14 DAY TRIAL // If people don't generally know much about Intel's Broadwell central processing units, it is understandable, even though information about them has actually begun to surface.
The reason for most people not knowing of them is simple: they aren't out yet, and won't be for some time, as they will follow Haswell, which are also not out yet.
It is actually strange that any details are known at all, but VR-Zone has managed to poke a leak in Intel's protected info bubble, so here we are.
The Broadwell processors will be released in the second quarter of 2014, by which point motherboards with support for them will have already been manufactured.
Said platforms will rely on the 9-Series Based Z97 and H97 chipsets. It is actually the chipsets that VR-Zone found data on, not the actual CPUs.
The Z97 will power high-end mainboards for enthusiast PCs, while H97 will be the tamer option, for the mainstream.
Both will have the latest SATA Express support though, which means maximum data transfer speeds of 10-16 GB/s.
That's quite a bit beyond the 6 Gbps achieved by SATA III today (SATA 6 Gbps).
Fortunately, even if it takes new chipsets or BIOSes to work at full tilt, Broadwell chips will stay compatible with LGA 1150 sockets.
There will just be some added benefits, like support for Intel device protection with boot guard (defends against malware).
Improved Intel Smart response and Rapid start technologies will be included also (with Dynamic Cache sharing).
As for the CPUs themselves, they will, naturally, improve the performance of the integrated graphics processor (iGP, as it cannot really be called a GPU). There will even be onboard memory, of all things.
Now, since Intel is leaving the mainboard industry, its OEMs will only have each other to contend with. The contest between Gigabyte and ASUS will be the fiercest.