Personal computers based on the upcoming Intel Broadwell processors will hit the market before the 2014 Holiday season starts, Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich said yesterday.
He also stated the Broadwell PCs (and we strongly assume laptops and other mobile computers are included in his definition of PCs) probably won’t arrive in time for the back-to-school season this summer.
“I can guarantee for holiday, and not at the last second of holiday. Back to school – that’s a tight one. Back to school you have to really have it on-shelf in July, August. That’s going to be tough,” he said.
This means the Broadwell processors will appear in laptops and hopefully some tablets on the store shelves approximately between late August September and early November.
Krizanich’s statement dismisses rumors that launch of Broadwell CPUs will be postponed to early 2015.
Intel Broadwell isn’t a new processor microarchitecture. It’s a die shrink of the current Haswell architecture. Broadwell chips will be produced using 14-nanometer manufacturing technology, whereas Haswells are 22nm parts. Computing performance gains probably won’t be big, since the architecture is basically the same. On the other hand, the die shrink should lead to a greater power efficiency and longer battery lives of mobile PCs as the main improvement. Also, they are expected to run cooler, meaning that there will be more room for clocking the chips higher for some speed boost. In addition, thinner laptops and tablets and more powerful fanless systems will be possible.
As a side note, integrated graphics in the new processors are rumored to be greatly improved, but still not good enough to replace the traditional dedicated video cards.