Intel to Release Ivy Bridge CPUs (Third Generation Core) on 8 April 2012

Intel is planning to release their Ivy Bridge desktop and notebook CPUs between the 1st and the 7th of April 2012. The launch line up will consist of Intel Core i7-3770K, i7-3770, i7-3770S, i7-3770T, i5- 3570K, i5-3550, i5-3550S, i5-3570T, i5-3450 and i5-3450S Processors; low-end dual-core Ivy Bridge CPUs will follow later or be re-badged Sandy Bridge. As with Sandy Bridge, unlocked chips will have 'K' suffix, whereas 'S' and 'T' will represent low-power alternatives. Ivy Bridge is expected to bring lower TDP, 10% improved performance and significantly better  DirectX 11 graphics to the table vs. Sandy Bridge and may provide a strong alternative to AMD's APU platforms.

Ivy Bridge is the code name used for the 22nm die shrink of the current Sandy Bridge chips and features basically the same architecture but with a few minor tweaks and improvements. This includes a new on-die GPU that will come with full DirectX 11 support as well as with 30% more EUs than Sandy Bridge, in order to offer up to 60% faster performance that current Core CPUs according to Intel. In addition, the processor cores have also received some minor tweaks as their AVX performance was slightly increased and Intel has updated the integrated PCI Express controller to the 3.0 standard.

Significant CPU releases also tend to coincide not only with new motherboard platforms - we expect to see Z77, Z75 and H77 at a minimum - but also new hardware. It seems likely that Nvidia will seek to release high performance cards in their new Kepler range on or just before Ivy Bridge's launch in order to take advantage of any spike in demand should it appear. AMD may also round out their range of 28nm GPUs at this time.