Hello everyone,
I’ve been wanting to buy a new computer for quite some time now. I’ve been dying to buy a computer with an Intel i3, i5, or i7 processor, BUT I’M SO GLAD THAT I DIDN’T!! Intel has just recently released their second generation of i3, i5, and i7 processors based on the Sandy Bridge design and these new processors literally “blow away” the first generation models.
As good as this is, there’s more: Intel is going to soon add new additions to the Sandy Bridge line and they will be even less expensive. How cool is that? I just saw this in Softpedia News:
According to ComputerBase (translate page from German to English), these new chips will arrive towards the end of the first half of 2011 and drop the price paid for an Sandy Bridge CPU to a rather low $64.
For this much money, consumers will be able to get the Pentium G620 chip that packs dual processing cores clocked at 2.6GHz, 3MB of Level 3 cache memory, as well as built-in graphics.
The on-die GPU is based on a cut-down version of the Intel HD 2000 graphics unit, that doesn’t feature Quick Sync support, and is clocked at 850MHz (up to 1100MHz thanks to turbo).
Right above the Pentium G620 comes the G840 that operates at 2.8GHz, and the 2.9GHz clocked G850, the first one being priced at $75 while the latter will be available for $85.
These three Pentium chips have a TDP of 65W, Intel also releasing a more energy efficient model, dubbed the G620T, which has an estimated power draw of just 35W, a 2.2GHz core frequency, and a $70 price tag.
All of the Pentium chips come without Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost support, AES and AVX being also left out of the picture.
In addition, Intel will introduce two new Core parts, the Core i5 2405S and the Core i3 2105, the SKUs being really similar to the already available 2400S and 2100.
Together with these Sandy Bridge-based processors, Intel is set to launch new LGA 1155 chipsets, including the much-anticipated Z68 that allows for CPU overclocking while the integrated graphics is being used.
Update 2/4/2011: Intel has found a fatal flaw in the chip set that is used in the new Sandy Bridge processors. The flaw necessitates that the chip set (or motherboard) has to be replaced.
Please hold off a couple of months before buying the new second-generation i5 or i7 Sandy Bridge processors.
Professor Randy says: Don’t fret if you missed the first generation of Intel i3, i5, or i7 processors. Once you see the second generation Sandy Bridge line, you will remember the first generation no more!
