous on that matter.

Ivy Bridge has lower power consumption

The Ivy Bridges processors planned lineup looks a lot like the current Sandy Bridge list. There is a total of eighteen different CPUs (eigh within the same class model), which is actually four more than the initial Sandy Brige Core i5 and Core i7 model list. Two of CPUs from that lineup have an unlocked CPU multiplier (the famous K-Series), and two are Core i7 and have Hyper Threading support, giving them a use of 8 total threads beside the 4 physical cores. As you sum it up, Ivy Bridge processors seem to provide a 0,1 GHz boost over Sandy Bridge, although the i7-2700K that has replaced i7-2600K is going at the same frequencies as Core i7-3770 and Core i7 3770K. All of the desktop 3rd Generation i7 SKUs will have the better HD 4000 graphics, but not everything remains the same as before. The trick of Ivy Bridge processors is their much lower power consumption. The TDP is down from 95W to 77W, which is a almost a 20% decline. For many years Intel and others have been pushing for higher and higher performance with roughly the same power consumption, but that has started to change slowly for some past time.

Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge

Everybody has reckoned that they can buy a relatively good performance tablet with ARM processor in it and it can still run most of the daily tasks that people do. Beside that you get a device that is very silent and has a long battery autonomy. For desktops, power efficiency isn’t that big of a deal, but it plays a imminent part in netbooks, especially ultrabooks. Much smaller TDP is the main reason why the specifications (not the raw power) are so similar to one Sandy Bridge. If Intel sticked to the 90W TDP, we would have been likely to see processors with a higher clock frequencies and might have even seen a hex-core part without a major losses in clock frequencies. Roadmap sadly only includes the Ivy Bridge processors Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs without mentioning the Core i3. However, i3 is not gone— for certain there will be an i3-3xxx series. Tey are probably going to dual-core with no HT support and without Turbo Boost, very similar to the current i3-2100 series. We can’t say for sure why its specifications are not on the official list, but it’s likely that Intel will, like it did with Sandy Bridge platform, release the quad core lineup first and than the dual core processor will follow few months later. It’s also really possible that there will be less Core i3 models comparing it to the SandyBridge lineup because of the two extra i5 models. Based on pricing information, that we’ve seen, desktop Ivy Bridge processors will have in most cases identical prices to Sandy Bridge predecessors. The fastest processor from Core i7 series will be Intel i7-3770K CPU with unlocked clock multiplier and it will also be the most expensive one. It will be a 3.5 GHz quad-core chip that will come with 8 MB L3 cache onboard, Hyper Threading support, and whole 3.9 GHz Turbo Boost clock frequency. That CPU will be replacement for the current Sandy Bridge flagship Core i7-2700K, and it will be priced at $332. The rest of there “gang” from Core i7 Ivy Bridge processors family, i7-3770, i7-3770S and i7-3770T, will cost $294 in 1000 quantities.