Wednesday, December 26th 2012
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Intel Haswell and Broadwell Silicon Variants Detailed
It's no secret that nearly all Intel Core processors are carved out of essentially one or two physical dies, be it the "2M" die that physically features four cores and 8 MB of L3 cache, or the "1M" die, which physically features two cores and 4 MB of L3 cache. The two silicons are further graded for energy-efficiency and performance before being assigned a package most suited to them: desktop LGA, mobile PGA, mobile BGA, and with the introduction of the 4th generation Core "Haswell," SoC (system on chip, a package that's going to be a multi-chip module of the CPU and PCH dies). The SoC package will be designed to conserve PCB real-estate, and will be suited for extremely size-sensitive devices such as Ultrabooks.
The third kind of grading for the two silicons relates to its on-die graphics processor, which makes up over a third of the die area. Depending on the number of programmable shaders and ROPs unlocked, there are two grades: GT2, and GT3, with GT3 being the most powerful. On the desktop front (identified by silicon extension "-DT,") Intel very much will retain dual-core processors, which will make up its Core i3, Pentium, and Celeron processor lines. It will be lead by quad-core parts. All desktop processors feature the GT2 graphics core.Haswell-H consists of mobile quad-core parts in the BGA package, which will go into making mainstream notebooks and probably all-in-one desktops and NUC. Chips of these kind make for the bulk of Intel's processor sales. These chips are naturally not replaceable on the notebook. Intel will release two kinds of Haswell-H chips, based on the two integrated graphics variants.
The Haswell-MB consists of mobile chips in the replaceable PGA package, interestingly, Intel includes dual-core "1M" parts. Lastly, there's the SoC package (-ULT extension), which probably is the most expensive to make and sell, since it's a multi-chip module (MCM) of the CPU and PCH (chipset) dies. The package itself shouldn't be much bigger than Haswell-H (BGA), but conserves board footprint for a separate PCH chip, and a ton of wiring on the main board. There are no quad-core parts in this series, and they're graded on iGPU, and energy-efficiency. The most efficient one features the faster GT3 iGPU (since there's little room for discrete graphics) and just 10W TDP.
Last and most interestingly, it's reported that Intel will indeed have an LGA1150 desktop processor based on its "Broadwell" 5th generation Core architecture, which makes perfect sense, given that Broadwell is essentially die-shrunk Haswell micro-architecture. Its silicon lineup is charted out much in the same way as Haswell.
What's even more interesting, and reinforces the "desktop BGA apocalypto" theory, is the fact that there won't be a dual-core Broadwell processor in the LGA1150 package. So most entry- thru mainstream chips, which are dual-core, will be built in the BGA package. So for anyone with less than say $200 to spend on motherboard+CPU, motherboards with CPUs hardwired will be sold in the markets (much like graphics cards).
Source:
Expreview
The third kind of grading for the two silicons relates to its on-die graphics processor, which makes up over a third of the die area. Depending on the number of programmable shaders and ROPs unlocked, there are two grades: GT2, and GT3, with GT3 being the most powerful. On the desktop front (identified by silicon extension "-DT,") Intel very much will retain dual-core processors, which will make up its Core i3, Pentium, and Celeron processor lines. It will be lead by quad-core parts. All desktop processors feature the GT2 graphics core.Haswell-H consists of mobile quad-core parts in the BGA package, which will go into making mainstream notebooks and probably all-in-one desktops and NUC. Chips of these kind make for the bulk of Intel's processor sales. These chips are naturally not replaceable on the notebook. Intel will release two kinds of Haswell-H chips, based on the two integrated graphics variants.
The Haswell-MB consists of mobile chips in the replaceable PGA package, interestingly, Intel includes dual-core "1M" parts. Lastly, there's the SoC package (-ULT extension), which probably is the most expensive to make and sell, since it's a multi-chip module (MCM) of the CPU and PCH (chipset) dies. The package itself shouldn't be much bigger than Haswell-H (BGA), but conserves board footprint for a separate PCH chip, and a ton of wiring on the main board. There are no quad-core parts in this series, and they're graded on iGPU, and energy-efficiency. The most efficient one features the faster GT3 iGPU (since there's little room for discrete graphics) and just 10W TDP.
Last and most interestingly, it's reported that Intel will indeed have an LGA1150 desktop processor based on its "Broadwell" 5th generation Core architecture, which makes perfect sense, given that Broadwell is essentially die-shrunk Haswell micro-architecture. Its silicon lineup is charted out much in the same way as Haswell.
What's even more interesting, and reinforces the "desktop BGA apocalypto" theory, is the fact that there won't be a dual-core Broadwell processor in the LGA1150 package. So most entry- thru mainstream chips, which are dual-core, will be built in the BGA package. So for anyone with less than say $200 to spend on motherboard+CPU, motherboards with CPUs hardwired will be sold in the markets (much like graphics cards).
40 Comments on Intel Haswell and Broadwell Silicon Variants Detailed
LONG LIVE THE PC MARKET. :toast:
technewspedia.com/detailing-the-new-nomenclature-for-intel-cpus-2013-2014/
Here we can read
"Note 1: Although we have based this on one published by PC Watch, they have not mentioned anything about Broadwell-D, but since Intel said that there will be a variant Broadwell LGA package, and sigiendo logic of the new nomenclature, is most likely to be called Broadwell-D, but is also the possibility that Intel decided to use a different code name, so we will update this article if Intel uses a different nomenclature."
So, nothing new... just assumptions...
And for God's sake, kill the Celeron/Pentium names already. Even my ex-system building friends laughed at me when I told them I bought a Pentium, until I mentioned it was Ivy Bridge architecture, because they assumed that brand name ended with socket 775.
I will be skipping both Haswell and Broadwell for desktops (unless they release some 8-core variants, which I very much doubt), but will very likely end up buying an Ultrabook with one of these processors, if Intel's claims of 20+ hour battery life are true.
chipzillas going to charge the earth for that 1150 socket haswell chip, you all know that dont ya:rolleyes:
I mean I can see Vt-d alienating a very VERY small amount of people (power users at home that want to overclock and run VM's more efficiently), but how many people really do that? I mean no Server Admin in their right mind will be overclocking on a small business/enterprise level, so... Im just not sure why you feel that way. :confused:
EDIT: Just noticed this gem -> "What's even more interesting, and reinforces the "desktop BGA apocalypto" theory, is the fact that there won't be a dual-core Broadwell processor in the LGA1150 package. So most entry- thru mainstream chips, which are dual-core, will be built in the BGA package. So for anyone with less than say $200 to spend on motherboard+CPU, motherboards with CPUs hardwired will be sold in the markets (much like graphics cards)."
Perhaps I didnt read/understand something in your first post, but how does there not being a dual core in that package 'reinforce' that all Intel CPU's, as the rumor(s) mention, are moving that way? I took that as a pretty inoccuous mention personally and not sure how this reinforces anything with the enthusiast line - which iirc, is what intel said would still be LGA.