14 DAY TRIAL // Even though Intel has decided to postpone the launch of its first processors built on the Ivy Bridge architecture to the second quarter of 2012, corporate users will be able to get these new CPUs at the same time with the consumer crowd.
This is a rather uncharacteristic move for Intel as the company usually releases its new CPUs first in the consumer space, while the corporate sector has to wait between one and two quarters before the chips become available.
Intel's corporate processors lineup includes the vPro series which features enhanced security technologies such as Anti-Theft and Intel Identity Protection.
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 improved performance.
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.
This should double the bandwidth available to the 16 PCI Express lanes found inside the chip, from 500MB/s per lane to 1GB/s per lane.
The move will benefit multi-GPU systems as well as users who use high-performance PCI Express SSDs and other such devices that require high data bandwidth.
In addition, Intel has also recently confirmed that Ivy Bridge will feature a configurable TDP technology, which enable machines powered by such processors to surpass their maximum TDPs for short amounts of time in order to speed up applications that require more computing power.
The rest of the changes brought with Ivy Bridge come from the new 7-series Panther Point chipsets, which pack native USB 3.0 support. (via Fudzilla)