Ivy Bridge Quad-Core to Have 77W TDP, Intel Plans for LGA1155 Ivy Bridge Entry

[btarunr]

Intel's next generation "Ivy Bridge" Core processors slated for 2012 will mark the beginning of Intel's transition to the brand new 22 nanometer fab process. It looks like Ivy Bridge will significantly benefit from this transition, since Intel will raise the bar in terms of energy-efficiency. Even the fastest P1 (performance 1) tier quad-core chips will have TDP rated as low as 77W, down from the 95W Core i7 2600K, for example, has.

The punters at Intel marketing have sliced the market down to finer segments, to better address it. The market is sliced in terms of price-segments (vertical), and in terms of target users (horizontal). The two markers are independent of each other, yet they complement each other in pin-pointing areas of the market Intel can address. Ivy Bridge LGA1155 is restricted to P1 (performance tier 1) segment on the top, with higher tiers, along with HEDT (high-end desktop) being reserved for Sandy Bridge-E LGA2011, and future "Ivy Bridge-E". Horizontally, Intel will have "K" quad-core parts for Enthusiast, standard (locked) quad-core vPro for the Standard, "T" quad-core for Performance-optimized lifestyle, and "S" for Power-optimized lifestyle. Chaotic as it looks, the table below lays out the lineup perfectly.



Unlocked "K" and standard (locked) vPro quad-core parts have TDP of 77W, performance-optimized "T" quad-core parts at 65W, and power-optimized "S" quad-core parts at 45W. There are dual-core Core i3 parts, too, with TDP of 55W (35W for the "S" variants).

The P1 segment parts will fall within the Core i7-3700 series, these chips will have the full 8 MB L3 cache present on the Ivy Bridge silicon, and 4 cores with 8 threads (HyperThreading enabled). Just below P1 segment are the MS2 and MS1 segments, the MS2 segment will include quad-core parts with 6 MB L3 cache, and no HyperThreading. The top-most MS2 part will have an unlocked multiplier, much like today's Core i5-2500K. MS2 and MS1 segment parts will take up Core i5-3500 series, Core i5-3400 series, and Core i5-3300 series. There will be just one class of dual-core parts, in the power-optimized MS1 segment. These segments will get have an updated feature-set over the present generation, that includes AES-NI acceleration, PP-DRNG.



Dual-core parts will span across key low-end and value segments. The 55W dual-core silicon will form the bed for SKUs in all four horizontal segments, in T2, T1, and L3 vertical segments. T2 and T1 segment parts will carry the Core i3-3100 series SKUs. These chips will have HyperThreading technology enabled, along with AVX, and updated GPU feature-set. The L3 segment will house the cheapest Ivy Bridge processor, in the Pentium Dual-Core G2000 family. This chip will now support dual-channel DDR3-1600 MHz.

Moving on to backwards compatibility with current Intel 6-series chipset motherboards, let me kill the suspense here. Ivy Bridge will run on Intel 6-series chipset motherboards, provided:

• They use the following chipsets: Z68, P67, H67, or H61 (Q67 and Q65 are not supported);
• The motherboards feature ME8L UEFI update. For this:
  o Your motherboard should currently feature a UEFI firmware
  o It should support ME8L update process at the physical level, where the EEPROM is sufficiently large

In due course of time, we will learn more about the ME8L EFI firmware update.



Last but not the least, Intel Smart Response technology (SRT) will be updated to be more functional, and perform even better than it does. Intel will seggregate SRT support among both processors and chipsets. So to be able to use SRT, besides having a compatible chipset, you'll also need a compatible processor. Future Q77, Z77, and H77 chipsets will support SRT, on Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 processors.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[NC37]

Impressed to see Intel stick with a socket this long. Keep this up and it might remove one of the reasons for me to stay in AMD builds for my main rig.

 

[Red_Machine]

Why impressed? Remember LGA 775?

 

[qubit]

This sounds excellent, I can't wait to get one of these.

 

[dieterd]

my concern is about - why Intels is not slowing down if AMD just now did a stop? I mean why you keep running if your only concurrent just failed and stopped for a while (without no realistic plans to restart moving his lame ass)?
Is the new Intel products coplete rubish, but those would shine any way vs the "mighty" Buldozzer?
Or there will be monopoly like pricing?

 

[damric]

lol, BD stole all of your TDPs.

 

[erixx]

great news, ... so I will be able to upgrade in the future to something MAXIMUM IMPRESSIVE : ) (P67)

 

[arnoo1]

And 6-core ivy bridge cpu's??

 

[Benetanegia]

my concern is about - why Intels is not slowing down if AMD just now did a stop? I mean why you keep running if your only concurrent just failed and stopped for a while (without no realistic plans to restart moving his lame ass)?
Is the new Intel products coplete rubish, but those would shine any way vs the "mighty" Buldozzer?
Or there will be monopoly like pricing?

I guess that they have to at least compete with themselves if they want to sell something and for that they probably need to soundly beat their previous CPUs. Bear in mind how long it's been since first Quad cores were released, and those are enough for most people. Even Core i7 is been here long enough. Enthusiasts will upgrade for a little improvement but the mayority of people will not upgrade unless there's a significant advancement*, and the market is pretty much saturated. Intel has already seen that the market is slowing down, not all quarters have been as good as they thought despite not having a real competitor, so they need to keep moving or simply see their market shrink and eventually die of starvation (Intel is big company that needs high revenues in order to survive).

* I know many people that only do office work, that still use single cores like P4, Athlon XP and heck I still have a 486 that works (if only was useful). Obviously those are not usable by todays standards, or not desirable (P4/Athlon XP), but a quad core CPU will always be enough for "home use" unless tasks like web surfing and office are deliberately made a lot harder to run, wich would stink even to illitertes IMO. So people would hold on to those for as long as the hardware lived or until there's a new CPU that brings a massive performance advantage for very little price. Intel can't just afford to sell you 1 CPU every 10 years, they need you tu buy their CPUs every 3-4 years minimum.

 

[AsRock]

This sounds excellent, I can't wait to get one of these.

me too, going be hard waiting for 2013 which is were i am hoping my system will last. But will have to see how SkyRim runs on my current system 1st.

 

[shb-]

Impressed to see Intel stick with a socket this long. Keep this up and it might remove one of the reasons for me to stay in AMD builds for my main rig.

"This long"? Even year is not passed if i am correct. And ivy is a die shrink, it would be total BS if intel would require new socket for such. Gulftown (westmare) was a die shrink of bloomfield (nahalem), used same socket, so nothing new here. Be excited if intel sticks to one socket more than one "tick-tock" , like with lga775.

 

[Zubasa]

"This long"? Even year is not passed if i am correct. And ivy is a die shrink, it would be total BS if intel would require new socket for such. Gulftown (westmare) was a die shrink of bloomfield (nahalem), used same socket, so nothing new here. Be excited if intel sticks to one socket more than one "tick-tock" , like with lga775.

Even LGA 775 have half-a-million revisions.... :shadedshu

 

[naoan]

This is what I expect from future CPU, faster and more power efficient, not the opposite.

 

[Jegergrim]

How do we know if our motherboards support
" The motherboards feature ME8L UEFI update. For this:
o Your motherboard support currently feature a UEFI firmware
o It should support ME8L update process at the physical level, where the EEPROM is sufficiently large" ?

Will be buying the MSI Z68A-65GD G3

 

[Dent1]

my concern is about - why Intels is not slowing down if AMD just now did a stop? I mean why you keep running if your only concurrent just failed and stopped for a while

Do you honestly think Intel care what AMD are doing? Intel are going to release 77W TDP Ivy Bridge Quad-Core regardless of what AMD bring out.

 

[LiveOrDie]

Woooooooooo INTEL FTW AMD FTF

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Why impressed? Remember LGA 775?

Remember??

Still rockin it!! I may upgrade eventually, but haven't had a real need to quite yet.

 

[1c3d0g]

Do you honestly think Intel care what AMD are doing? Intel are going to release 77W TDP Ivy Bridge Quad-Core regardless of what AMD bring out.

Yup, and that's just the beginning. Remember, this is Intel's first try at mass-production of their exciting new 3D transistor technology. With Haswell, Intel will have optimized their CPU architecture even more for this new process, so we're going to see some very interesting products from them in the near future.

 

[MikeMurphy]

Intel's threat isn't AMD.

Intel's threat is ARM, and they need to move fast on die shrinks and aggressive power saving to meet this threat. It's coming.

 

[blibba]

me too, going be hard waiting for 2013 which is were i am hoping my system will last. But will have to see how SkyRim runs on my current system 1st.

I'm also waiting at least until 2013. Your system will piss all over Skyrim unless you expect super-high resolutions and maximum settings.

 

[btarunr]

Intel's threat isn't AMD.

Intel's threat is ARM, and they need to move fast on die shrinks and aggressive power saving to meet this threat. It's coming.

Intel's threat is Intel, and consumers getting "set" for more than a couple of years with an Intel processor.

Intel and ARM vendors target entirely different markets. It's like comparing a sportscar company to a sportsbike company.

 

[MikeMurphy]

Intel's threat is Intel, and consumers getting "set" for more than a couple of years with an Intel processor.

Intel and ARM vendors target entirely different markets. It's like comparing a sportscar company to a sportsbike company.

I respect your opinions but surely you must realize that smartphones are taking on more and more tasks which traditionally were the exclusive jurisdiction of PCs.

And, the trend is continuing at increased pace. Not only do we have more capable smartphones, but those same chips are running tablets, which traditionally were x86 territory.

You really think the spheres are separate? And will continue to remain totally separate?

They most definitely are not.

 

[btarunr]

I respect your opinions but surely you must realize that smartphones are taking on more and more tasks which traditionally were the exclusive jurisdiction of PCs.

And, the trend is continuing at increased pace. Not only do we have more capable smartphones, but those same chips are running tablets, which traditionally were x86 territory.

You really think the spheres are separate? And will continue to remain totally separate?

They most definitely are not.

Sure, both a car and a motorcycle can take you places, it's just that each is fundamentally incapable of certain tasks the other is capable of, and neither can replace the other.

That's not to say that ARM and x86 will never cross paths. Intel is struggling to miniaturize x86 to maintain performance per watt levels comparable to ARM, while ARM designers like NVIDIA dream of one day kicking out x86 processor from the PC.

 

[Grings]

I remember 775, i also remember having to buy a new mobo everytime i upgraded to a newer chip, regardless of it having the same socket.
I recently got an ASRock z68 extreme4 gen3, but i bet despite it supporting Pci-e 3 theres still some reason we'll all need a new mobo when Ivy Bridge releases.

 

[btarunr]

Anyone who bought Gigabyte G1.Sniper2 must be feeling terrible. Sure, that board gives you the perception of Ivy Bridge-readiness with its PCIe Gen 3.0 slots; but then the board uses ye olde AwardBIOS. No UEFI = no scope for firmware update to support Ivy Bridge.