Wednesday, December 26th 2012
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.
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
1) Overclocking is for enthusiasts only.
2) The mainstream wants lighter/smaller devices.
3) The mainstream doesn't care about raw performance.
4) Intel wants to make money, so they largely cater to the mainstream.
Utilizing these assumptions, Intel moving to BGA with their mainstream offerings makes sense. A person willing to spend $600 on a computer requires more flexibility (LGA) than someone looking to spend $400 (BGA). As long as Intel focuses BGA packaging on the lower end, no harm no foul.
I will raise hell if the 3570s descendants wind-up as BGA. That will get me to switch to AMD over night (performance be damned). Intel might do some stupid things, but they aren't stupid enough to kill all of the motherboard manufacturers (read: we still aren't the reason they keep LGA, there's too much money at stake for Intel to cut out the other manufacturers).
For Pete's sake, get some perspective here people. Intel is aiming itself at ARM and tablets. The traditional PC is going to take a back seat for a while. Intel already confirmed this with socket 2011. The back seat sucks, but what sucks worse is if PCs were to have the gloomy outlook of the home console. Enjoy the PC, because no other device can yet do everything that it can.
now I'm very happy with my i7-3770 with all its features at my disposal plus it has HD4000.
EDIT: I can really see it both ways, LOL!Well, dont buy a Mustang V6 if you need the performance of a V8 GT. They(that example) purchased wrong for their needs so of course they are disappointed. You dont buy a $300 laptop and expect the world of it. Thats budget stuff.+1. Thought Im under the mindset of go big(hex) or go home(to SB/IB) in s2011, the 3820 is on par with a 2600K which can also handle anything you throw at it.
There are some examples in life where compromises need to be made, a sports cars has fewer cup holders than a mini-van for example. However, I never had to make a compromise when choosing a Windows edition. To get domain join with Pro, I didn't have to give up any exclusive Home feature because there are none. Paid more, got more, lost nothing.
From another perspective, I rarely sell hardware. Pieces are re-purposed throughout their usable lifetime. Features unused now may became useful in the future. Now I fully comprehend that I'm in the minority here, that's why I'm not complaining. Simply stating to Intel that I will not consider the K CPUs for purchase. (a minor threat these days, I'm no longer in charge of hardware purchases at my current job)
One could make a solid argument and say you shouldnt be buying "K" CPU's for business
in the first place. There isnt a NEED to overclock for the VAST majority of business PC users really and that is all they bring to the table are higher overclocking potential. Look like a superstar and get the systems under budget by saving $20 /CPU.
I dont know, if I dont use it, I dont miss it. Now here is the real mindfunk of it all is I occasionally will run VM's on my 3770K. I only use it to simulate my office environment for DR testing so I do not really need the benefits of VT-d when its just there to to be stood up not to crunch info.
In reality, all the other CPUs in the Haswell family are more attractive to me, whether it's for personal or business use. I was stripped of my "overclocker" title a long time ago ;)
imagine you want a $200 CPU, but you also require a certain feature that is also only available on $500+ CPU's. It's like being forced to buy a Ferrari when you only wanted a Prius.
how happy would you be to buy $300's worth of processor potential you didn't ask for just to get the feature that absolutely could be made available to lower speed processors, but Intel decides to gouge it's customers on ?
"oh you want that popular feature? yeah that's only available on my most expensive chips" - Intel
You also can get VT-d on non-k edition 1155 CPUs, which completely renders your argument invalid. The only disadvantage is that skt1155 doesn't let you overclock and have it and most of the time people won't want VT-d and be able to OC. (Even if I do.)
To add to that a bit, you can still overclock non K chips... just not terribly far. In a best case scenario, you can lock in the turbo multiplier for all cores and push bclk to 105ish (YMMV) on IB chips. So clearly you do not have the same headroom as with a K type chip, but you can eek out more performance in most chips that have turbo. :toast:
Speaking of no VT-d on K SKUs... check this out: www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/15iaet/iama_cpu_architect_and_designer_at_intel_ama/c7mq2sd