Feature Articles

All about Ultrabooks

By Leo Boon Yeow - 26 Nov 2011

What's Next for Ultrabooks?

What’s Next for Ultrabooks?

So our resident silicon expert, Dr. Jimmy Tang, went all the way down to San Francisco to get us some news regarding Intel’s next generation Ivy Bridge processors. According to Dr. Tang, the current horde of Sandy Bridge based Ultrabooks heading our way may be half obsolete by the time they reach us.

Yes it looks complicated, but for the more technical readers out there, this is the Ivy Bridge processor's graphics processor block diagram. Notable new features include DirectX 11, Intel Quick Sync Video technology, hardware tesselation, support for compute shader and level 3 cache within the graphics processor for better power management and performance.

The new processors, codenamed Ivy Bridge, which we will be seeing in early 2012, feature even better graphics, better power conservation and are backward compatible with the current platform that use the Sandy Bridge processors. That means the current batch of Ultrabooks can easily be updated by manufacturers just by dropping these new chips onto the motherboards, and they’re good to ship. Essentially, all you need to know is that the Ivy Bridge processors will feature improvements from all angles to better the already well received second generation Core i3/i5/i7 processors.

Even though the Ivy Bridge processors have yet to arrive, we already know what comes after it -- Haswell (2013). According to what Intel has shared, Haswell will complete the Ultrabook transformation. While that sounds abstract, the new Haswell chips will improve further on power consumption, and graphical processing power to enable all-day usage with an always-on standby capability.

These are Ivy Bridge based notebooks that were on display during Computex earlier this year, and they were all working swell. We should be seeing these new machines at the turn of 2012.

We know is, it can’t come soon enough, even though currently, Sandy Bridge processors are already powerful and efficient enough for most needs. But it’s actually the extra long lasting and efficient battery life that gets us excited. Imagine a scenario where you don’t have to worry about charging your notebook, even after a whole day of intensive use, disconnected from the wall. Now that is what extreme portability is all about.

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.