News Intel's first Haswell chip pictured

First glimpse of 2013-era technology.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/01/30/intels-first-haswell-chip/1

 

Mmhmm.......yeah........mmhmm........I know some of these words

 

Resistors usually shrink, surely?

 

Is that another complete die up on the top of the chip? Surely covering that with a heat-spreader and making sure that it isn't crushed is going to be a hell of a challenge?

 

"Built on a 22nm process, Haswell represents the 'tick' portion of Intel's 'tick-tock' development cycle: where the upcoming Ivy Bridge is merely a process size shrink from Sandy Bridge's 32nm to 22nm, Haswell represents a new generation of microarchitecture."

I thought Ivy Bridge was a "tick" and the new Haswell architecture was the "tock"

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/silicon-innovations/intel-tick-tock-model-general.html

 

I thought the graphics processor in Ivy Bridge was already a vast improvement on Sandy Bridge, even if the rest of Ivy Bridge is merely a die shrink. Is the graphics processor in Haswell 'significantly improved' from Ivy Bridge.

 

Well sure I'll wait till Hawell comes out instead of upgrading from my Core 2 duo. Wait, when Haswell is almost out the door, the Haswell lithography shrink will amost be out...I should wait for that, but when that is almost out...

I am going to finally spring for an upgrade to probably the 2500 or 2600 equivelent of IB (whatever those are again) around early June (a slightly delayed birthday present) and probably a mid-grade 7000 series AMD discrete GPU. I'll eye Haswell with jealousy, but unless something truely revolutionary drops from Intel along the way, I'll probably wait at least 2-3 years (maybe 4) before upgrading again (I got my core 2 duo 3 years ago this spring, though admittedly at the time I was buying about 18 month old tech when it hit and lowish end, this time I am going to go near top end for the CPU).

 

With that thought process, you could be waiting forever. After Haswell comes the 14nm die-shrink Broadwell, which is rumoured to be the moment that desktop CPUs start turning into SoCs with Ethernet/USB 3.0/Thunderbolt controllers being integrated on-chip.

Beyond that, there'll be Skylake, which they're probably targeting for DDR4 and PCIe 4.0 support and is supposed to incorporate technology from the Larrabee project (instead of a CPU+GPU on-chip as we have now, the CPU BECOMES the GPU). That in turn, will be shrunk to 10nm with Skymont...

Best advice is to buy what you need, when you need it unless the new tech is < 3 months around the corner.

 

Isn't ivy bridge the tock? is it that much different from Sandy bridge in terms of architecture and technology?

 

Haswell uses an LGA1150 socket instead of the LGA1155 so it'll need a new motherboard featuring the LGA1150 socket.

 

Not alone in that. It does seem counterintuitive for a new architecture to be on the 'tock'.

 

They mostly come at night, mostly?


*ahem*

 

Haswell is a Tock, as with every new architecture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock

 

To be honest I'm never going to wait for anything in particular. I'll just buy whatever I think is the best for my needs at the time.
My laptop life cycle seems to be about 4-5 years, so I've got another 2-3 years to go.
I may build a new desktop before then, but probably not as I don't have the disposable income these days.

 

so do I... mostly....

 

I'm gonna wait for the Roswell chip, apparently scientists are working on it in the New Mexican desert as we speak! It must be true I read it in a newspaper.

 

Well I'd say buy what you need when you want to upgrade...though that being said, if you know a new generation of chips is just about to be released, it hurts little to wait a few weeks or a couple of months to upgrade. Personally I don't like buying in at the initial release, prices tend to be higher and I don't want to find out that there is some kind of tragic error in silicon (see Cougar Point chipset issue and SB-E Vt-d issue). So for me it is buying in about 4-8 weeks after launch. So if Intel comes out with IB in April it'll be May before I buy in, though probably June. Wait till just after my birthday as a delayed birthday gift. That and I have a medium sized software release at my job coming up early June and should be working enough overtime for the release to pretty much pay for most of the upgrade.

 

Can it play............no i won't say it