Haswell Refresh

[John P. Myers]

Folks have been surprised that Apple hasn't refreshed the mac mini since late 2012. It's still shipping with IB. In fairness, they were busy refreshing all their other models. But only the mac mini is left, and it's been a while since they finished all the other models. I wonder if apple thought a haswell version this close to the haswell refresh didn't make sense, and so is waiting for it?

Mac Mini uses the mobile version(s) of the CPU. What hews on that, with regard to the haswell refresh?

After looking it up again, it seems only 9 of the Haswell refresh CPUs are (kinda) known so far. The other 11 are still a mystery. Of those 9, the i3-4150T is the only one that might be used in a NUC. Dual core @ 2.9 GHz, 35W TDP.

[zombie67]

Thanks for the info. Mac Minis use i7-3615QM (4 core, 2.3ghz, 45w) and i7-3720QM (4 core, 2.6ghz, 45w). So the replacement would be something similar but better, I assume.

[John P. Myers]

New rumor today is that the Haswell refresh will be launched 1 month earlier than planned, meaning April instead of May.

[John P. Myers]

Rumor has it the Intel HD 5200 graphics, aka GT3e, aka Iris Pro, will be available on the high-end Broadwell desktop CPUs. This is great news performance-wise, but will most definitely affect pricing. With GT3e you get double the execution units found in a 4770K (or anything using HD 4600). However there's also talk that the number of EUs will be increased by 20% across the board for the Broadwell line, meaning you'd go from a 4770K with 20 EUs to a 5770K with 48 EUs. On top of that, you also get 128MB of on-die eDRAM used by GT3e. The eDRAM also functions as L4 cache.

With the addition of EUs in the IGP, it's likely "GT3e" may be renamed. Broadwell will still offer 4 cores at best and still use DDR3.

Confirmed! Well, the number of EUs hasn't been confirmed, but the unlocked K series desktop Broadwell CPUs will have Iris Pro graphics

Also confirmed are some new unlocked Haswell CPUs available "mid-year". They are improving the TIM on these new Haswells and are supposedly "re-engineered for enhanced performance and overclocking."

Haswell-E will still have an 8-core processor and still support DDR4.

All of this confirmed by Intel itself.

[DrPop]

Sounds nicer than the original MHz bump, that's for sure. What I'd like to see is the performance of one of these new special O/Cing chips w/ the iris pro graphics...and then turn the graphics OFF and use that 128MB onboard as a giant cache. . Now that would be a crunching chip. Could you imagine going from 8 to 128MB of cache? Sure it would be what, like L4, but it's got to give some performance gain because of the sheer size of it.

[John P. Myers]

Booooooo @ Intel

Here's how it looks like it's going to work out:
Haswell refresh non-K series will work on current 8-series motherboards, such as ones with the Z87 chipset, etc.
Haswell refresh non-K series will *also* work on the upcoming 9 series motherboards
Official launch is May 11th.

Pricing for an i7-4790 non-K looks to be about $330.

Haswell refresh K series *WILL NOT* work on current 8-series motherboards
Official launch is in June during Computex

The 9-series motherboards will be available in April, though you won't have any CPUs to put in them :/ Possibly retailers won't bother trying to sell them til May because of this. Or maybe they will...like....Newegg!!! Gigabyte GA-Z97-UD7 $209.99 On sale now for $289.99 Add to cart. See what other people bought with this purchase: *you notice listings for an i7-2600K and a Titan Z, which you can get in a combo deal for only $4289.50!! (you save $0.49!!!1!!!one!!!)*

*cough*

Haswell-E is looking like September and the fewest number of cores you can get on one of those CPUs is 6 (as of right now).

@Zombie: Alright we've got the 4810MQ (yes, it's not QM this time, but MQ) 4 cores/8 threads, 2.8GHz (3.8GHz turbo), HD4600 graphics (the 3720QM has HD4000), 47W Seems to be about on par with what you have.

[zombie67]

Thanks for the info! Maybe Apple will announce a new Mac mini with that chip.

[DrPop]

What a crock. Wonder what they're going to claim is their "necessity" to put the K chip on the 9 chipset motherboards? Pretty weak sauce, considering the non K CPUs can work on both. There's absolutely no difference other than a locked / unlocked multi. To claim they need a new chipset for that is to admit we just lost 25 years of technology in an instant!

[Fire$torm]

Well Jed, you can thank AMD for Intel's current need to gouge the hell out of the market. Had AMD not been playing the "Let's see how cheap we can get" in regards to real, bona fide R&D for so many years. Now they are too far behind the curve and can never again bite at Intel's heels.

[John P. Myers]

April 14th for new non-K CPUs
May 11th for 9-series motherboards