14 DAY TRIAL // One would think that a few more months would pass before Intel shared information about a CPU collection scheduled for release in 2014, especially since the predecessor of that line has yet to come out itself.
Nevertheless, the Haswell-E series of high-end central processing units has been detailed by the folks at VR-Zone.
Apparently, the 2014-bound processing units will have 6 or 8 cores, a cache memory of 20 MB (L3), Hyper Threading (16 threads for 8 cores), and a maximum TDP (thermal design power) of 130W or 140W.
To show how serious it is about high performance, Intel won't even bother with quad-core models anymore.
Unfortunately, while these Haswell-E processors sound impressive, the news of their future arrival comes in tow with a somewhat less pleasing one: Broadwell 14nm units won't come out in 2014 after all.
Instead, the Haswell series will be refreshed with some better clock speeds for the same price as the ones revealed at Computex 2013.
But we digress. Since we talked about the chips, what's left is to cover the chipset that will welcome the 22nm Haswell-E units: Wallsburg.
The platform will have what it takes to singlehandedly manage six USB 3.0 ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, and 10 SATA 6 Gbps connectors.
Integrated Clock support is included in the spec sheet, and the TDP is a surprisingly low 6.5W.
By far the most important asset, however, is the support for DDR4 memory, and quad-channel at that.
All in all, the Haswell-E platform may end up around 33-50% better than the upcoming Ivy Bridge-E/EP collection.
Wellsburg will allow DDR4 to be installed and run at 333 MHz, 1600 MHz, 1866 MHz, and 2133 MHz. But since 2133 MHz will probably be the minimum speed of DDR4 modules, greater heights are a certainty.
As for the LGA 2011-3 socket, it will have the same dimensions and ball pattern pitch as LGA 2011, but will be more efficient and, for better package handling, comes with additional wings in the LGA 2011-3 socket help.
