Detailed Intel Haswell specs revealed

[siopao1984]

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Detailed Intel Haswell specs revealed by VR-Zone.com

We're still an estimated five to six months away from Intel's launch Ivy Bridge, a platform which is expected to offer slight improvements over Sandy Bridge in terms of performance, although it should improve power efficiency and graphics performance quite significantly. However, Intel's 2013 platform code named Shark Bay has now turned up on some quite detailed slides online and it has some interesting new features on offer as well as yet another performance bump.

There seems to be some changes going on at Intel with regards to platform names, as in the past, Intel has gone for different platform code names for its mobile and desktop offerings, but Haswell's platform for both mobile and desktop appears to be called Shark Bay, whereas for Ivy Bridge we're looking at Chief River and Maho Bay for the mobile and desktop platforms respectively. As you can see from the slide below, we're still looking at no more than four cores for Intel's consumer platform which suggests that Intel isn't really about AMD catching up any time soon.



Although Haswell is a new "core" or a "tock" as Intel likes to call it, unlike Ivy Bridge which is a 22nm trigate version of Sandy Bridge or a "tick", Haswell will actually be very similar to Ivy Bridge at least in terms of the manufacturing process, as this is also a 22nm trigate part. Haswell will use the LGA-1150 socket for desktops and either rPGA947 or BGA1364 for notebooks as we reported a few days ago. The biggest change that we're seeing beyond the new core is a move to multi-chip packaging for the ultra-low Voltage segment, which Intel appears to have unified into a single ULT SKU (we're not sure what the T stands for) instead of the long running ULV and UL SKUs. This will make the ULT models Intel's first single chip performance processor, but more on this a little bit later.

We're of course getting a new chipset, codenamed Lynx Point, although we don't have much in terms of details with regards to new features compared to the 7-series chipsets. What the slides do give away is that Intel has at least made one major change to the Shark Bay platform, there's no longer an FDI interface, which is used for piping the display connectivity via the PCH on the 6 and 7-series chipsets, again something we reported on a few days ago. It's also possible that we'll see integrated Thundebolt support, but there's no indication as to if this will be part of the Lynx Point chipset, or continue to rely upon a separate chipset, as all the slides are informing us about is support for the interface.



Other platform features include NFC support for mobile devices, configurable TDP and LPM (Link Power Management), improved system idle states (S0ix) for the mobile platforms, vastly improved boot times and general updates and improvements to current Intel technology found on its desktop and mobile platforms. One interesting new addition is three levels of Intel graphics, currently known as GT1, GT2 and GT3. Once again the desktop parts end up with slower graphics than the mobile platforms, which we still don't quite understand as it's not as if desktop users would want worse graphics performance. It's almost as if Intel is telling desktop users to go and get a graphics card. The slides are also suggesting that we'll see real time HD to HD video transcoding

[siopao1984]

Taking a closer look at the platforms, starting with the desktop we're looking at two or four cores, support for DDR3 and DDR3L (low power) memory at speeds of up to 1600MHz officially in a typical dual-channel configuration with a maximum of two DIMMs per channel. Oddly enough the TDP looks set to go back to 35, 45, 65 and 95W, the same as for Sandy Bridge and an increase from what we're expecting to see from Ivy Bridge. Again, as we reported a few days ago, Haswell will feature a fully integrated Voltage regulator, although unlike Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge, Haswell will feature improved overclocking, but we're not sure how far Intel will go here to bring back additional Bclk multipliers.



According to the slides we can expect at least three mobile SKUs, a "high-end" quad core platform in a BGA1364 package which comes with up to GT3 graphics, a standard dual or quad core platform for in a rPGA947 package with up to GT2 graphics and finally another BGA part which is likely to have its own custom page as this is the ULT multi-chip package that incorporates the chipset in the same package as the CPU cores and graphics and in this case we're looking at up to GT3 graphics. The ULT model also supports LP-DDR3 (1.2V) memory as well as DDR3L (1.35V) and this is also where Intel is putting extra focus on power saving with its improved system idle states. The packaging size for the single-chip model will measure 40x24x1.5mm (WxDxH) whereas the other mobile parts should measure 37.5x32mm (WxD) with no indication on thickness.

We already talked about the TDP for the desktop parts and this is where things get interesting with the mobile counterparts. Once more Intel is bringing up the max TDP to 37, 47 and 57W, which should be compared to 35, 45 and 55W for today's standard Voltage Sandy Bridge CPUs. This seems to be taking things in the wrong direction, although we have a feeling that it's the new graphics core that's causing the increase in TDP. With Ivy Bridge said to offer 60 percent faster graphics performance than Sandy Bridge, Intel is likely to try to boost the GPU performance at a similar level once again, although this is likely to be with the GT3 GPU core.



As for the ULT parts, well, the TDP is a mere 15W, but keep in mind that this is the minimum TDP in this case, as from Ivy Bridge, Intel will offer programmable TDP on some of its CPU SKUs. This allows the notebook makers to tailor the TDP to suit the cooling offered by the notebook in question. As such, some parts will have much higher TDP than 15W when running at full speed. We'll have to wait and see how this pans out, but it's worth keeping in mind that the CPU and GPU are sharing the same cooling solution, so there will be limits depending on what you're doing, as the GPU is going to be using its fair share of cooling capacity when in use.

[siopao1984]

As per our earlier article, Intel has simplified the power delivery design to Haswell by moving to a single Voltage regulator that delivers power to all the components inside the CPU, rather than having separate Voltage regulators for each of the separate parts. As you can see from the diagram below, this has meant some changes to the pin-out in the socket and this is why Intel is moving from LGA-1155 to LGA-1150. We'd guess that part of the reason for there not being more pins is the removal of the FDI interconnect to the chipset which has helped reduce the pin count to a degree alongside with the changes to the Voltage regulator design. There's still an FDI interface in the CPU, but you'll have to look really closely to see, as it's now a direct display output from the processor itself.



Other features that we'll see in both mobile and desktop parts include AVX 2.0, improvements to the AES-NI instructions, support for something carrying the codename Hotham 1.0 which we haven't manage to track down what it is yet, as well as several current technologies such as shared last level cache between the CPU and GPU, Hyper-Threading and a range of other features. Haswell will of course sport support for PCI Express 3.0, although Intel doesn't seem to be interested in giving us more than 16 lanes worth of bandwidth.

These slides have given as a good look at Haswell, in fact we almost know more about Haswell than we do about Ivy Bridge at the moment. That said, we still know very little about Lynx Point, but one thing is for certain, Intel will try to put as many features it can into its chipset to further simplify its platform. We're all for a more affordable approach, as this really is a cost reduction exercise from Intel's side, but it's likely to make for a rather dull consumer platform come 2013. There will be very little the motherboard makers can do to add functionality and unique features to the boards, as everything that most people will want and/or need, will already be built into the chipset and/or CPU.



Still, it's a year and a half or so until the Shark Bay platforms will launch and between now and then we have Sandy Bridge-E, Ivy Bridge and Ivy Bridge-E to look forward to. If anything, we're getting a feeling that Intel is slowing down, as we've reached a point in time where the average consumer doesn't need any more computing power, as everything we use our computers for run just fine on the currently available platforms. With Windows 8 said to be more resource friendly than Windows 7, it looks like most people aren't even going to have to upgrade their computers to reap the benefits – if there any to be had – of Windows 8 when it launches. We're looking forward to more power efficient mobile computers with better performance than ever though and judging by the slides, this is where Intel is currently putting most of its focus on for 2013.

Source: Chiphell

[usrolla]

Bro mike... na abot lagi ka post dri sa career center? hehehe

[siopao1984]

na sayop ni post brad. gipa move ko na... hehehe

[gareb]

moved thread

[bordline]

nice topic. something to look forward to in 2013

[keropi]

my next procie...

[akomao]

heheh huwat nlng diay ko sa 2013 for next upgrade hahaha