Ivy Bridge won’t hit retailers until around March/April 2012, but that doesn’t stop Intel from slowly revealing a bit of new information every now and then. These 22nm CPU’s will essentially be a die shrink of Sandy Bridge, but with a better on-die GPU and some minor architectural improvements. For instance, Ivy Bridge will have a GPU with 30% more EUs (Execution units – Intel’s version of stream processors). Compared to Intel’s Sandy Bridge, these new CPUs give a 60% performance boost in application that utilize GPU acceleration.
Additionally, Ivy bridge will consume less power. Ivy Bridge will have a TDP of 77W compared to Sandy Bridge’s 95W. This will allow overclockers to push clock speeds even further. On the other hand, the naming scheme will stay the same. The new processors will be branded as the 3000 series (make sure you get the K model for the unlocked multiplier).
And, don’t forget the new CPUs will use 3D tri-gate transistor technology (shown below).
Source: Guru3D.com
Nice. Might have to think about buying one of these when they release if the performance is there. Wouldn’t mind a 3500K and I’m glad they’re not changing sockets for this. Be nice if they stick with 1155 all through next year.
Hopefully Haswell will also be on 1155, but considering Intel’s track record we should be happy that we even got Ivy Bridge on 1155 heh. I think the newer processors will be around 20% more powerful than sandy bridge (just guesstimating here). Which, considering I have my CPU at 4.5GHZ wont even make a difference especially since I don’t have to worry about even a GTX 590 being a bottleneck. For applications like video editing or HTPC users that like the more powerful IGP it would be worth it, but for gamers, IMO, Sandy Bridge should be enough for a bit.
The real game changer for me in the future is PCI-E 3.0. It all depends on if there is a time that 3.0 is needed. If that is the case then I would need the new CPU in addition to a new motherboard to support it. Furthermore, it also depends on if the GPU upgrade is warranted at the time. What games actually take advantage of all of that power? Are we still dealing with a lot of ports that have some specific eye candy features that aren’t really worth it?
So, for me Ivy Bridge is all about PCI-E 3.0 and beyond that the amount of performance it provides wont necessarily make me jump ship with my current CPU. Here’s to waiting for some major price drops in the following years so the Ivy Bridge choice will be easier to make, but for now I am most likely not going to get the new CPU.
is AMD dead yet?
anyways… PCI-E 3.0 won’t make much of a difference until the at least a year or two from now if a single GTX 580 isn’t anywhere close to the bandwidth limit of PCI-E 2.0 slot (since GTX 590 and the Mars 2 are fine using the same single PCI-E 2.0 slot…)
only thing that might push it is next generation dual chip gpus…
Yeah, I’m with you there. So, as it stands with what we know right now regarding GPU bandwidth, I don’t really see myself switching to Ivy Bridge for that yet. However, come 2 years or so from now I may have to reevaluate what’s what.
I might do it just for the hell of it. Maybe go for a Z68 board. That reminds me, one of these days I need to take pictures of my set up.