Intel Core i7-3770K – Ivy Bridge and the 3D transistor is here

The launch begins with four cores

Intel begin the launch of their Ivy Bridge processors in the third generations Core family, with quad-core processors as far as the eye can see.  We haven’t been able to get any clarity to the reason of this, rumors say there are problems in the manufacturing, but in that case we find it very odd that they can launch the bigger circuits prior to the smaller with only two cores.

The rumor that we can find more likely is simply that Intel has too big stocks of their dual-core Sandy Bridge processors, which is much more plausible. Therefore they have chosen to delay the launch to get a chance to empty their stocks, which is beneficial for both Intel but also the manufacturers. There is a small exception though, which is something that we will cover further down the page.

One mobile processor stands out

What this has done is that there won’t be any launch in full scale on the mobile side, we just have to be happy with new chipsets and some new quad-core processors.

Core i7-3612QM stands out from the crowd and despite its four cores it gets a TDP value at only 35W. 35W is pretty much an established standard, which mean that we should be able to get much higher performance than before, in a thinner formfactor.

Intel ships the best that they has to offer seen to integrated graphics on the mobile side this generation, just like the previous. We have yet to see anything that point towards that HD 2500 will find its way into any form of processor for laptops, and we do not think that it is likely. So if you’re looking to use their integrated HD 4000 graphics, you should not have to look to hard to see if the computer that you have chosen to buy, has a processor with this particular integrated graphics.

13 quad-core processors for desktops, 1 dual-core

Intel goes big, and plan to quickly replace Sandy Bridge with their new processors built on the very fresh 22 nanometer technology. They begin in the upper segment with the Core i7 and Core i5 processors where all are quad-core processors, with one small exception.

Above we can see all the models that are being announced today, the dual-core models will arrive a little later, like we said. The only exception is the model Core i5-3470T which get two cores at 2,9 – 3,5 GHz with the multi-threading technology Hyper-threading and a TDP value at 35W. Although it has to settle for the company’s HD 2500 graphics, which should place itself just below HD 3000 in terms of performance.

The new top models is Core i7-3770K and Core i5-3570K, and as the K suffix implies arrives with unlocked multipliers for overclocking. Both comes with a TDP value at 77W, and should therefore be more power efficient than the Core i7-2700K and the Core i5-2550K which they replace. We can also see the HD 4000 graphics on both, while the Core i7 models has Hyper-threading and 8 MB L3 cache memory as usual. We have compiled a small checklist on what differs between the Core i7 and the Core i5 below:

*Exception: Core i5-3470T has two cores, Hyper-threading, 3 MB L3 cache memory and a 35W TDP value
**Exception: Core i5-3570K with HD 4000

As you can see in the tables above the support for some security features and the virtualisation instructions VT-d differs quite alot between the different models. We had hoped that Intel would begin to use more logical product names, sadly that’s not the case. We can hope that the fragmentation won’t be so obvious further into the future when it’s time to release newer models on the market.