IDF 2012: Intel Haswell 2013 Ultrabooks: Need to Know

Intel has officially taken the wraps of its 4th Generation processor, codenamed Haswell, at IDF.

The chipset will be found in everything from from tablets to servers, and devices are expected to start shipping in mid-2013.

We take a look at what users can expect from Ultrabooks running the next-generation processor.

Processor

Although clock speeds are expected to be the same as Ivy Bridge, the improved power efficiency and enhancements made to the GPU will make Haswell faster.

Battery life

IT Pro

Efficiency and performance

Haswell has been designed so that it more efficiently switches off parts of the processor which are not being used.

Whereas Ivy Bridge chips have two states - active or sleep, engineers have added a 3rd low power state known as Active Idle to Haswell. This will help give at least 20x power consumption improvement over Ivy Bridge and provide faster resume times.

Haswell will also have double the graphical capabilities of Ivy Bridge.

Display

Intel will offer Ultrabooks with touch screen capabilities, which makes sense as Windows 8 is optimised for touch. However, Regis noted that Intel has not decided whether to make touch screen displays a requirement for OEMs. It is unlikely to be mandatory in time for the release of Haswell as the price of touch screen displays are still too high.

The Haswell chipset will also support 4K (4096 x 3072 resolution) playback, and up to three monitors, making it ideal for use in office environments.

Memory

Extras

Price point