Intel Confirms Devil's Canyon, Haswell-E, Broadwell Rumors
Intel announces a 2014 Haswell refresh that will usher in a plethora of new enthusiast-class CPU models to be released before 2015’s Broadwell.
What’s a CPU company to do when its new motherboards are launching months ahead of its new processors? Well, when the socket’s the same, just refresh the old processors! Intel quoted a mid-year launch during its Monday press briefing, but mid-year will need to come early if Intel wants this launch to coincide with Z97. Motherboard makers tell us to expect the new Haswell models three months after Z97’s mid-April launch, which sounds to be a few months shy of Intel’s mid-year launch claim. Oops?
Devil's Canyon
An improved Thermal Interface Material (TIM) between the CPU core and heat spreader is set to improve thermal transfer in a new, enthusiast-class Haswell-based processor codenamed “Devil’s Canyon”. Intel didn’t name the processor model, but industry insiders tell us to expect this change will apply at least to the firm’s upcoming Core i7-4790. Without hazarding further guesses on model numbers, we’re trusting Intel’s stated intention of a mid-year launch.
Pentium Anniversary Edition
In yet another high-profile Haswell refresh, Intel unveiled an unlocked Pentium (20th) Anniversary Edition, which is also slated to launch mid-year.
Haswell-E Gets DDR4
Pushing beyond the limits of quad-channel DDR3, Intel smashes all hope for Haswell-based X79 processor upgrades by announcing that Haswell-E will utilize DDR4. While Intel tells us to expect a launch sometime in the second half of 2014, motherboard manufacturers whisper about August. Turning to official documents that we weren’t supposed to see, the associated X99 PCH adds integrated clock generation to the X79 that it’s set to replace. The four disabled SAS ports of X79 become enabled SATA ports in the X99, bringing the total SATA count to ten.
And Broadwell?
Though Intel occasionally discussed Broadwell’s launch in the same breath as Haswell-E, the firm stipulated that it wasn’t ready to announce a launch date. Motherboard partners estimate that the socketed version will launch no earlier than CES 2015.
Story updated with photos.
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monsta Lets hope it's not just a massive 10 percent difference in performance and Motherboard change as we have been seeing over the past couple of generations from Intel.....they really need to step it upReply -
blubbey If Intel can pull a Sandy Bridge with DC's OCing capabilities that'd be fantastic. An unlocked Pentium could be a solid option for budget builds too. Only thing with Iris Pro is that *if* it's for higher end CPUs, those buying them will more than likely have a beefy GPU making it pointless. However if they can provide some competition for AMD in the lower cost iGPU market that'd be great to see (although a discrete GPU + CPU combo could still be better).Reply -
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The slide does say "unlocked desktop processors" and that does usually mean the highest-end of the range.12921399 said:Only thing with Iris Pro is that *if* it's for higher end CPUs, those buying them will more than likely have a beefy GPU making it pointless.
IIRC, there was a leaked slide a few months ago that showed the eDRAM "L4 cache" being standard across the Broadwell lineup. I would not be too surprised if Intel's hyped air gestures used Iris Pro GPGPU. -
rohitbaran @monstaThey don't have to do much as long as AMD isn't matching them in single thread performance, sadly. It's AMD who need to step their game up to drive the CPU prices down a bit.Reply -
southernshark Lets hope it's not just a massive 10 percent difference in performance and Motherboard change as we have been seeing over the past couple of generations from Intel.....they really need to step it up
It's a refresh of an architecture which is 4 years old now, so I wouldn't expect much more than a 5-12 percent increase in alleged performance. In the real world, you won't notice the difference. -
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Haswell is a new architecture (two extra execution ports, 24 extra re-order buffer entries, re-arranged cache, re-arranged branch prediction and a handful of other enhancements compared to SB/IB) and is not even one year old yet. Broadwell is little more than a die-shrink so there is not much reason to expect major improvements there apart from power.12921800 said:Lets hope it's not just a massive 10 percent difference in performance and Motherboard change as we have been seeing over the past couple of generations from Intel.....they really need to step it up
It's a refresh of an architecture which is 4 years old now
Skylake is the next architecture update but considering how little of a step SB/IB to Haswell was, I would not expect Skylake to yield more than the usual ~10% that has become the norm. As I have been saying for years, most of the easy performance gains have been tapped out; there aren't any major cost-effective IPC breakthrough left so any future major desktop performance gains will have to be achieve through parallelism but such parallel CPUs are pointless until a whole lot more mainstream software becomes finely threaded, which is easier said than done. -
CaedenV Skylake is still what I am waiting for as an upgrade from Sandy Bridge... but it is not for the CPU, it will be for DDR4 and SATA Express/4 support. The thing is that software simply does not demand more performance out of the CPU for games and light content creation anymore as everything gets more and more mobile friendly. The only performance gains are in how the CPU is fed information and can spit it back out, not the raw CPU performance itself.That said... Haswell-E with 8 cores (16 threads?), DDR4, and 10 SATA ports does sound fairly exciting... a bit overkill for what I do, but still exciting.Curious that Intel would once again consider the highest end iGPUs for the i5K and i7K processors. The only people buying high-end CPUs these days are content creators and gamers... Gamers are going to have a nice fat GPU installed, and most content creators are going to have something substantial as well. But an i3 with Iris Pro on board... now that would be the king of HTPCs on the market. Or better yet a Nuk with Iris Pro would be a pretty nice option for an HTPC. But it will never happen because the bean counters would not understand it.Reply -
CodeMatias Better TIM? Sounds like the new chips will finally be as good for overclocking as the i7 2600k/2700k were, those things hit 4GH with stock cooler no-problem. If the 4790 gets even 75% the overclocking potential it could actually give people a reason to upgrade their sandy bridge chips.Reply -
tabascosauz WOOHOO! Get ready boys and girls for a 8-core Haswell-E CPU that will set you back a mere $1500! Oh, and the X99 motherboard you asked for will cost $400 for the basic, basic model! Oh and don't forget the DDR4! That's going to cost you $500 for a set of 2x4GB! Have fun!I mean, as nice as it all is, why don't we wait until the prices come out? I have a feeling Intel is going to slap more than just a $50 price premium on this 4790K just for -K and Broadwell compatibility. Seriously, if i7 hits $400 I might as well just bail on the whole Core boat and go with stupidly slow FX-8350 or jump on the Xeon E3 boat that offers identical performance to the Core i5s and i7s for sometimes more than $60 less. I guess I'll be waiting on the E3-1230 V3's successor, whatever it might be called.It's nice to see Intel show us LGA customers a little love with the unlocked Pentium (hooray for the Pentium 3s and 4s!) and socketed HD 5200. As long as Iris Pro LGA doesn't come with a ridiculous price tag and massive hit to L3, I'm happy.Reply -
ferooxidan Someone whining about how we get 10% increase in performance every year or two instead double performance increase every 6-12 months in the old days. If Intel or AMD make a new very powerful processor but consumes big power, you guys will still loathe. Be realistic. There's no way to get double performance while at the same time decreasing power consumption unless u discover/invent some magical material. Otherwise u will get a processor as big as ur GPU.Reply