Home Gaming Intel’s new, smaller Broadwell chips are dual-core only

Intel’s new, smaller Broadwell chips are dual-core only

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Intel introduces dual-core Broadwell

Ever since Intel introduced their famous Sandy Bridge line of processors, they’ve dominated the market. Since then, they’ve launched Ivy Bridge and the most recent Haswell line, with each only slightly improving performance, power consumption and size. But the Consumer Electronics Show is now in full swing, with Intel finally revealing their brand new CPU line.

Introducing Broadwell, the new line of CPUs that the world has known about for quite some time now. Intel revealed the new 14nm chips (down from 22nm) in various different shapes and forms, ranging from the Celeron range all the way up to the infamous i7s. The catch here is that right now all Broadwell chips are only dual-core. Intel is focusing on the mobile and consumer level markets now, with the beefier chips only arriving in June.

The Broadwell range also falls on Intel’s “tick” cycle, which means the reduction in die size is the greatest difference between this and Haswell. In fact, Intel is only boasting a 4% performance improvement in productivity-oriented tasks with Broadwell, meaning you probably won’t have to scramble together cash for an upgrade just yet. The Broadwell range also doesn’t include the high-end Iris Pro on-board graphics either, which are usually a staple in the more expensive laptops floating around. This could slightly change with the quad-cores in June though.

Despite the small changes, Intel is promising a 22% improvement in 3D benchmarks, as well as 50% faster video conversion times. These fall somewhat in real-life tests, but those looking for a moderate laptop or home PC upgrade would probably benefit the most, especially with the reduced power consumption and size. It’s interesting that there are already rumours about a 6th generation Intel processor arriving by the end of the year – possibly adding the necessary power kick that Broadwell seems to be lacking for hungry users like gamers.

So, if you were patiently waiting for the perfect time to leap frog Haswell and get the latest and greatest, you could be even more patient and wait until June for the Broadwell quad-core range. Otherwise, the fairly recent Devil’s Canyon variation of Haswell chips are pretty perfect for any gaming behemoth right now.

Last Updated: January 6, 2015

15 Comments

  1. Then ill start stockpiling food now so i dont starve come june/july and its winter,so its hibernating season.

    Reply

  2. Blood Emperor Trevor

    January 6, 2015 at 11:50

    I’m seriously considering moving to Intel when upgrading later in the year. Dat price though.

    Reply

    • ToshZA

      January 6, 2015 at 11:59

      It’s worth the jump tbh. My experience with AMD CPU’s has made me vow never to buy one again. Not one issue with my Intel i7. 🙂

      Reply

      • Blood Emperor Trevor

        January 6, 2015 at 12:03

        I’ve never had a moments trouble with any of my AMDs. They do perform better than AMD, but I resent paying a premium for a name too.

        Reply

        • ToshZA

          January 6, 2015 at 12:04

          Yeah the price is a shit one, but I can say I don’t regret spending that money.

          Reply

    • Alessandro Barbosa

      January 6, 2015 at 12:17

      I encourage everyone I know on AMD CPUs to switch to Intel now. Their performance gap is so significant lately, it’s entirely worth it.

      The new Devil’s Canyon i5s are also around R3,5k, so they’re not too pricey for amazing performance.

      Reply

      • Spy Master Tokashi

        January 6, 2015 at 13:11

        I think it was one of the best investments I have ever done, SandyBridge was totally worth it. Now I have the Hashwell i5 and it is still awesome.

        Reply

        • Alessandro Barbosa

          January 6, 2015 at 13:14

          I’m still on my SandyBridge i7 😛 Still trying finding a reason to upgrade

          Reply

    • Spy Master Tokashi

      January 6, 2015 at 13:09

      You do not need to go apeshit on the Intel CPU. an i5 is awesome for gaming, the performance gain you get from i5 to i7 is not that great and does not justify the price.

      I went from SandyBirdge i5 to Haswell i5 and it KICKS ass. Did some GURU 3D performance research and it shows that you do not have to go premium for a kick ass gaming PC

      Reply

      • Alessandro Barbosa

        January 6, 2015 at 13:15

        Yeah i5 is more than enough for gaming. An i7 is nice, but the performance gain is minimal and games hardly (read: almost never) make use of hyperthreading. So not really worth the extra cost.

        Reply

        • Spy Master Tokashi

          January 6, 2015 at 13:20

          yeah, I went for the i5-4460. Then I spend extra on a good Mobo, graphics card and a SSD with 16gb ram. The need for a premium CPU is not really needed anymore, a lot goes into the GPU etc.

          Reply

      • Blood Emperor Trevor

        January 6, 2015 at 13:33

        True, I don’t waste money on premium. You end up spending twice the money on something that only gives a small performance benefit over more budget friendly hardware. It’s a waste.

        Reply

  3. ToshZA

    January 6, 2015 at 12:04

    This article title is slightly misleading. It should state the current chips are dual-core only. I was worried for a sec.

    Reply

  4. Andre Gabriel Coetzee

    January 6, 2015 at 13:47

    Couldn`t be happier with my i5-4670K. I almost, ALMOST went for the AMD FX8350. Luckily after doing hours and hours of research I came to the conclusion that I`d be making a terrible mistake. Octa-core sounds brilliant, until you look at the benchmarks. I couldn`t be happier with my decision, going for Intel also allowed me to get a brilliant and beautiful MSI motherboard, whereas with AMD, the motherboard would have looked pretty generic in comparison and have just the necessary features.

    Reply

  5. frikkenator

    January 7, 2015 at 19:47

    There is something in this world I hate just about as much as I love LG, and that is clickbait. And this article’s headline is clickbait.

    It was stated very clearly in the initial release from Intel that quad cores are coming later this year, the processor is not dual core only.

    Reply

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