Intel has started shipping 21 new processors
for laptops and desktops, including a new Core i7 chip with a base clock speed
of 3GHz, a new high for the company's mobile processors based on the Ivy Bridge
The quad-core Core i7-3940XM Extreme Edition chip replaces the
Core i7-3920XM, which operated at a clock speed 2.9GHz, according to a price list published Sunday. The new chip is
priced at US$1,096 in quantities of 1,000, the same price as its predecessor.
Extreme Edition mobile chips are
used mostly in gaming laptops and represent the fastest performance offered by
Intel mobile processors. Intel and rival Advanced Micro Devices typically crank
up clock speeds on chips in order to claim the performance crown.
Depending on applications,
higher clock speeds could boost performance, and clock speeds could go up as
chips shrink and leakage is reduced, said Jim McGregor, founder of consulting
firm Tirias Research.
But adding clock speed leads to chips
consuming more power, which hurts laptop battery life, McGregor said. A very
limited audience of users such as gamers need that sort of performance, and for
better performance-per-watt chip makers are instead adding cores, a practice
that has been going on for about a decade now.
"Once we got into
multicores, the frequency really becomes less of an issue," McGregor said.
However, there is still some
obsession among users around the importance of clock speeds to boost chip
performance, McGregor said.
"We're still fixated on the
gigahertz or the number of cores because we are simplistic consumers and we
need numbers. But it doesn't matter that much," McGregor said.
The new Ivy Bridge
Intel also boosted the clock
frequency for the Core i7 processors used in thin-and-light and mainstream
laptops. The new quad-core Core i7 3840QM operates at a base clock speed of
2.8GHz, which is a new high compared to the previously fastest Core i7-3820QM
chip, which runs at a clock speed of 2.7GHz. Both the chips have a price of
$568.
The company also started
shipping new Core i3 and i5 Ivy
Bridge
