Intel: Ivy Bridge
Ivy Bridge is Intel's current-generation design. The company's tick-tock cadence establishes a new architecture (the tick), and then follows it up with a updated manufacturing technology (the tock). That way, the next tick is implemented on a mature process, paring back some of the risk associated with transitioning to a significantly-updated architecture.
After the tick that was Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge employs a very similar design on a 22 nm process. Intel maintains its Core i3, i5, and i7 nomenclature, updating the model names to reflect a third generation. Fortunately, Ivy Bridge-based chips drop into the same LGA 1155 interface as the Sandy Bridge-based parts.
Though its x86 cores remain largely the same, Ivy Bridge does offer a more advanced graphics engine, along with a memory controller that officially supports 1,600 MT/s data rates. The unlocked parts boast maximum multipliers of 63x (up from Sandy Bridge's 57x), and the entire line-up includes 16 lanes of PCI Express 3.0 connectivity.
More information:
- Gaming At 1920x1080: AMD's Trinity Takes On Intel HD Graphics
- Core i5-3570K, -3550, -3550S, And -3570T: Ivy Bridge Efficiency
- Intel Core i7-3770K Review: A Small Step Up For Ivy Bridge
Benchmarked Intel Ivy Bridge-Based CPUs:
| Ivy Bridge | Code Name | Rev. | Socket | Number ofCores | ClockFrequency | L2 Cache | L3 Cache | iGPU | MemoryController | TDP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core i5-3450 | Ivy Bridge | E1 | 1155 | 4 | 3.1 GHz | 4 x 256 KB | 6 MB | HD Graphics 2500650-1100 MHz | integrated up to DDR3-1600 | 77 W |
| Core i5-3470 | Ivy Bridge | E1 | 1155 | 4 | 3.2 GHz | 4 x 256 KB | 6 MB | HD Graphics 2500650-1100 MHz | integrated up to DDR3-1600 | 77 W |
| Core i5-3550 | Ivy Bridge | E1 | 1155 | 4 | 3.3 GHz | 4 x 256 KB | 6 MB | HD Graphics 2500650-1100 MHz | integrated up to DDR3-1600 | 77 W |
| Core i5-3570K | Ivy Bridge | E1 | 1155 | 4 | 3.4 GHz | 4 x 256 KB | 6 MB | HD Graphics 4000650-1100 MHz | integrated up to DDR3-1600 | 77 W |
| Core i7-3770K | Ivy Bridge | E1 | 1155 | 4 | 3.5 GHz | 4 x 256 KB | 8 MB | HD Graphics 4000650-1100 MHz | integrated up to DDR3-1600 | 77 W |