Intel"s next generation PC processor is apparently ready for prime time. A new story claims, via unnamed sources, that units of the processor, which goes by the code name Haswell, have started shipping to the large PC OEMs.
CNet.com reports that while Intel won"t confirm that Haswell shipments have begun, the company is expected to make that move official sometime next week during the Intel Developers Forum in Beijing. PC makers are expected to start selling the first products with Haswell chips inside this June.
The processor is being made based on the same 22nm manufacturing process that the current Intel Ivy Bridge chips use but is based on a new design that it is supposed to be much more power efficient. Indeed, there are rumors that the upcoming Windows Blue-8.1 OS update from Microsoft will work with Haswell-based PCs to help notebooks and convertibles use less power than current Windows 8-based devices.
Currently, the Intel Core i7 chips based on Haswell are supposed to have four processor cores and eight threads with eight MB of cache, while the slower Core i5 versions are supposed to have four cores, four threads and six MB of cache.
Intel is also supposed to launch processors based on Bay Trail, the successor to the current Clover Trail processor made for Windows 8-based tablets, sometime before the end of 2013.
Source: CNet | Image via Intel