We've already seen what Intel has for us as far as desktop systems are concerned for most of 2012, Ivy Bridge-E not being part of that roadmap, but what about the mobile market space? Well, we have plenty of details for you with regards to what Intel has in store, ranging from high-end Extreme Edition models to new Ultrabook processors.
Let's start with a brief overview and then go into more details. As with the current mobile product range, Intel will offer standard Voltage CPUs and low power models, although at least for the time being it appears that the company has killed its line of Low Voltage or LV processors that were rated at 25W and instead we'll only see Ultra Low Voltage or ULV processors rated at 17W, now simply known as Ultra or U-series processors. The standard Voltage processors will be the M-series from now on and will come with 35, 45 and 55W TDP. Do remember that Intel now offers programmable TDP on its mobile CPUs and this is likely part of the reason as to why Intel has killed of the 25W TDP models.
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When it comes to the Chief River platform we're moving from three to four consumer chipsets with some new peculiarities kudos to Intel and its product differentiation schemes. There are three main chipsets now, the HM75, the HM76 and the HM77, with the UM77 being specifically for low power notebooks. The HM75 and HM76 are nearly identical, the big difference being the HM75 lacking USB 3.0 support, an omission we don't really understand as it's integrated into the chipset. The HM77 gains RAID support something neither of the two lesser models offer as well as Smart Response and for some reason support for two extra USB 2.0 ports. The UM77 is fairly similar to the HM77, except it only has four SATA ports of which only one is SATA 6Gbps and it drops four PCI Express lanes and four USB 2.0 ports.
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So what about the CPUs? Well, Intel is planning a wide range of new models and starting at the top we have the 2.9GHz quad core Core i7-3920XM, a part which is 200MHz faster than the current Core i7-2960XM, although the top turbo frequency is only 100MHz higher. Not much else appears to have changed, although the IGP is now of course based on the new Intel HD Graphics 4000 architecture.
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Dropping down one step we have two more quad cores, the 2.7GHz Core i7-3820QM and the 2.6GHz Core i7-3720QM, both models have been given a decent clock speed bump compared to the fastest Sandy Bridge quad cores and a 400MHz increase compared to the Sandy Bridge launch models. As with Sandy Bridge there's also a dual core Core i7, namely the Core i7-3520M which is a 2.9GHz.
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That takes us to a pair of Core i5's, the 3360M and the 3320M clocked at 2.8 and 2.6GHz respectively, not a huge step up from the current Core i5 models. What should be pointed out is that all the dual cores now support DDR3 memory speeds of 1600MHz; something that isn't the case for Sandy Bridge based mobile CPUs. It's also interesting to note that all the mobile processors so far have higher max graphics clocks than their desktop equivalents.
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It looks like Intel will only offer two U-series CPUs at launch, the 2GHz Core i7-3667U and the 1.8GHz Core i5-3427U. The core i7 model will turbo to 3GHz in dual core mode and 3.2GHz in single core mode whereas the Core i5 will top out at 2.6GHz in dual core mode and 2.8GHz in single core mode. Both models feature a base GPU clock of a mere 350MHz, but it will go all the way to 1150MHz. Note that the Low Voltage CPUs are missing from Q2'12 as Intel no longer produces any CPUs in this range.
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While we're talking about graphics, as with the desktop Ivy Bridge processors, the mobile processors also support up to three independent displays, although one of these will be the built in display in the notebook, but hopefully we'll see notebooks with a DisplayPort connector as standard come next year.
As you've noticed there's nary a mention of lower-end Core i3 and Pentium processors and the reason for this is simple, they weren't included in the roadmaps we've seen. As for the Celerons, well Intel is keeping Sandy Bridge here, but we'll see a couple of faster SKUs come early next year, at least in the ultra-low power segment with the introduction of the dual core Celeron 867 which is a 1.3GHz part, but otherwise identical to the current Celeron 857 as well as the single core 797 which is a 1.4GHz part which is otherwise identical to the current Celeron 787.
As for a tentative launch date we're hearing May for the mobile platform and as you can see from the slides, this is also what all but the quad cores are being earmarked for. We're not quite sure why the quad cores are listed as being available in April, but it's possible that Intel is doing a staggered launch which the high-end models being pushed out earlier. We've got some info coming on the Chief River platform, so stay tuned if you're planning on getting a new notebook next year.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
