It seems like every time Intel unveils a new processor innovation, people start talking almost immediately about the next one. That's certainly been true of Intel's most recent one, which has incited months of chatter and gossip about its rethinking of the role of the CPU in modern PCs. Now, however, the speculation can stop: Intel has officially released the first 29 processors ten new chipsets using what the company calls its "second-generation Core microarchitecture," but for much of the past year has been better known by its code name, "Sandy Bridge."
Sandy Bridge represents the latest "tock" in Intel's well-known "tick-tock" development strategy. The microarchitecture, which is making its debut today on both desktop and laptop platforms, is based on the 32nm "Westmere" die shrink of about a year ago, but introduces new technologies and capabilities that neither Westmere nor the previous microarchitecture, "Nehalem," could claim.
Most of these revolve around unifying computing subsystems that, until now, have remained separate. In Sandy Bridge, the memory controller, the PCI Express (PCIe) controller, and video functions are all located within the processor die and can share data and power much more easily than before. And the microarchitecture has been designed in such a way that it will scale all the way from the smallest netbooks to the biggest servers.
With Sandy Bridge, Intel claims that mainstream PCs will be able to perform a wider variety of actions, all while consuming less power. Intel has put particular focus on the CPUs' media prowess, from its built-in DirectX 10.1 capabilities to new programming that Intel has promised will considerably improve video transcoding, photo editing, and other similar tasks (such as watching Blu-ray 3D content).
Additional changes in Sandy Bridge also include a major revamping of Turbo Boost, which can improve performance even more for short periods of time, and new Advanced Vector Extensions driving floating point–intensive application performance.
PCMag's analysts have jumped head-first into Sandy Bridge, to see whether Intel's claims really translate to real-world performance, or if they're just waterlogged. Check out our reviews of one of the first Sandy Bridge CPUs, the Core i7-2600K, or one of Intel's own motherboards designed to use it, the Desktop Board DH67BL. If you've been wondering how Sandy Bridge laptops will stack up to their predecessors, we've looked into that as well, testing our own blank-slate system against models from other major manufacturers. And be sure to read our reviews of two of the first Sandy Bridge gaming desktops, the latest Falcon NW Mach V and the Maingear F131 Super Stock.
If you want even more information about all the whats, whys, and hows of Intel's latest, don't miss ExtremeTech's in-depth story, "Sandy Bridge: Intel's Next-Generation Microarchitecture Revealed," which digs into everything. Or look at our charts of the full span of processor and chipset data for everything Sandy Bridge.