Ivy Bridge for Ultrabooks

Inside Intel's premium portables

By Simon Crisp, 20th August 2012

The one thing missing at the launch of Intel’s Ivy Bridge CPU technology was detail on the dual-core and lower powered chips for the mobile market segment, in particular, for its Ultrabook concept. The recent launch of the ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) and dual-core standard voltage mobile Ivy Bridge parts has revealed all, with the ULV parts being of particular interest to Ultrabook manufacturers.

To put the latest technology through its paces, I have an Intel badged Ultrabook – it must be, it says so on the lid – but before you rush down to the shops to try to put in an order for it, don’t bother. It’s not a retail product, just a proof of concept to tout the new mobile Ivy Bridge technology and show how a second generation of Ultrabook might perform. Early signs suggest some very nice kit will see the light of day in the coming months.

Intel Ivy Bridge Core i mobile Ultra processors roadmap

Before I get into the Ivy Bridge Ultrabook experience, let's take a look at the mobile processors available for this third generation Core i-series. The new ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) CPUs are dual-core, four thread 22nm processors.

The current line-up features of two Core i7 offerings: the flagship i7-3667U (2.0GHz base clock, 3.2GHz single core Turbo, 3.0GHz dual-core Turbo) and the i7-3517U (1.9GHz base clock, 3.0GHz single-core Turbo, 2.8GHz dual-core Turbo). The two Core i5 chips are the i5-3427U (1.8GHz base clock, 2.8GHz single-core Turbo, 2.6GHz dual-core Turbo) and the i5-3317U (1.7GHz base clock, 2.6GHz single-core Turbo, 2.4GHz dual-core Turbo).

All four ULV CPUs have a TDP of 17W, with the two Core i7s having 4MB of L3 cache, while the two Core i5s have 1MB less at 3MB. All support a maximum memory speed of DDR3-1600 and all use Intel’s HD4000 GPU graphics clocked at 350/1150MHz – the exception being the i5-3317U which is limited to a maximum of 1050MHz. For business users, the i7-3517U and i5-3317U processors might be the ones to avoid as they have neither vPro nor Intel Trusted Execution Technology support.

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Highly Rated

Posted Monday 20th August 2012 18:06 GMT

Anonymous Coward

Re: screen resolution

Bah. How about a 16x10 aspect like 1440x900, or 1680x1050?

Posted Monday 20th August 2012 14:23 GMT

Fuzz

screen resolution

Intel should make the 1600x900 a minimum requirement for 13" models.

Posted Tuesday 21st August 2012 14:34 GMT

Anonymous Coward

So many better choices

Ultrabooks don't sell because they are a poor choice for most people unless all you want is bling. I don't see more than 4 GB. RAM being an issue for most folks these days as consumers tend to replace laptops every few years because they are so slow compared to a desktop. 4 GB. of RAM is sufficient for most desktop and laptop users though there are exceptions. If your use requires or benefits from more RAM then buy a laptop with that option. Objective testing shows only minute gains for most apps when going from 4 GB. to 8GB. so don't expect to really get much performance for the additional costs.