Intel has released some more concrete facts during IDF 2011 and it has confirmed that the number of transistors has increased by 20% since Sandy Bridge. Of the 1.4 billion transistors found in the circuit many of the new transistors are put in the new DirectX 11-compatible graphics circuit.
Intel built its Sandy Bridge architecture on 32 nanometer technology and the up to four CPU cores and bundled GPU had to share 1.16 billion transistors. Ivy Bridge will build on the same CPU architecture with a new 22 nanometer technology to fit 1.4 billion tri-gate transistors (3D-transistors). If the circuits are the same size we don’t know, also the ratio between CPU and GPU is unknown, but juding from the information Intel has released many of the new transistors should end up in the GPU. Not the least since Intel claims the new GPU will be considerably more advanced than current HD Graphics 2000/3000 solutions.
Image source: X-bit Labs
According to information from X-bit Labs the GPU of Ivy Bridge will have 30% of the transistors, which is a lot more than the 20% that the GPU of Sandy Bridge holds. At the same time it is a long way to go to the near 50% that AMD hands to its GPUs in the Llano architecture.
The new GPU will noly on have 30% more execution units, and it will bring DirectX 11 and OpenCL 1.1. On the whole Intel expects to see performance gains up to 60% over the current GPUs, which of course also requires extra transistors.
Intel is expected to launch Ivy Bridge in March/April 2012 and performance of the new architecture will be around 20% higher than Sandy Bridge. How Intel came up with this number we don’t know, and more concrete numbers will have to wait.
