Rumour: Ivy Bridge to have 77W TDP
We think this is a sneak peak at Intel's plans for the next couple of years. Click to have a closer look.
As expected, the model names of Ivy Bridge processors are said to start with a 3 rather than the 2 of the current Sandy Bridge range. As Sandy Bridge CPUs are being marketed as the Second-Generation Intel Core processors (despite being the fifth distinct range of Intel processors to carry a Core brand) we can expect the Ivy Bridge range to be called the Third-Generation Intel Core processors. Despite Ivy Bridge being a die-shrink and not a new design at all.
On to more pertinent details, and the leaked slides say that top-end CPU will have a TDP of 77W, down from the 95W of the current Sandy Bridge range. We were told that the 22nm, 3D transistor technology being deployed for Ivy Bridge would produce either a 50 per cent power saving for the same frequency, or 37 more frequency for the same power draw.
A bit of rough maths shows the drop from 95W to 77W to be 19 per cent, meaning that we expect frequency to increase by roughly 23 per cent. That could mean that the Core i7-3600K could have a nominal frequency of around 4.2GHz and the Core i5-3500K to be clocked at around 4GHz.
The VR-Zone story also details some of the cross-compatibility issues between Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge. Despite using the same LGA1155 socket, ‘the Q67, Q65 and B65 chipsets will not support Ivy Bridge and if we're correct, this has to do with lack of firmware space. This might once again only be limited to Intel's motherboards though, as the company didn't put large enough flash chips on its motherboards.’The new 7-series chipset that will accompany the Ivy Bridge launch should have no problems working with a Sandy Bridge CPU, ‘as for the Z68, P67, H67 and H61 chipsets, they're all compatible, in theory.’ Ivy Bridge processors are slated for release around March/April 2012.
Looking forward to Intel finally breaking the 4GHz barrier, or annoyed that your board might not be as future-proof as you first thought? Let us know in the forum.
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I love my 2500k to death but if something killer comes out its nice to know that I can upgrade.
Amen to that.
Only just bought mine and a 2500k and to be honest I'm more than happy with its performance, even at stock but if it was possible at a later date to drop an Ivy bridge chip straight in then that would be awesome.
Power savings, a good whack of frequency increase, a slight IPC improvement and a much, much better GPU and this thing sounds like a screamer of a desktop chip and even better in a lot of ways as a laptop part!
Now the laptop parts, I'd take the minor IPC improvements, much better GPU and hold the line on frequencies or only a very slight bump in the name of saving a lot more power.
So a 5-10% increase in clockspeed, would be much more reasonable with the 19% decrease in TDP. That's still very good, as we would be talking about a base-frequency of 3.8GHz and a 4+GHz turbo.
Can't really complain about the i7 920 though, still serving me well at 1.5v... somehow.
I've been planning to drop some cash on a Sandy Bridge laptop soon, but I'm wondering now if it'd better to wait for IB and hope for it to either neatly replace mobile SB or to cause a pricedrop on existing mobile SB systems.
Does anyone have any thoughts on that?
I think people are right when they say the TDP is the maximum draw.
Means nothing is the chip is dog awefull at managing power when idling etc.
I guess the only way we will know is when benchmarks appear.
Yes, that rocks. I just picked mine up to replace my "sub par" P67 UD4 board.
This board already overclocks more than the UD4 could and its in a much smaller package.
77W TDP for a flagship chip sounds awesome -- sound like loads of mileage on not a lot of vcore.
Getting a real itch for a new build, but am going to wait another 6 for Ivy Bride/new nVidia GPUs. I'm sure it will be well worth it.
4 w/HT. No way Intel is going to drop an 8-core out of the blue, especially on the 'tock' part of the cycle.
WIth BD just come out and falling a little flat, and more on IB leaking out just lately, I haz a sad. I've been with AMD almost all the way - I've only ever owned two Intel systems, an ancient laptop and an even more ancient desktop. AMD might be leading up to something huge with the BD arch, once the rest of the industry catches up with what it's doing, but more and more it seems like it might be time to defect. I really don't want to, as I'd like to do whatever tiny part I can to keep AMD in the consumer space, but it's been making less sense with every generation for the past 4 (of Intel's generations - it's only been two for AMD, and that's exactly the problem.)
Damnit, Intel, stop being so much better! >:(
Intel should give a difinitive answer as to compatible motherboards.
Ivy Bridge is a Tick (or Tick + going by what Intel say) not a Tock.
Tick is defined by a new process node but utilising the same architecture whilst Tock is defined by a new architecture.
Intel are defining Ivy Bridge as a Tick+ because it has some arhictectural changes - especially to the IGP but is mostly just a process shrink.
You are right about not dropping a 8 core out of the blue, especially on what they class as the "mainstream" platform.
SB-E or IB-E will introduce 6 (and no doubt 8 core) processors on the SB architecture.
degree of upgrade will be more...
When I do my build in around March next year I will see what is around at the time but if they make a 8 core Ivy Bridge by then and it outperform's the, 6 core Sandy Bridge E cpu's then I will be buying 1 of those.
Not sure about Intel necessarily providing this info, but Asus are already there : http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=P8P67+PRO+(REV+3.1)&p=1&s=39
Might be a worthy upgrade from the i7 920, especially with being able to adjust the multiplier on the desktop.
What do you do with your old PCs? sell them? whole? parts? turn them to HTPC? donate to relatives friends 3rd world country?
Marketplace them, brah.
You definitely won't be seeing 8 core Ivy bridge CPU's, they will be reserved strictly for the high end enthusiast section, If they don't come along with Sandy-E on LGA 2011 they they will probably come along with IVY-E on LGA 2011