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Haswell – Intel’s fourth-generation processor offers more power while saving energy

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Intel Haswell ProcessorIn 2013, the fourth-generation Haswell processor will replace the current third-generation Ivy Bridge Core lineup.  Haswell will be based on the same 22nm process used in Ivy Bridge construction but with two big differences – Haswell will focus heavily on mobility and will be smaller while consuming 20-times less power than Ivy Bridge (with transitions between C-States, or power modes, improved by as much as 25%). Chips running at 10 watts will be introduced with sub-10 watt chips following thereafter (compare to Ivy Bridge running at 17 watts).

In addition to battery savings, Haswell will have 10% more processing power and twice the graphics capability as Ivy Bridge.  The Next Generation Intel HD graphics chip will include support for up to three monitors and will allow for resolutions up to 4,000 x 2,000.  The chip will be used heavily in convertible ultrabooks, laptops, and tablets.

Jack Gold, principal analyst for J. Gold Associates told PC Magazine:

These could change the ballgame for Intel.  The fundamental difference with other Core processors, just a few watts, doesn’t sound like such a big deal, but when you can get a third less power, maybe even half, that fundamentally changes how you build a machine. Cutting half of the power in the CPU is huge.

Here’s a rundown of the features:

Features carried over from Ivy Bridge

  • A 22 nm manufacturing process.
  • 3D tri-gate transistors (Ivy Bridge processors and onwards).
  • A 14-stage pipeline (since the Core microarchitecture).
  • Mainstream up to quad-core.
  • Native support for dual channel DDR3.
  • 64 kB (32 kB Instruction + 32 kB Data) L1 cache and 256 kB L2 cache per core.

New Haswell processor features

  • Haswell New Instructions (includes Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (AVX2), gather, bit manipulation, and FMA3 support).
  • New sockets — LGA 1150 for desktops and rPGA947 & BGA1364 for the mobile market.
  • Intel Transactional Synchronization Extensions (TSX).
  • Graphics support in hardware for Direct3D 11.1 and OpenGL 3.2.
  • DDR4 for the enterprise/server variant (Haswell-EX).
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