Ivy Bridge Launch Date and Lineup Details Revealed

Intel’s next generation Core processors, codenamed Ivy Bridge have now been reported to be scheduled for an April 2012 release date. The initial launch will apparently include third generation Core i5 and Core i7 desktop microprocessors while Core i3 and Core i5 mobile versions will follow later in Q2 of same year.

Pentium desktop models processors will then appear in Q3 while both Intel’s desktop and mobile Celeron processors will still be based on Sandy Bridge architecture.

The report comes from CPU-World who also presents a slide compilation of the Ivy Bridge desktop processor lineup that was recently leaked to the web. The list shows a total of eighteen desktop processor models from the Core i7 and Core i5 series.

Compared to the current Sandy Bridge processors, not much difference can be seen from the Ivy Bridge processors in terms of clock speeds, number of cores and cache size. All Core i7 models will feature four cores, 8MB of L3 cache and will have HyperThreading support. In total, there are four Core i7 chips including the mainstream Core i7-3770, the unlocked Core i7-3770K, the lower powered Core i7-3770S and the power efficient Core i7-3770T.

As you may have noticed, there are the “S” and “T” models. These chips feature lower TDPs of 65W and 45W respectively. The mainstream and the unlocked models both feature a TDP of 77W.

The Core i5 processors now feature four cores, 6MB of L3 cache and without support for HyperThreding. There is one exception though and that is the Core i5-3470T that only has two cores and 3MB of L3 cache but supports HyperThreading while only registering a TDP of 35W. Like the Core i7 models, the Core i5 lineup also consists of mainstream, K and S models. Both the mainstream and unlocked models feature a TDP of 77W while the S models feature a TDP of 65W.

All Core i7 processors and Core i5-3475S and i5-3570K will feature Intel’s HD 4000 graphics units while the remaining Core i5 processors will use HD 2500 graphics. Each integrated GPU will be clocked at 650MHz and depending on the model, can be overclocked up to 1.05 - 1.15 GHz.

Other features that are included in the new Core processors are integrated memory controller that supports DDR3 1333MHz and 1600MHz and support for AES instructions. Except for the “K” unlocked models and several low-end Core i5 processors, the processors support VT-d virtualization and Trusted Execution technology.