More Details on Ivy Bridge Models "S" and "T" Emerge

[Guest]

Damn- I was really looking forward to upgrading to a 6 core cpu... Hopefully they reconsider and do come out with one!

 

[FloKid]

The spies at AMD have to get their hands on the 3D transistor... 4 cores is for tablets

 

[JOSHSKORN]

So as a gamer, which do I want, the T or the S? Also, Toms keeps saying the current 2500k is the best CPU for gaming. Now with this chart out, what is a similar processor in terms of performance?

I'm also scratching my head. These clock speeds are lower than Sandy Bridge's, I think. (I believe, 2500k=3.3 GHz, 2600k=3.4 GHz and 2700k=3.5 GHz) How are these better and showing better numbers? Someone enlighten me.

 

[Zagen30]

[citation][nom]phatbuddha79[/nom]Looks like they downclocked from SB...strange. I thought they could keep the same thermal and power savings draw but can raise the frequency higher due to moving to tri-gate 22nm.[/citation]

These are the energy-efficient models, and the power savings over the base model have to come from somewhere. They're still going to release models that are basically SB with the new transistors and such; see the link in the first line of the article.

 

[Zagen30]

[citation][nom]JOSHSKORN[/nom]So as a gamer, which do I want, the T or the S? Also, Toms keeps saying the current 2500k is the best CPU for gaming. Now with this chart out, what is a similar processor in terms of performance?I'm also scratching my head. These clock speeds are lower than Sandy Bridge's, I think. (I believe, 2500k=3.3 GHz, 2600k=3.4 GHz and 2700k=3.5 GHz) How are these better and showing better numbers? Someone enlighten me.[/citation]

You want neither; these are the energy-efficient models. See the link in the first sentence of the article for a listing of the normal versions.

 

[notsleep]

i'm disappointed. no 6c/8c? low cpu speed? i'll pass. maybe i'll pick of amd's piledriver cpu instead.

 

[trandoanhung1991]

[citation][nom]rebel1280[/nom]at the risk of sounding totally noob on this website, an inquiring mind wants to know: What happened to the GHz race? i thought we would be at 5GHz already . please no flaming, i sincerely want to know.[/citation]

The reason being power usage increases exponentially as voltage increases, and sadly you need very high voltages to have very high frequencies. In addition to that, high voltages significantly cuts down on your chips' longevity. That and thermal cycling.

 

[resetrsx]

The author should update this article to further emphasize that these are the energy-efficient models and the regular models don't have a decrease in clock rates because obviously the majority of the commenters here didn't get the message.

S & T models are for those that want to save power.

 

[Feldii]

[citation][nom]mcd023[/nom]I know some guys have already responded, but this is how I explain it, maybe someone might find this useful.It GHz race was like having a brick layer who could lay, say, 10 bricks per minute. We tried to get more done by having him work faster, but he started getting really hot and it was hard work. Then, they (manufacturers) brought in another guy that could do 50%-75% of the one guy and now both of them lay 7 bricks per minute at a reasonable pace. They use less energy b/c they don't have to work as fast (diminishing returns as you go faster), and you still get an extra 4 bricks per minute. Same thing with going to quad core.[/citation]

OK, I've got to expand on this analogy .

It's actually closer to this. Every couple years the number of brick layers you have available doubles. For a long time (in the GHz days), we kept subdividing the brick laying task so that we could lay bricks faster. When you have two people, one person pours and lays mortar, the other lays bricks. With four people, one person mixes mortar, one lays mortar, one lays bricks, and one levels. This went on for some time, but eventually, it became hard to subdivide the task any more, and the people started getting exhausted from running from one brick to another .

So instead of subdividing the brick laying tasks, we now have separate teams of brick layers. In fact, we have sub teams within the teams, some of which are specialized in different types of bricks, etc. The downside is that you can't just tell them all to work on one project any more, you need to give different projects to each team.

 

[verbalizer]

Core i5-3550S
Core i5-3475S
Core i5-3470S
------------------
I need one of these to replace my i5-760 @ 3.52GHz.
This is for my gaming unit, I wonder if it's worth it.?
Can I make it to see what's next.?

 

[HostileDonut]

[citation][nom]rebel1280[/nom]at the risk of sounding totally noob on this website, an inquiring mind wants to know: What happened to the GHz race? i thought we would be at 5GHz already . please no flaming, i sincerely want to know.[/citation]
Because it isn't just about the Ghz. AMD's 3Ghz is not equal to Intel's 3Ghz. Intel's does more per clock and is much smarter. Now they are just optimizing it for performance.

 

[vigilante212]

[citation][nom]soo-nah-mee[/nom]Looks like there's not much reason to upgrade from Sandy Bridge unless you really want that energy savings.[/citation]
Because its cheaper and easier to add cores that essentially do more work than a higher clock rate.

 

[verbalizer]

Because it isn't just about the Ghz. AMD's 3Ghz is not equal to Intel's 3Ghz. Intel's does more per clock and is much smarter. Now they are just optimizing it for performance.

I second that..

 

[Guest]

Why are so many people all about frequency? Are they missing the 45-65 W part and improved performance over SB? Anyway, I'm still going to buy 2500K. I hope the price will drop.

 

[Travis Beane]

8 core 5GHz on air and stock voltage please. I'll be waiting. No rush.

 

[de5_Roy]

announcements like these are sure to disappoint the gamers/enthusiasts (1-2%) who were looking for performance upgrades. intel is aiming ivb directly at the mainstream market. and this is mostly a die-shrink of the cpu and almost all of the upgrades went to the igpu.
may be wait for ivb-e which is rumored to be backwards compatible with lga 2011 or wait for haswell.
these cpus look great for aio, low power home pc or 'performance' htpc setups (core i5 3475S).

 

[boju]

I’ve always found this ghz debate really amusing. It’s not that i disagree with any analogy explaining the reasons why we haven’t reached a certain speed. All of your explanations are pretty good and quite spot on.

Buuut the part that amuses me is we're overclocking to these points anyway So really the term ghz race is still very much alive.

 

[Wamphryi]

I am not so sure that clock speed per core is an issue any more. I got a Sandy Bridge 2600 K and I have never bothered to over clock it. Software is now being written for multi core processors and it is really only the single thread applications that get any benefits from a highly clocked single core. Unless I am a mistaken if I factor in just the physical cores of my 2600 K I have 13.6 GHZ of clock speed. If the software is optimized for hyper threading then in theory I have even more headroom. There is not many scenarios that I can think of where 13.6 GHZ is insufficient. Gaming is intensive but is programmed with the GPU in mind.

 

[theuniquegamer]

Do these T version like the i7 3770 t has any unlocked multiplier setting. If yes then i will get that i7

 

[ojas]

Man these TDP numbers are good...compare the present sandy bridge pentiums with these...or the other low-voltage parts...and the turbo "boost" is crazy...800 MHz!

Plus these will have the improved IGPs too. Combine both, compare with llano. If Intel can price them appropriately, it's win, win, win for them...

Though i'm not so confident about the pricing bit to be honest!

p.s. that Core i5 3470T will be great for a NAS setup with AES-256 encryption...

 

[eddieroolz]

Not much of interest for most of us enthusiasts, though I do wonder about their prices.

 

[psp09]

Nice step intel, saving power and getting good performance. Maybe is for that AMD doesn't want compete anymore with Intel they already lost their advantage over intel.

I liked the Core i7-3770T, looks a great processor with a very good rate of speed/power_consumption but i still doesn't plans upgrade my system.
My core i7 of first generation still is very good for most of the applications that i use normally.

About the HD4000 i dont care about that as many people here. I prefer the discrete graphic cards.

 

[mstngs351]

[citation][nom]rebel1280[/nom]at the risk of sounding totally noob on this website, an inquiring mind wants to know: What happened to the GHz race? i thought we would be at 5GHz already . please no flaming, i sincerely want to know.[/citation]

As clock speeds increased so did the heat generated and as rebel said, power requirements of CPU's. This combined with the potential of multicore CPU's put the GHz race on the back burner.

 

[Uberragen21]

[citation][nom]JOSHSKORN[/nom]So as a gamer, which do I want, the T or the S? Also, Toms keeps saying the current 2500k is the best CPU for gaming. Now with this chart out, what is a similar processor in terms of performance?I'm also scratching my head. These clock speeds are lower than Sandy Bridge's, I think. (I believe, 2500k=3.3 GHz, 2600k=3.4 GHz and 2700k=3.5 GHz) How are these better and showing better numbers? Someone enlighten me.[/citation]
It all depends on what you're looking for in a CPU. If you're a gamer, the S and T models are not what you want. These are for laptops, though the i7 3770s would still be a bad@$$ gaming laptop if paired withe the right mobile graphics.

The K means the CPU has an unlocked multiplier, so you can easily overclock it. This is ideal if you're a gamer and don't want the base clock speed, especially since the ivy bridge are looking so promising for air overclocking.

The S is lower power, the T is even lower power consumption (IE for laptop use). There is a non-K variant that is identical to the K, but without the unlocked multiplier; meant for those who will never mess with overclocking.

Hope that helps.

 

[pttq]

[citation][nom]Uberragen21[/nom]It all depends on what you're looking for in a CPU. If you're a gamer, the S and T models are not what you want. These are for laptops, though the i7 3770s would still be a bad@$$ gaming laptop if paired withe the right mobile graphics. The K means the CPU has an unlocked multiplier, so you can easily overclock it. This is ideal if you're a gamer and don't want the base clock speed, especially since the ivy bridge are looking so promising for air overclocking. The S is lower power, the T is even lower power consumption (IE for laptop use). There is a non-K variant that is identical to the K, but without the unlocked multiplier; meant for those who will never mess with overclocking. Hope that helps.[/citation]
These are not laptop cpu's, they are low power desktop cpu's.