Intel's 22-nanometer proceessor tech promises better performance, with more features (like security) built right into the chip. It consumes less power than previous designs and is up to twice as fast in visual applications.
The first batch of Ivy Bridge chips includes 13 different products, all quad-core. The singular i7 at the top of this slide is an overclocked model for gaming PCs
Ivy Bridge takes Intel's Core processor family into the third generation.
Intel says the five main areas where the enhancements of Ivy Bridge will be felt are: Connectivity, Responsiveness, Visual Media, Media Editing/Transcoding and Security.
Aside from better general system speed, users of Ivy Bridge machines will have the benefits of Intel tech that very quickly wakes up a machine from sleep mode.
Intel says transcoding video, or changing its format, on Ivy Bridge is up to twice as fast as the previous generation.
Besides better processing power, Intel says it's greatly improved how it integrates graphics on its chips.
Intel has built security features right on the chip, enabling users to lock their PCs remotely, for example. With Ivy Bridge, you can even do so over 3G networks and use the GPS to find out where the machine is.
The area that will benefit the most from Ivy Bridge is visual media. Between the improved chip tech, the enhanced GPU and proprietary Intel features (outlined here), performance is said to be double that of the previous generation (Sandy Bridge).
A comparison of the media features between Ivy Bridge and its predecessor, Sandy Bridge.
Many of the PCs that will benefit from the initial rollout of Ivy Bridge are All-in-One designs.
More than 270 desktops and 300 laptops are in development to use Ivy Bridge processors.
Here's what the die for the Ivy Bridge Core processor looks like.
Ivy Bridge's quad-core chip architecture, broken down.
Here's a wafer, the piece of seminconductor material the chips are cut from, full of Ivy Bridge Core chips.
Shown in Intel's presentation, the HP "Bodie" 27 is an all-in-one design that will have an Ivy Bridge as an option. The product resembles HP's Omni 27 — the word "Bodie" may be an oversight.
Going beyond Ivy Bridge, Intel is planning the next phase of 22nm chip technology, codenamed "Haswell," for 2013. It's also working on 14nm and 10nm designs in the lab.
If you’re in the market for a new computer over the next few months, you’ll have a clear choice: Buy a brand-spanking new machine with Intel’s latest chip technology, Ivy Bridge, or opt for a machine with last year’s tech for less money.
On Monday, Intel made a good case for not cheaping out.
At an event broadcast live over the web, Intel officially launched its Ivy Bridge processors, which revamp its top chip lines, the Core i7 and i5 designs. In total Intel launched 13 different flavors of Ivy Bridge, all of them quad-core, with more on the way.
Notably, the chip designs for Ultrabooks — those super-thin laptops that resemble the MacBook Air — aren’t among the 13. Intel faced some challenges in producing the chips for the extremely thin designs, so Ivy Bridge won’t be coming to them for a couple of months, Intel PC business chief Kirk Skaugen said. The Ultrabook processors will be dual-core and run at lower voltages to conserve power.
Even though the Ivy Bridge party is postponed for Ultrabooks, Intel said there were 570 PC designs in the works that will include the new chips, and any desktop, laptop or all-in-one design (think iMac) will enjoy many benefits from the 22nm tech.
For the full run-down on Ivy Bridge and its benefits, check out the video below. Ivy Bridge’s main advantage is with multimedia and graphics performance. Although the overall performance is about 20% better than the last generation (Sandy Bridge), Skaugen said visual activities like high-definition gameplay and transcoding HD video would see a performance boost of up to 100%.
The new chips also include full support for both USB 3.0 and Intel’s own high-speed connector tech,Thunderbolt. USB 3.0 offers 10x the speed of 2.0 connectors, and Thunderbolt — used on all Mac computers — is rated even faster (though that can vary depending on the device you’re hooking up).
Ivy Bridge represents a bigger leap than usual for Intel. Not only does the tech shrink the distance between transistors on a processor (from 32 to 22 nanometers), but it also is a fundamentally different chip design called Tri-Gate.
When Intel updates its processors, it typically either shrinks the transistor size or changes the architecture. It doesn’t normally do both.
The 13 Ivy Bridge processors Intel unveiled today are just the beginning, and the company’s vision is to extend 22-nanometer chip tech to all products based on the company’s tech, from high-end servers to Intel-based smartphones that are just coming out (most phones are based on a different chip architecture called ARM).
Intel’s also hard at work on the chip designs that will replace Ivy Bridge. The first will be Haswell, due in 2013, which is also based on 22nm tech. The company also has 14nm and 10nm chips in the works.
What excites you about the coming of Ivy Bridge PCs? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Reference: http://on.mash.to/IbiFC5
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