Intel Ivy Bridge discussion thread.

[pantsaregood]

Ivy Bridge is a 22nm die shrink of Intel's 2011 Sandy Bridge architecture scheduled to be released in 2012. Ivy Bridge is expected to considerably reduce power consumption while maintaining the performance of Sandy Bridge.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Can't find my news-source, but it was reliable: IB may be approximately 5 to 6% more over-clockable than SB. Personally, I don't see that as a "reason to wait" between now and early 2012 for building a new machine, especially if you're updating from an LGA-775. But there is also the prospect that IB versions will be released in socket-1155 flavors, so it's hardly a do-or-die decision-prospect . . .

 

[dma0991]

I'll die happy if IB could be 5GHz 24/7 stable. I'm pretty sure they could.

 

[paperfist]

Another socket change?

 

[Shmee]

Will there be ivy bridge CPUs available on 2011?

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Will there be ivy bridge CPUs available on 2011?

Q1 2012, anywhere from March to April unfortunately.

I'm predicting the IB Quad-Core i5s will have only a bit higher power consumption than the SB i3s.

 

[Arkaign]

Another socket change?

Probably not, but of course there will be a new chipset with new features, it's possible that not all of the 1155 mobos out there will be flashable to support IB.

http://www.behardware.com/news/11319/ivy-bridge-compatible-with-1155-motherboards.html

The catch is that without a new board with Cougar Point, the IB won't be able to run with the new PCI-E spec. Which means pretty much nothing outside of SLI/Xfire performance, or perhaps very very high end next-gen single-slot cards.

 

[StrangerGuy]

SB is "fast enough". We don't need IB. See how GPU limited these benchmarks are?

/sarcasm

 

[red454]

Can't find my news-source, but it was reliable: IB may be approximately 5 to 6% more over-clockable than SB. Personally, I don't see that as a "reason to wait" between now and early 2012 for building a new machine, especially if you're updating from an LGA-775. But there is also the prospect that IB versions will be released in socket-1155 flavors, so it's hardly a do-or-die decision-prospect . . .

Hmmm - 1155 or 2011...

I have been holding off to see what the benchmarks are for the 3820 and 3930K (which are LGA2011). And of course, the quad channel memory support.

Although, I am on the fence about just going with a 2600K.

If IB goes with the 1155 socket, doesn't that mean that an IB for 1155 will only have dual channel memory support - meaning that for future value, an LGA 2011 system has more potential / longevity?

 

[dma0991]

Hmmm - 1155 or 2011...

I have been holding off to see what the benchmarks are for the 3820 and 3930K (which are LGA2011). And of course, the quad channel memory support.

Although, I am on the fence about just going with a 2600K.

If IB goes with the 1155 socket, doesn't that mean that an IB for 1155 will only have dual channel memory support - meaning that for future value, an LGA 2011 system has more potential / longevity?

TH already did a preview for the Core i7 3960X and you could probably deduce your expectations for the performance of the Core i7 3820 and Core i7 3930K which can't be any higher than the Core i7 3960X, probably.

Unless the CPU is bandwidth starved, I doubt you would see a huge performance increase going from dual channel to quad channel.

 

[poohbear]

will ivy bridge use DDR3 ram? has that been confirmed?

 

[paperfist]

Probably not, but of course there will be a new chipset with new features, it's possible that not all of the 1155 mobos out there will be flashable to support IB.

http://www.behardware.com/news/11319/ivy-bridge-compatible-with-1155-motherboards.html

The catch is that without a new board with Cougar Point, the IB won't be able to run with the new PCI-E spec. Which means pretty much nothing outside of SLI/Xfire performance, or perhaps very very high end next-gen single-slot cards.

So the 2011 socket is mainly for high end stuff?

Basically if I buy an i5 now, I can skip the Intel Q1 stuff that LOL_Wut_Axel is mentioning and do another upgrade 2 years from now.

 

[exar333]

will ivy bridge use DDR3 ram? has that been confirmed?

Yes, IB will be DDR3. I believe the only CPU I am aware of that could make the switch to DDR4 is Haswell (~2013).

 

[exar333]

So the 2011 socket is mainly for high end stuff?

Basically if I buy an i5 now, I can skip the Intel Q1 stuff that LOL_Wut_Axel is mentioning and do another upgrade 2 years from now.

Pretty much. Initially, there will not be a MB much less than $250 and any CPUs <$350. There will be 6C offerings + HT on SB-E ~$600 or $1000, the latter being the extreme edition.

I think most people buying SB-E will get it with a 6-core CPU.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Yes, IB will be DDR3. I believe the only CPU I am aware of that could make the switch to DDR4 is Haswell (~2013).

Even Haswell is supposed to use DDR3.

Regarding compatibility with Ivy Bridge: http://vr-zone.com/articles/the-upg...ight-be-blocked-by-changes-to-uefi/13513.html

Of course that's a might, but I'm still putting it out there.

 

[Shmee]

Q1 2012, anywhere from March to April unfortunately.

I'm predicting the IB Quad-Core i5s will have only a bit higher power consumption than the SB i3s.

what I meant is will there be an upgrade path to the socket 2011, such as an IB-E after SB-E?

The x79 chipset looks like it has some really nice features, but it would be nice to have a 22nm CPU in there.

 

[Maximilian]

Oooo buy ivy bridge or wait for haswell If i save up i could get both then stick ivy bridge in the server. I got upgrade bug bad, doctor prescribed a 2500k but i said no its not enough over my i7 920 then he told me to stfu noob and buy 2500k .

Wiki says it will be 20% faster than SB, dont know how true that is though.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Wiki says it will be 20% faster than SB, dont know how true that is though.

It's obviously a combination of improved per clock performance and clock speed increase. I still think its possible that it can apply to desktops, even though the context might have been only for laptop chips.

 

[pantsaregood]

It's obviously a combination of improved per clock performance and clock speed increase. I still think its possible that it can apply to desktops, even though the context might have been only for laptop chips.

20% performance improvement on a per-clock basis isn't happening. Ivy Bridge is a die shrink. Realistically, we'll see improvements between 0% and 5% per clock.

Ivy Bridge is still Sandy Bridge architecturally.

 

[MichaelD]

Probably not, but of course there will be a new chipset with new features, it's possible that not all of the 1155 mobos out there will be flashable to support IB.

http://www.behardware.com/news/11319/ivy-bridge-compatible-with-1155-motherboards.html

The catch is that without a new board with Cougar Point, the IB won't be able to run with the new PCI-E spec. Which means pretty much nothing outside of SLI/Xfire performance, or perhaps very very high end next-gen single-slot cards.

The ASrock P67 Extreme4 Gen3 MB I just bought has PCI-E 3.0 built in and has full Ivy Bridge support. Plenty of life left in the "old" chipset for Ivy Bridge; no need for a new MB for a lot of folks. True: Some with older X58-era MBs will either need a BIOS flash or a new board.

I'm glad I waited until now to upgrade from a S775-based/DDR2 setup.

 

[IntelUser2000]

20&#37; performance improvement on a per-clock basis isn't happening. Ivy Bridge is a die shrink. Realistically, we'll see improvements between 0% and 5% per clock.

Ivy Bridge is still Sandy Bridge architecturally.

Just repeating my previous post?

Core 2 Duo barely managed to reach 20% gain over previous generation(Unless you think Presler/Pentium D was previous gen).

 

[wonderbread57]

Hi all, I have a question about the IGP on the SB-E chips. SB-E is being marketed as an enthusiast board. It's got quad channel mem and PCIE 3.0, so it's clearly made for someone who is going to be buying at least one high-end discrete graphics card. With that said, what's the point of the IGP which reportedly takes up ~25&#37; of the chip?

Can some computations be offloaded to the IGP even when the discrete card is being used? There must be a plan to utilize it so it's not just dead weight silicon for gamers, right?

 

[pantsaregood]

Hi all, I have a question about the IGP on the SB-E chips. SB-E is being marketed as an enthusiast board. It's got quad channel mem and PCIE 3.0, so it's clearly made for someone who is going to be buying at least one high-end discrete graphics card. With that said, what's the point of the IGP which reportedly takes up ~25% of the chip?

Can some computations be offloaded to the IGP even when the discrete card is being used? There must be a plan to utilize it so it's not just dead weight silicon for gamers, right?

SB-E has no IGP.

 

[Ferzerp]

Nor is SB-E Ivy Bridge!

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

what I meant is will there be an upgrade path to the socket 2011, such as an IB-E after SB-E?

The x79 chipset looks like it has some really nice features, but it would be nice to have a 22nm CPU in there.

Yes, it'll be similar to Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge in terms of CPU support with BIOS updates. You'll have to wait until Q2 or Q3 2012 for Ivy Bridge-E, though.

Another thing to keep in mind is that SB-E may not get PCIe 3.0 support, but both Ivy Bridge and Ivy Bridge-E will support it. That means you can buy a PCIe 3.0 ready X79 motherboard with an SB-E CPU and in the future drop in IB-E so you can enable it.