Tick tock tick tock

The upgrade cycle of Intel processor products is generally 18 months, but each upgrade is not a complete product replacement. Since 2007, Intel has adopted Tick-Tock as its chip technology development strategic model, which is what we call "the year of technology-the year of architecture". Technology year means that Intel will launch processors with smaller core area and more advanced technology in that year, while architecture year means that processors with new architectures will be launched. Generally speaking, the process upgrade will make the processor have better power consumption performance, but the performance improvement is not obvious, such as Broadwell. The appearance of Broadwell represents the progress of Intel processor manufacturing technology, specifically, it slimmed down its predecessor Haswell.

Process upgrade

Speaking of "slimming", how small is Broadwell? In fact, the "small" here does not refer to the chip size, but the size of the transistor. Haswell uses 22nm transistors, while on Broadwell, the transistor size is reduced to 14nm. To know that the transistor size of the first generation of Core processors is 65nm, Intel's technological progress in the past eight years can be seen. To feel how big the transistors are, pull out a hair and feel the thickness, which is the thickness of 90 thousand transistors. It is through the cooperation of hundreds of millions of transistors that the processor realizes such complex functions of the terminal equipment.

Power consumption

According to Intel, compared with Haswell, Broadwell consumes about 30% less power and slightly improves its performance. These improvements are easy for ordinary consumers to understand. In fact, Haswell has made great progress in power consumption compared with the third-generation processor Ivy Bridge, greatly improving the endurance of Windows notebooks and Macbook, and making ultrabooks possible.

For a simple example, the web browsing life of the 20 13 13-inch MacBook Air equipped with Ivy Bridge series processors is 7 hours, while the performance of the 2013-inch Macbook Air has improved to an amazing 12 hours, which is inseparable from Haswell's excellent energy consumption performance. If Broadwell can really reduce the power consumption by 30% on the basis of Haswell, the battery life of this year's new Macbook Air is likely to be 15 hours, even exceeding most tablets on the market.

Why is Broadwell revolutionary?

Extremely low power consumption not only brings a long battery life, but also the saved power can be distributed to other parts, such as high-resolution display. Although the screen technology of smart phones and tablets has made a qualitative leap in recent years, the screen of notebook computers is far behind in both software and hardware. One of the reasons is that the high-resolution screen consumes a lot of power, which will have a great impact on the overall power consumption of the equipment, but the appearance of Broadwell may change this situation. Earlier, it was reported that Apple will launch the Macbook Air with retina screen in the second half of the year, and Broadwell will be one of the decisive factors for this ultra-thin book to upgrade its high-resolution screen.

Integrated graphics performance

In addition to the upgrade of computing core, the performance of Broadwell series integrated graphics cards will also be improved. Intel said that the core performance of Broadwell integrated graphics card is basically comparable to the current mainstream discrete graphics card. Like Haswell, the performance of different versions of Broadwell processor integrated graphics cards is also very different. According to the news from CPU World, Broadwell's integrated graphics cards have three models: HD 5500, HD 6000 and iris HD 6 100 to widen the gap. It is worth mentioning that the Broadwell integrated graphics card still adopts Haswell architecture, but the number of processing units has increased by 20%. In addition, considering the increasingly strong performance of integrated graphics cards, the low-end discrete graphics card market will be further compressed, and perhaps the whole graphics card market structure will also change.

When will Broadwell arrive?

It is reported that Intel will provide Broadwell series processors to OEMs in early 20 15, including Core M series specially designed for fanless 2-in-1 devices. Although not all Broadwell processors will be released at the same time, there will be three major versions in the initial stage of mass production, which should belong to Y, U and H series respectively.

Y series is specially designed for ultra-low voltage equipment. Due to the extremely low calorific value, the equipment can even adopt passive heat dissipation design without fans, but in terms of performance, Y series can only meet the needs of light users. Next is the most widely used low-voltage U series. This series of processors will be mainly used in new ultrabooks and next-generation Macbook, with relatively balanced power consumption and performance, and can cope with general photo and video editing. Finally, the H series is mainly aimed at desktop devices. Because there is no need to consider power consumption, the performance of H series is very powerful, which is very suitable for enthusiasts. It should be noted that due to the reasons of technology, production capacity and cost, Broadwell will not be popularized quickly at the initial stage of launch, and the price is high. I suggest you wait a little longer before upgrading.

Post-broadwell era

There is no doubt that there will be a new successor after Broadwell, and that is Skylake. According to the technology roadmap of "Technology Year-Architecture Year" mentioned earlier, the architecture of Skylake will be redesigned, but the process of 14nm will continue. It is reported that the performance of Skylake's integrated graphics card will exceed Broadwell's 150%, which is quite exciting, but before that, wait patiently for Broadwell and Retina Macbook Air!