Intel Plans to Showcase Its Upcoming Ivy Bridge CPU During Computex 2011

Just as it was the case with Sandy Bridge, Intel seems all set to demonstrate processors based on the Ivy Bridge architecture during the 2011 Computex fair which is planned to take place this June in Taipei, Taiwan.


Ivy Bridge is the first processor built by the Santa Clara company that uses the 22nm manufacturing process and is a die shrink of Intel's current Sandy Bridge CPU.

As a result, architectural changes were kept to a minimum, similar to the way Intel made the transition from Nehalem to Westmere at the beginning of 2010.

However, this doesn't mean that the two cores will be identical as some minor changes have made their appearance, recent leaks suggesting that Ivy Bridge could be as much as 20% faster than Sandy Bridge, most probably due to the higher operating frequencies enabled by the 22nm fabrication technology.

Graphics performance will also be improved, Intel expecting it to grow by approximately 30% thanks to a greater EU count and gain DirectX 11 compatibility.

Together with the speed increase, the GPU will support up to three independent displays and HDMI 1.4a, as well as improved video encoding, decoding and transcoding capabilities.

In addition, the PCI Express controller integrated inside the chip could be upgraded to feature the new 3.0 version of the PCIe standard.

As far as the operating platform used is concerned, Ivy Bridge uses the same LGA 1155 socket as its 32nm sibling and will be launched together with the Panther Point chipset that brings native support for up to four USB 3.0 ports.

Last year, Intel also took advantage of the Computex fair to present Sandy Bridge to the world, so there is a strong chance that Ivy Bridge will feature a similar fate.

However, this doesn't mean that Intel plans to launch its 22nm chips anytime sooner, as Ivy Bridge will be, most likely, officially released during the 2012 CES as Intel has done for quite some time now with its processors. (via DigiTime

What is Vcore?

VCORE is the voltage that a chip needs to be able to push electricity through that chip. In relation to motherboards, VCORE usually stands for the current voltage running through the CPU. All CPUs have a minimum recommended VCORE necessary to keep the CPU running at its rated speed in a stable state. All motherboards have a device to control that voltage. In relation to the BIOS, there are two things one can do with VCORE. One is to simply view the VCORE currently regulating. This is usually taken care of by the onboard sensor chip and is usually around +/- 10% of the necessary VCORE. The other is to actually change that VCORE setting. Not all motherboards and BIOS are built to allow the user to have control over the VCORE, but manufacturers are increasing installing BIOS settings for that support. Why? Many users who wish to overclock their CPUs, need to up the VCORE in order for the system to run in a stable state. When a CPU is running at higher than its intended rated speed, there is the possiblity that the CPU could loose bits causing a system crash. By upping the the VCORE, there is less likely a chance of loosing those bits.