A couple of gaming notebook manufacturer’s which include DevilTech and Monster have updated their notebook lineup with the latest Intel Haswell Mobile CPUs and GeForce 700M series chips.

Heise.de and Videocardz managed to found out the updated configuration of these notebook manufacture’s at their official sites and its quite a bit early to see them updating their notebooks since the launch of Intel Haswell CPUs is still a couple of months away. As for the GPUs, the gaming notebooks are equipped with new GeForce 700 M series graphic chips.

It has been reported by TweakTown that Intel could possibly be preparing a new X99 chipset to power their upcoming LGA 2011 HEDT (High-End Desktop) platform. Additionally, TweakTown reports that Intel would also reveal their Z87 Haswell motherboards on Computex while possibility remains that some manufacturer’s maybe showcasing them at the CeBIT 2013 starting from 5th March.

Intel’s 8-Series Lynx Point based motherboards have already been thoroughly detailed by us in two separate article. You can find the feature details here while you can head over to the link over here to see the product list of Intel’s upcoming motherboard lineup. Point to be noted though that the 8-Series chipset motherboards would be the last board’s manufactured and offered by Intel themselves after which they will leave the task on partners which include ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, ASRock, etc. This would also mark the transition of Intel processors from LGA to BGA packaging which would limit the users to upgrade the processors since processors would be pretty much soldered on the motherboards permanently as currently seen on Intel’s NUC kits.

Press Release – PAKISTAN, Karachi, February 26, 2013 – Intel Corporation today announced a range of new products, ecosystem and enabling efforts that will further accelerate the company’s presence in mobile and help usher in a range of new devices and richer experiences with Intel Inside. The announcements include a new dual-core Atom SoC (“Clover Trail+”) platform for smartphones and Android* tablets, and the company’s first global, multimode-multiband LTE solution. Other disclosures included “Bay Trail” momentum, a new multi-platform enabling program, and continued smartphone momentum in emerging markets with the Intel Atom Z2420 processor-based platform.

“Today’s announcements build on Intel’s growing device portfolio across a range of mobile market segments,” said Naveed Siraj, Country Manager for Intel Pakistan. “In less than a year’s time we have worked closely with customers to bring 10 Intel-based smartphones to market in more than 20 countries, and have also delivered an industry-leading low-power tablet solution running Windows 8.”  

Intel unveiled their latest Clover Trail+ SOC (System On Chip) at the Mobile World Congress 2013 equipped with a Dual Core CPU and faster graphics. Clover Trail+ is still based on the 32nm architecture and retains most features from the original Clover Trail SOC but includes faster graphical performance and an extra core which come handy in computational tasks for smartphones and Tablets.

Introduction:

A lot of developments have occurred in the past year alone on the PC forefront with Intel introducing new PC form factors for the consumer market.First up was their much acclaimed Ultrabook which brings performance to super sleek notebooks and at IDF 2012, Intel presented their Next Unit of Computing or formally known as “NUC” which is an ultra portable desktop PC which you can carry in the palm of your hand but carries an Ivy Bridge based ULV processor that delivers unprecedented performance to consumers.

By consumers, Intel is targeting their NUC form factor PC towards the home and office usage such as home theater setups, personal data offices and kiosks. With PC hardware becoming more capable technologically, its feasible to deliver these small power houses fitted with high capacity memory, blazing fast SSD storage and Intel Thunderbolt options.

The guys over at OCLab.RU were able to get hands on an Intel Haswell engineering sample and have run a few benchmarks of the chip comparing it against the Core i7-3770K in a clock-to-clock testing session.

First Intel Haswell Benchmark Tests Appear

The Intel Haswell engineering sample had the B0 stepping and was notably ran on an Z87 chipset motherboard. The site didn’t mention the brand or model the used for the test. Since the Intel Haswell ES chip was clocked at 2.8 GHz, the team had to downclock the Core i7-3770K for a fair benchmark comparison. Following is the testbed used:

Intel’s high-end server platform “Brickland” would make its debut this year with the arrival of 22nm Ivy Bridge-EX processors. The Brickland platform would span over three generations of CPUs including Ivy Bridge-EX, Haswell EX and Broadwell-EX.

Ivy Bridge-EX – First Intel CPU To Enable 15 Cores

The Ivy Bridge-EX would be the high-end server offering by Intel based on its 22nm Ivy Bridge architecture using the highly efficient Tri-gate transistors technology. Ofcourse, being efficient isn’t the primary role of these CPUs, they also have to be marginally faster than older generations and to achieve this goal, the Ivy Bridge-EX would sport upto 15 cores and 30 MB of L3 cache. The top end Westmere-EX parts were only limited to 10 Cores on the flagship part but with Ivy Bridge-EX, server and workstation users would get the power of 15 high performing cores at their end.

Press Release - Intel Corporation announced today the Intel Solid-State Drive 525 Series (Intel SSD 525 Series) in a small mSATA form factor with 6-gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) performance. The Intel SSD 525 Series gives OEM customers, channel and tech enthusiasts an ultra-portable, low-power storage solution in one-eighth the space of a traditional 2.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD) to drive innovative Ultrabook, tablet and embedded applications.

Intel 525 SSD – The mSATA Solution for Embedded Platforms

The Intel SSD 525 is the latest entry to the Intel 500 Series SSD Family aimed at higher-performance, enthusiast solutions. Measuring 3.7 mm x 50.8 mm x 29.85 mm and weighing 10 grams, the mSATA with PCI Express (PCIe) mini-connector delivers the performance of the company’s Intel SSD 520 Series client drive. This makes the Intel SSD 525 suitable for All-in-One desktops, notebooks, Ultrabooks and workstation upgrades, as well as automotive, digital signage, embedded video and retail solutions.

Intel today announced quite some big news that the company would end its production of Desktop motherboards over the next three years. This means that the upcoming Z87 chipset based boards for Haswell generation of core processors would be the last from Intel’s Desktop Motherboards offering.

End of an Era – Intel Ends Desktop Motherboards Production

We disclosed internally today that Intel’s Desktop Motherboard Business will begin slowly ramping down over the course of the next three years. As Intel gradually ramps down its motherboard business we are ramping up critical areas of the desktop space including integration of innovative solutions for the PC ecosystem such as reference design development, NUC and other areas to be discussed later.

The internal talent and experience of twenty years in the boards business (which until recently has been largely focused on desktop tower type designs) is being redistributed to address emerging new form factors — desktop and mobile – and to expand Intel’s Form Factor Reference Design (FFRD) work and enable our partners to develop exciting new computing solutions.

The Desktop segment continues to be a major focus for Intel with hundreds of products across many subsegments and applications. Intel expects the broad and capable DT motherboard ecosystem (ie Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and many others) to fully support Intel’s growing roadmap and large worldwide customer base. Intel’s Desktop Motherboard Business will not develop any new Intel branded desktop motherboards after completion of Haswell-based 4th gen Core launch products in 2013 and will continue to support all products sold through the warranty period included with the specific product.

Intel remains very committed to the desktop business. We are making significant investments in the enthusiast platform with our K SKU portfolio and new 3rd Gen Intel Core Extreme Processors. In fact, Intel’s roadmap includes 227 desktop SKUs at 34 different price points, offering desktop solution for a wide range of customers… Intel will continue to support a broad portfolio of CPUs, on 3 different sockets, including LGA 2011, LGA 1155/1150, and BGA parts for entry level platforms. We maintain a broad portfolio of desktop products, covering 5 different power envelopes. Future product roadmaps will be evaluated based on platform performance and power needs.

An Intel Ivy Bridge-EP Engineering Sample has popped up on Ebay and is being sold at $166.50 US for users willing to buy the latest LGA 2011 processor. The user selling the CPU is still confused whether based on Ivy Bridge-EP or Haswell-EP architecture.

Ivy Bridge-EP Engineering Sample For Sale on Ebay

The CPU looks more to be an Ivy Bridge-EP sample since Haswell-EP won’t show up till late 2014, even in ES state, the chip would be hard to get hands on if you’re not an Intel employee yourself. Q-Spec on the CPU lists it as a Q1DF ES chip, other details have been blurred out for unknown reasons. The Ivy Bridge-EP sample fits on the LGA 2011 socket as demonstrated by the seller and is compatible with the X79 chipset. The only downside of the ES chip is that the seller couldn’t get it to run since Ivy Bridge-EP / E chips would require a mandatory update to BIOS before being compatible with the LGA 2011 motherboard itself.