Know something About Intel's 4th Generation Core™ Processors

After more than 18 months of anticipation, the Intel Haswell architecture is finally here. Haswell, officially known as 4th Generation Intel Core, promises to reduce power requirements and boost performance, especially in the arena of graphics.

"The 4th generation Intel core processors offer the most significant gain in battery life ever achieved by Intel which is claimed to be up to nine hours, up to double graphics and significant CPU performance improvements," Intel South Asia Managing Director (Sales and Marketing Group) Debjani Ghosh. The US-based firm's latest offering will also serve as the foundation for computing in two-in-one devices, which work as a PC and can also serve as a tablet, she said.

Haswell chips are built on the same 22 nm process as Ivy Bridge, so the power savings aren't achieved through miniaturization  They’re the result of two technical innovations. The first is a new power management framework, which lets the CPU handle device driver events in scheduled batches, rather than in real time, so it can spend more time powered down between bursts of activity. Intel estimates this improvement can cut power consumption on a regular laptop by around 20%. The company is optimistic that the 4th Gen processor will usher in a new wave of ultrabooks and 2-in-1 devices which will give the user the power to use it as both, a tablet and a PC.

The second innovation is a structural change. In low-power processors aimed at Ultrabooks and tablets – denoted by model numbers suffixed with U and Y – the chipset has been moved into the CPU package. This reduces the amount of energy wasted as heat, and gives the processor better control over its power budget. Intel says this allows a “20x” increase in battery life, although in reality this applies only to laptops or tablets in standby mode.

Some of the capabilities that ultrabooks and devices embedded with 4th generation processors will be enabled with the ability to manufacture more sleek designs, with increased responsiveness, more interactivity, improved voice command control, faster transfer capabilities and most of all extended battery life.

The table below shows the new features available in the Intel's 4th generation core processors. 

Features	Benefit
Intel® Turbo Boost Technology4 2.0	Dynamically increases the processor's frequency as needed by taking advantage of thermal and power headroom when operating below specified limits.
Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology4	Intel Core i7 delivers two processing threads per physical core. Highly threaded applications can get more work done in parallel, completing tasks sooner.
Built-In Visuals	Intel® HD Graphics — Enhanced 3-D1 performance for immersive mainstream and casual gaming. Can support up to three UltraHD* (4K) displays and collage display.
	Intel® Wireless Display — Wirelessly stream HD / 3-D video and games to your TV or projector for presentations and entertainment.
	Intel® Quick Sync Video — Delivers fast conversion of video for portable media players, online sharing, and video editing and authoring.
	Intel® Clear Video HD — Visual quality and color fidelity enhancements for HD playback and immersive Web browsing.
	Intel® InTru™ 3D¹ — Stereoscopic 3-D Blu-ray* playback in full 1080p resolution over HDMI* 1.4 and premium audio.
	Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions — A set of new instructions to improve software performance for floating point-intensive applications such as audio processing, audio codecs, and image and video editing applications.
Integrated Memory Controller	An integrated memory controller offers stunning memory read/write performance through efficient prefetching algorithms, lower latency, and higher memory bandwidth.
Intel® Smart Cache	The shared cache is dynamically allocated to each processor core, based on workload. This significantly reduces latency, improving performance.
Intel® Virtualization Technology4	Allows one hardware platform to function as multiple “virtual” platforms. Offers improved manageability by limiting downtime and maintaining productivity by isolating computing activities into separate partitions.
Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions	New AES instructions add hardware acceleration to AES algorithms and speeds up the execution of AES applications.
Thermal Solution for Boxed Processors	Includes a four-pin connector for fan speed control to help minimize the acoustic noise levels generated from running the fan at higher speeds for thermal performance.