News - Intel says Haswell is to use different transistors to Ivy Bridge

[HEXUS]

Haswell may only be a 'tock' but it's sounding more like a 'tick'.

Read more.

[keithwalton]

Hmm, all previous leaps have happened on the tock release where they do the architectural changes. The tick's have always been a just die shrink / refinement onto a new process which yields just a clockspeed boost.

Didn't they call ivy bridge tick+, guessing haswell will now be tock+

[edvinasm]

Intel doesn't need to rush that much any more. AMD is not competing with Intel high end offerings so technically Intel can just go at Tick Tick instead of Tick Tock pace. One can just hope that AMD or someone other will try to rival Intel's offerings or prices might be not as tasty in years to come.

[Willzzz]

Yeah, in fact Haswell is coming out later than originally planned because Intel know they have no competition from AMD in their preferred markets.

[Scribe]

I still stick with the belief that Microsoft has struct a deal for Haswell and the surface pro

[Jimbo75]

Yeah, in fact Haswell is coming out later than originally planned because Intel know they have no competition from AMD in their preferred markets.

quadruplefacepalm.jpg

[watercooled]

We're starting to learn a lot about Intel's upcoming next-gen Core-series processor, Haswell, and exactly what Intel means by a 'tock' release. When looking at the firm's charts, it feels as though the major breakthroughs will be taking place during a 'tick' release, when the architecture moves to a new, smaller fabrication process, much like Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge.

Eh? As keithwalton said, tocks are where the major architectural improvements are added, ticks are just die shrinks with a few tweaks - look at Core2, Nehalem, SNB; the die shrinks didn't make that much difference to performance.

However, with the move to 22nm, we were perhaps thrown-off by the extra boost offered by 3D Transistors, which brought about more substantial performance-per-watt gains than a typical downsizing would bring. The truth is, Ivy Bridge is mostly just a smaller Sandy Bridge, with little changing and, it's Haswell or rather, the tock release, where the magic is going to happen.

The consensus is pretty much the opposite, Ivy Bridge didn't really meet expectations with efficiency gains, especially after all the 'tick+' marketing...

[Obscurity]

Looking forward to this release. Will be nice to have a top of the range processor upgrade a couple of months before I ship off to do computer science at uni

[hiyayhi]

All I can hope for is that amd's piledriver cpu's are good so that intel feels the need to release a good cpu, not just slight performance gain...

[watercooled]

quadruplefacepalm.jpg

I agree with what I think you mean.

It's simply not as straightforward as 'competition isn't great this year, so lets not put as much effort into the CPU we're releasing in six months'. I've said it before and I'll likely say it again, but CPU/GPU are incredibly complex ICs, they take many years to develop, and last-minute decisions to not put as much effort in simply don't happen. Sure, they might get away with lower clocks than originally planned, but power/performance wouldn't change, and things like die yield can easily have a more significant effect.

Of course, competition can impact price, but the company also has to base pricing on their existing products; giving people poorer value for money isn't going to make your new product very attractive.

Competition is a good thing, and motivates MFRs to provide better products at better prices, but it doesn't have a great impact in the short term. A recent example would be P4 vs Athlon 64; Intel lagged behind for years despite fierce competition, they hadn't anticipated it and it took years for changes in their roadmap to impact their shipping products.

[Willzzz]

http://vr-zone.com/articles/idf-sf-2....../17171.html

I'm sure it's not a case of deliberately slowing down, but perhaps being more laid back about unexpected delays.

[Terbinator]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6290/m...ion-extensions

Quite a good read^ Seems AMD suggesting something similar a few years before as well.

[devBunny]

Mmmmmm, french fries and waffles ... [drool] ...

[shaithis]

Hmm, seems like Haswell could be awesome for virtualisation.

[kingpotnoodle]

I still stick with the belief that Microsoft has struct a deal for Haswell and the surface pro

The Surface Pro that's due out before year in high volume end will include Haswell chips that aren't ready yet? Now that would definitely out-magic the iPad...