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@ 2011/08/26Sandy Bridge processors have earned their right to be called revolutionary development of Core microarchitecture not only due to their very high performance. They have also offered users better performance-per-watt. This immediately bumped up the battery life in contemporary mobile computers, making the dreams of a notebook that won’t need to be recharged for the entire day much more realistic. Moreover, it is Sandy Bridge microarchitecture that should create an entire new class of portable devices called ultra-books, which will combine the major advantages of tablets with those of classical notebooks. In other words, contemporary processor microarchitecture had a tremendous effect on the development of the mobile market.
However Sandy Bridge energy-efficiency affected not only the features of contemporary notebooks. It also played an important part in the desktop segment, too. It is due to energy-efficiency that Intel was able to roll out an entire desktop processor family with low power consumption. These processors found their way into a specific type of home systems called Lifestyle PCs, which combine the functionality of an HTPC with that of a compact and quiet home system, a mono-block, etc. Of course, we can’t say that Intel couldn’t offer anything like that before Sandy Bridge. However, it is a known fact that desktop processors with low TDP used to be rare and exclusive products. Now things have changed dramatically. Side by side with the regular desktop processors with 95 W and 65 W TDP, Intel expanded their product range with two complete product series featuring lower 65 W and 45/35 W TDP. And these processors, just like their “regular” brothers, have a pretty fast Intel HD Graphics core, which allows doing without a discrete graphics card in many energy-efficient systems.
Of course, energy-efficient models are slightly inferior in features and functionality to regular processors, which do not focus on low power consumption and low heat dissipation. But nevertheless, we can’t say anything bad about their performance, because they are still fast enough according to today’s standards.
However Sandy Bridge energy-efficiency affected not only the features of contemporary notebooks. It also played an important part in the desktop segment, too. It is due to energy-efficiency that Intel was able to roll out an entire desktop processor family with low power consumption. These processors found their way into a specific type of home systems called Lifestyle PCs, which combine the functionality of an HTPC with that of a compact and quiet home system, a mono-block, etc. Of course, we can’t say that Intel couldn’t offer anything like that before Sandy Bridge. However, it is a known fact that desktop processors with low TDP used to be rare and exclusive products. Now things have changed dramatically. Side by side with the regular desktop processors with 95 W and 65 W TDP, Intel expanded their product range with two complete product series featuring lower 65 W and 45/35 W TDP. And these processors, just like their “regular” brothers, have a pretty fast Intel HD Graphics core, which allows doing without a discrete graphics card in many energy-efficient systems.
Of course, energy-efficient models are slightly inferior in features and functionality to regular processors, which do not focus on low power consumption and low heat dissipation. But nevertheless, we can’t say anything bad about their performance, because they are still fast enough according to today’s standards.
