Intel is about to launch its first 32nm processors and some juicy information on its second generation 32nm architecture, Sandy Bridge, has appeared. The architecture is slated for the first quarter 2011 and according to CanardPC.com Intel has already taped out the A0 stepping. This means that it has made the very first engineering samples of Sandy Bridge. Both the CPU core and the integrated GPU chip is made from 32nm transistors and the processor has four physical processor cores.
It’s geared for the mid-range segment and the four cores along with HyperThreading support shows Intel’s dedication to multithreading. Its first GPU-inside-CPU processor, Clarkdale, will made a debut with dual cores and one 45nm GPU core. Sandy Bridge will actually launch with both two and eight cores, but these remain illusive.
Each core of Sandy Bridge has 256KB L2 cache and a shared 8MB L3 cache that use a “ring architecture” for optimized performance. The northbridge will also include a dual-channel DDR3-1600 memory controller and PCIe 2.0 technology.
The clock frequencies are stated to be around 2.8GHz from 3.4GHz and with Turbo Mode the processor will reach 3.8GHz or 4GHz respectively. The integrated graphics circuits will operate at 1.0-1.4GHz and results in 85W TDP rating.
Extra interesting with integrated GPU is that is that it comes with faster DDR3 memory, and a connection to the L3 cache and should be considerably faster that the first generation CPU-IGP. According to CanardPC the performance will measure up to to that of AMD and NVIDIA’s entry level graphics cards, which sounds almost too good to be true considering Intel’s track record. Though It should still bring DX11 support and better performance than we’re used to from Intel.
