Introduction

Intel goes 22nm with ‘Ivy Bridge’ 3rd-generation Core processors

Spring time has arrived, and that can only mean one thing: Ivy Bridge is here! Okay, so it also means fighting the temptation to turn on the air conditioning for even slightly elevated temperatures because you’re used to the cold (especially if you happen to be running benchmarks all day), but in any case, 3rd-generation Core processors are launching this very day. As the latest “tick” of Intel’s tick-tock product road map, the Ivy Bridge line represents a huge step forward in CPU technology as they are the first CPUs to use a 22nm manufacturing process. There are a plethora of production issues with such a die shrink on Intel’s side of things, but for end users like us, it mostly means less heat and less power consumption, which is always good.





Backward-compatibility is still there, however, as these new chips are based on the existing LGA 1155 socket that was introduced last year for Sandy Bridge. Ivy Bridge also features graphics capabilities built right into the chip alongside the CPU bits, but of course those have received an upgrade, as well. Every model being released this week is a quad-core, but the Core i7s use hyper-threading to bring the thread count up to 8. The particular SKU I have here is the Core i7-3770K, the -K signifying that this chip is fully unlocked and open for overclocking. We’ll get into more detail on the Ivy Bridge family of chips on the next page, but for now, here’s a quick look at how the 3770 fits into the existing line-up of Core i7 processors:

Intel 2nd- and 3rd-generation Core Processors
High-end 'i7' line only
CPU Model	Fab process	Code name	Clock Speed	Max Turbo	Cores / Threads	Max TDP	Graphics
i7-3770K	22-nm	Ivy Bridge	3.5 GHz	3.9 GHz	4 / 8	77 W	HD 4000
i7-3770	22-nm	Ivy Bridge	3.4 GHz	3.9 GHz	4 / 8	77 W	HD 4000
i7-3960X	32-nm	Sandy Bridge-E	3.3 GHz	3.9 GHz	6 / 12	130 W	N/A
i7-3930K	32-nm	Sandy Bridge-E	3.2 GHz	3.8 GHz	6 / 12	130 W	N/A
i7-3820	32-nm	Sandy Bridge-E	3.6 GHz	3.9 GHz	4 / 8	130 W	N/A
i7-2700K	32-nm	Sandy Bridge	3.5 GHz	3.9 GHz	4 / 8	95 W	HD 3000
i7-2600K	32-nm	Sandy Bridge	3.4 GHz	3.8 GHz	4 / 8	95 W	HD 3000
i7-2600	32-nm	Sandy Bridge	3.4 GHz	3.8 GHz	4 / 8	95 W	HD 2000