There are still several months the debut of Ivy Bridge, the new processor that will replace the current Sandy Bridge in 2012 in all sectors, both desktop and mobile, but also have long circulated details on Ivy Bridge’s successor, codenamed Haswell. The latter should arrive by 2013 and will represent the phase “tock” strategy, Intel in the now famous, that will be based on a completely new architecture, while Ivy Bridge is a “tick”, ie the shrinking of the day of Sandy Bridge by switching to the production process to 22 nm, with the same technology 3D Tri-Gate already know from the first.
For now we know that the Santa Clara company has improved the integrated graphics processor, now more powerful and able to offer support for DirectX 11 API and the new AVX instructions 2 (Advanced Vector Extensions) which should allow a significant increase in performance in vector graphics, with performance equivalent to that of existing dedicated graphics cards. Today, however, colleagues from VR-Zone have published some new slide techniques, which add significant details to this future CPU.
The first new feature is integration even more thrust. Up to now we all know that fact, to cut energy consumption, the current system on a chip integrated into a single package is the day of the processor and GPU and also the memory controller, ie the northbridge or MCH (Memory Controller Hub) , while the Southbridge or ICH (I / O Controller Hub) has become the only time in a separate chipset, commonly called the PCH (Platform Controller Hub).
Haswell in the future but also integrate it in the package, then going to be a real MCP or Multi Chip Package. In this way you will have even more compact motherboards that, in the mobile world, will result in more space for batteries. Haswell will have a TDP of 15 W, apparently the same as those of the Intel SoC used for the first generation of Ultrabook, but this will now include all the energy absorbed by the CPU, GPU, memory controller and PCH.
Haswell will also have one or two core versions for the Ultrabook, and can reach four cores for the desktop versions. For graphics but there are three solutions, respectively called the GT1, GT2 and GT3, of which but when you do not know the technical details. The solution, however, GT3 will be available only for mobile versions of Haswell, while the desktop can have up to a GPU GT2. This would therefore think that a version of the GT3 is particularly high performance GPUs, developed specifically to allow Ultrabook can count on excellent graphics performance without resorting to dedicated graphics processor, that would increase consumption.
Haswell also DDR3L will support both versions, while the desktop can also use regular DDR3 and mobile LPDDR3 instead, to increase energy efficiency. Both models for desktop and then of course Ultrabook support dual channel memory. Still, there will be improvements to AES-NI instructions, sharing the last level cache between the CPU and GPU, HyperThreading technology and support for PCI Express 3.0 to 16 channels. with regard to the TDP, then, even though Intel is focused on the range between 10 and 20 W, it is obvious that the architecture is very scalable and that, depending on whether it is a desktop version or the type of mobile GPUs integrated, they can grow up to 95 W as in the current Sandy Bridge, although it must be remembered that the values ??are not comparable, because as I said Haswell will be an MCP, and then that value will also include the PCH, currently separated.
Finally, with regard to the desktop version, Haswell will require a new socket called LGA-1150. There is still no more than a year at the debut of Haswell, in the meantime will succeed Sandy Bridge processors-E, Ivy Bridge, Ivy Bridge-E. The innovations that will introduce Haswell, however, are very interesting, especially as regards the integration of all the chips in a single package, so to minimize fuel consumption. It remains to be seen all the real computing power of integrated graphics solutions. We only know that Apple was among the companies that have done so much pressure on Intel integrates high-performance GPUs into their solutions, but the performance will be really satisfying to push consumers, at least among those not particularly gamers, prefer processors integrated graphics to discrete ones.
