Ivy Bridge Core i5 and Core i7 specs

Subject: Processors | March 1, 2012 - 03:42 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: Ivy Bridge, Intel

A sharp pair of eyes at Guru of 3D spotted a pdf on an Intel site which has since been taken down. While it is too bad we cannot give you the original PDF, Guru3D did post the pertinent information for those waiting patiently for Ivy Bridge to finally arrive.

As you can see the TDPs are impressively low, the desktop models ranging from 77W at the top end down to a 35W rating on the only dual core desktop model. On the mobile side the TDPs range between 17W to 35W, with more than half of those models being dual core. Also worth noting is the new graphics core, the HD4000 which is only available to two of the Core-i5 models, if you want the new core on a desktop then the Core-i7 is the way to go. On the mobile side, all models are listed as having HD4000 which might help Intel compete against AMD's Llano as consumers will not have to investigate the Intel chip in their laptop to determine which level of graphics processor they possess. Making a purchasing decision easier will go a long way to giving peace of mind to consumers that only want to spend their money and not their time researching before they buy.

Still no solid release date though.

Source: Guru3D

Just Delivered: MSI Z77A-GD65 Motherboard Preview

Subject: Motherboards, Processors, Chipsets | February 29, 2012 - 12:03 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: just delivered, z77a-gd65, Z77, sandy bridge, msi, Ivy Bridge, Intel

In preparation for Intel's 3rd generation of Intel Core microprocessor architecture (can you see we are dancing around things already), MSI has started showing a new line of motherboards. While at CES in January we saw the Z77A-GD65 option that will be available soon and offers some interesting new specs and features.

The Z77A-GD65 sports Military Class III components as well as support for a host of new items including PCI Express 3.0 and USB 3.0. While we can't share much more than that in terms of details I thought it might be worth showing off a few shots of the upcoming motherboard from our friends at MSI.

See more photos of the MSI Z77A-GD65!!

Source: PC Perspective

Intel Ivy Bridge delay is confirmed essentially

Subject: Processors | February 26, 2012 - 10:38 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: Intel, Ivy Bridge, delay

If you hadn't heard yet, last week we talked about a potential delay to the release of Intel's upcoming Ivy Bridge processor. Well pretty much everything we feared was "kind of" confirmed by Intel's Sean Maloney when he said:

“I think maybe it’s June now."

Huh. It's gets worse though as Maloney apparently was "blaming the push back on the complexity of the new manufacturing process." That process in particular was the 22nm tri-gate technology that Intel has been touting as one of its biggest developments in recent years.

Is this completely altered now??

The EETimes story gets more specific with date quotes from Jim McGregor of In-Stat.

Jim McGregor of In-Stat told EE Times that according to his industry sources in Taiwan, Intel's Ivy Bridge server parts were only delayed from April 8 until April 29, though the dual core i5 and i7 parts for notebooks had been pushed out from a planned May 13th launch to June 3.

Last week we were hearing that Intel would still launch Ivy Bridge parts in April but wouldn't send out the mass shipments until June, and while that is still possible, that seems much less likely after hearing Maloney's words today.

And if you haven't had enough bad news for today, there is this comment that pretty much backs up my thoughts that I laid out in our 190th episode of the PC Perpsective Podcast last week:

“It doesn’t really matter because there’s not really any compelling competition right now,” said one industry analyst on condition of anonymity, referring to AMD’s recent lag in the market.

AMD, we need you in our lives so badly. Please don't leave us here...alone...

Source: EETimes

Podcast #190 - PCAudioLabs system giveaway, the future of NAND Memory, potential Ivy Bridge delays and more!

Subject: Editorial, General Tech | February 23, 2012 - 04:10 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: Thinkpad, podcast, piledriver, nvidia, Ivy Bridge, Intel, gpu, cpu, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #190 - 02/23/2012

Join us this week as we talk about a PCAudioLabs system giveaway, the future of NAND Memory, potential Ivy Bridge delays and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:24:53

Program Schedule:

0:00:31 Introduction
1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
http://pcper.com/podcast
http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
0:01:45 Intel, PCAudioLabs and PC Perspective Rok Box System Sweepstakes!!
0:03:45 How We Review Laptops At PC Perspective
0:05:30 MSI Graphics Card Division Interview: Alex Chang Takes our Q's
0:09:10 Lenovo ThinkPad T420 Review: Kickin' It Old School
0:12:00 NAND Flash Memory - A Future Not So Bleak After All
0:27:15 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
0:28:30 Mass Effect 3 is Coming, Pre-Order Now and Get Battlefield 3 (PC) Free
0:31:00 Intel may delay shipments of Ivy Bridge processors
0:35:10 VIA teams with Tensilica to roll their own SSD controller
0:40:53 HP dates NVIDIA on Valentine's Day. We get Z1 workstation.
0:46:30 Wi-Fi on Rosepoint SoC die. Intel flexes before ARM wrestle.
0:51:15 Of Near Threshold Voltage and Atomic Transistors
0:55:15 AMD and Cyclos reduces clock power usage with Piledriver
1:04:00 Intel becomes a 22nm foundry -- yes, for other people.
1:11:35 Contest Reminder - http://pcper.com/contest
1:11:55 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
1. Ryan: IKEA DIODER + HOLY AWESOME https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-LmEQUm1PUXU/T0W8e-KQz0I/AAAAAAAAYNA/XB64fVxgLvo/w402/engagement.jpg
2. Ken: SUPAboy
3. Jeremy: Hardware Leaderboard
1. Josh: Get it while you still can!
2. Allyn: Nintendo 1982 Game & Watch Donkey Kong (counter to Ken's pick)
1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
http://pcper.com/podcast
http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
Closing

Source:

Intel may delay shipments of Ivy Bridge processors

Subject: Processors | February 16, 2012 - 03:47 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: Intel, Ivy Bridge, delay

Some unfortunate news is making the rounds today surrounding a potential delay of the upcoming Intel Ivy Bridge processor. A story over at Digitimes is reporting that due to an abundance of inventory on current generation Sandy Bridge parts, Intel will start to trickle out Ivy Bridge in early April but will hold off on the full shipments until after June.

If Intel is indeed delaying shipping Ivy Bridge it likely isn't due to pressure from AMD and with the announcement by top brass there it seems likely Intel will retain the performance lead on the CPU side of things from here on out. With the release of Windows 8 coming in the fall of 2012 Intel's partners (and Intel internally) are likely going to be using that as the primary jumping off point for the architecture transition.

If ever there was a reason to support AMD and competition in general, this is exactly that. Without pressure from a strong offering from the opposition Intel is free to adjust their product schedule based on internal financial reasons rather than external consumer forces. While we will still see some Ivy Bridge availability in April (according to Digitimes at least) in order to avoid a marketing disaster, it seems that the wide scale availability of the Intel design with processor graphics performance expected to be double that of Sandy Bridge won't be until the summer.

Source: Digitimes

Intel, NVIDIA and AMD; all are having new GPU spring fling

Subject: General Tech | January 16, 2012 - 12:25 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: amd, NVIDA, HD7950, kepler, Ivy Bridge, Intel

The arrival of the HD 7970 caused a bit of disappointment to some, not because of the performance of the card, instead it was the price that depressed many would be owners of the fastest GPU on the planet. That price is fair, currently the competition sells their top card, the GTX 580 for about $500 and as the HD7970 is faster charging a ~10% premium makes perfect sense ... now if only they could do something about the stock problems.

All is not lost GPU fans, DigiTimes has confirmed AMD's HD7950 should be here by the end of the month and will offer the same next generation architecture at a lower price. If it emulates the style of the HD6950 it will be a very popular card and will mean AMD beat NVIDIA to market with both enthusiast level cards. It will likely be sometime in April before we start to see Kepler based cards from NVIDIA, of which they are being fairly closed mouth about. We do know that they will be leading with mobile and mid-range chips, not the enthusiast level cards as AMD did, the reasons for that are widely debated.

Intel is also going to offer competition in the spring as they release Ivy Bridge with its integrated graphics. That may take a chunk of AMD's Llano market share but their high end discrete GPUs should be safe. NVIDIA on the other hand is vulnerable, if their mobile chips do not offer a significant advantage over Ivy Bridge's capabilities or cannot work in tandem with the chip then NVIDA's products will not be that attractive. Even worse, if their mid-range cards do not live up to expectations, they may find AMD's previous generation of cards and Intel's iGPU dominating the market segment NVIDIA hoped to keep share in.

^{2011 market shares from Jon Peddie Research}

"AMD, after announcing 28nm high-end Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, is set to add a new 28nm member Radeon HD 7950 by the end of January, while Nvidia, considering the yield rates of the 28nm process and its inventory levels, plans to officially release its 28nm Kepler in April, at the latest, according to sources from graphics card makers.

The sources noted that Nvidia wishes to make sure that the power consumption and the manufacturing process of the graphics chip all reach perfection before entering the 28nm generation. Since Nvidia is set to release its 28nm graphics card around the same time as Intel's upcoming 22nm Ivy Bridge processor, the sources believe Kepler series GPUs may have a chance to catch up with the demand for Intel's new CPUs."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

Source: DigiTimes

Take a closer look at MSI's new Z77 motherboards

Subject: Motherboards, Shows and Expos | January 10, 2012 - 06:19 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: Z77, msi, lga1155, Ivy Bridge, CES

You probably saw Scott's coverage of the unveiling of the new Z77 chipset based motherboards from Gigabyte which will support Intel's soon to be released Ivy Bridge family of processors. This spells a return to LGA 1155, though don't expect your old Sandy Bridge processor to be able to take advantage of all the features of this new high end chipset.

MSI has two brand new boards they are showing off at CES 2012, the Z77A-GD80 and the Z77A-GD65. The first will be their new flagship motherboard and will feature new versions of ClickBIOS, their UEFI implementation and Multi-BIOS overclocking helper which will allow you to save profiles and recover from BIOS corruption. The board will continue their tradition of PCIe 3.0 compliance with three 16x slots and it will have four dual dual channel DIMM slots that can accept up to DDR3-2667. They've also included four USB 3.0 and four SATA 6Gbps ports for your storage needs.

The Z77A-G65 below sports the same overall features as the GD80 with some changes to the PCB. Looking to the top of the board you can see the GD65 lacks a heatsink at the very top edge but you can still see that MSI has used Military Class III components on the motherboard and the always on USB charging port.

*update* The missing link has been found that seperates the GD80 from the GD65 and that difference is none other than Thunderbolt. The Z77A-GA80 has Thunderbolt support, the new interface which allows an external peice of hardware direct access to the PCIe bus and will allow transfer speeds of up to 10Gbps. That speed allows the use of devices like MSI's GUS II, an external video card enclosure that comes with an expensive and sometimes hard to find Thunderbolt cable. That interface is not limited to GPUs, it will be interesting to see what use enthusiasts who purchase the Z77A-GD80 will put Thunderbolt to.

PC Perspective's CES 2012 coverage is sponsored by MSI Computer.

Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!

Source: MSI

Shocking news! Intel is talking up Ultrabooks at CES

Subject: General Tech, Shows and Expos | January 10, 2012 - 11:50 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: CES, Intel, ultrabook, Ivy Bridge

It might be hard to believe but the form factor everyone loves to talk about is on the lips on Intel reps everywhere at CES including the GM of the PC Group, Mooly Eden. The new ultra-thin form factor introduced by Intel this follows the design theory of the Macbook Air while trying to stay a PC at heart and has been received with mixed feelings. While it is nice to have an ultra-thin, ultra-light machine which is capable of running office productivity tasks at a good level of performance the attached price tag has discouraged potential distributors and buyers alike; the under $1000 specification cannot be reached without sacrificing quality. That is in part do to the materials used to make an ultrathin laptop that is still rigid enough to stand up to normal usage and in part to the philosophy of 'instant on' which requires an SSD to be used as the main storage medium. Eden tells The Inquirer that he sees Windows 8 offering huge potential to the ultrabook thanks to its touchscreen friendly design. He describes devices similar to the ASUS Transformer, a product usable as a touch device like a tablet but with a full keyboard available for when you are doing more than just surfing the web. New Ivy Bridge internals will probably help as well, bringing increased performance and lowered power usage, though probably not doing anything good to the sticker price.

"CHIPMAKER Intel gave its attention at the CES conference to promoting the real-world benefits of ultrabooks.

The company highlighted a design and marketing effort to shift its focus from benchmarks and statistics to examples of real-world capabilities and applications that will be improved by what it hopes will become a growing ultrabook market."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

PC Perspective's CES 2012 coverage is sponsored by MSI Computer.

Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!

Source: The Inquirer

Ivy Bridge should be here by the spring

Subject: Processors | December 5, 2011 - 01:48 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: Ivy Bridge, Intel, i3-3200, i7-3700, i5-3500, i5-3400, 22nm, tri-gate

Good news for those of you who have been waiting to upgrade in the hopes that Ivy Bridge will be arriving on time. It seems your patience has paid off but you will have to wait a while longer before you can get your hands on Intel's next tick. You can look forward to more PCIe 3.0 lanes, just like those who've jumped onto the new Sandy Bridge E chips and a bump on the GPU portion of the chip. X-bit Labs doesn't have any pricing for the new chips, but they do list all of the models you will be able to buy. One thing you should note are the impressive TDPs, they may not count as low power CPUs but they're certainly lower than other Intel and AMD chips currently on the market.

"Intel Corp. has notified its partners about its decision to introduce of its next-generation code-named Ivy Bridge processors in the second quarter of 2012. Previously the company planned to release the Core i 3000-series central processing units (CPUs) for desktops in March - April timeframe, which left a possibility to unveil the chips in the first quarter."

Here are some more Processor articles from around the web:

Processors

Source: X-Bit Labs

Ivy Bridge Delayed Further Into 2012

Subject: Processors | December 1, 2011 - 11:50 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: Ivy Bridge, Intel, delayed, 22nm

Although Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge successor, Ivy Bridge, was slated for a January 2012 launch, the situation is now looking more bleak. According to these slides over at BSN, Intel is delaying Ivy Bridge until at least April. While the top end Core i7 3770 Ivy Bridge processor might be available as soon as Q2 2012, it is also the most expensive part, and usually not the one that the majority of enthusiasts are waiting for. Rather, the important processors to watch for are the mid range and overclocker-friendly Core i5 series which will be available in Q3 2012 at the earliest if the current road-map holds true. The i5 3550 part may come out in Q2 2012 along with the top end i7 CPU; however, the majority of i5 processors will be released as soon as Q3 2012.

Further, the budget Core i3 Ivy Bridge parts are in the same boat as the i5 processors, with at least one (possibly) becoming available along with the top end Core i7 part in Q2 2012 and the rest slowly trickling out over the remainder of the year. While it is generally the case that the top end processor(s) are released first, followed by the lower end and less expensive parts, the delay has pushed back a April release for some of the budget parts to a Summer release. Needless to say, it is less than ideal for those consumers eagerly waiting for certain chips to go on sale. Not to mention that for those adventurous few that were willing to pay top dollar for the top end i7 chip this January now have to wait even longer.

The delay is likely due to Intel wanting to get as much money as possible out of the Sandy Bridge platform, and the lackluster launch of AMD’s Bulldozer products. Intel is likely taking the extra time to refine the new chipsets and the PCIe 3.0 support (that is also not technically rated for PCIe 3.0 speeds, sort of (heh)). On the other hand, Bright Side Of News speculates that the delay may be in part due to various retirements throughout the company requiring more development time in addition to needing more time to flesh out the graphics drivers for the GPU portion of Ivy Bridge processors.

Were you hoping for an Ivy Bridge upgrade early next year? Because of the further delays, will you spring for a top end Sandy Bridge system or wait it out for Ivy Bridge despite the money burning a hole in your pocket? As someone that is still rocking a 1156 system, I was hoping to skip Sandy Bridge and go for Ivy Bridge (I seem to love near-end-to-life sockets); however, with the delays I’m not sure what I’ll be doing now.

Source: Bright Side Of News

Subject: Processors | March 1, 2012 - 03:42 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom Tagged: Ivy Bridge, Intel

Subject: Motherboards, Processors, Chipsets | February 29, 2012 - 12:03 PM | Ryan Shrout Tagged: just delivered, z77a-gd65, Z77, sandy bridge, msi, Ivy Bridge, Intel

Subject: Processors | February 26, 2012 - 10:38 PM | Ryan Shrout Tagged: Intel, Ivy Bridge, delay

Subject: Editorial, General Tech | February 23, 2012 - 04:10 PM | Ken Addison Tagged: Thinkpad, podcast, piledriver, nvidia, Ivy Bridge, Intel, gpu, cpu, amd

Subject: Processors | February 16, 2012 - 03:47 PM | Ryan Shrout Tagged: Intel, Ivy Bridge, delay

Subject: General Tech | January 16, 2012 - 12:25 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom Tagged: amd, NVIDA, HD7950, kepler, Ivy Bridge, Intel

Subject: Motherboards, Shows and Expos | January 10, 2012 - 06:19 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom Tagged: Z77, msi, lga1155, Ivy Bridge, CES

Subject: General Tech, Shows and Expos | January 10, 2012 - 11:50 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom Tagged: CES, Intel, ultrabook, Ivy Bridge

Subject: Processors | December 5, 2011 - 01:48 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom Tagged: Ivy Bridge, Intel, i3-3200, i7-3700, i5-3500, i5-3400, 22nm, tri-gate

Subject: Processors | December 1, 2011 - 11:50 AM | Tim Verry Tagged: Ivy Bridge, Intel, delayed, 22nm