Ivy Bridge micro-architecture, planned for the second quarter 2012, will bring a number of enhancements to CPU and graphics portions of the chip. The CPU cores will feature up to 15%, sometimes even higher performance due to micro-architecture improvements and 100 MHz - 300 MHz higher Turbo Boost frequencies. HD 4000 and HD 2500 graphics will add support for DirectX 11, and it will be considerably faster than current HD 3000 and HD 2000 on-chip graphics. What's more important, better performing Ivy Bridge CPUs will come with 20% lower Thermal Design Power. It's great that upcoming CPUs will run cooler and faster, but at what price? Based on pricing information, that we've seen, desktop Ivy Bridge SKUs will have prices, in most cases identical to Sandy Bridge predecessors.
The fastest and the most expensive processor from Core i7 series will be Intel i7-3770K CPU with unlocked clock multiplier. This 3.5 GHz quad-core chip will come with 8 MB L3 cache, Hyper-Threading, and up to 3.9 GHz Turbo Boost. The CPU will replace Core i7-2700K, and it will be priced the same, at $332.
