Details of Ivy Bridge Core i3 CPUs leaked

One of the most anticipated events of the year will be the launch of Ivy Bridge micro-architecture and related products. The first Ivy Bridge "third-generation" processors will be introduced in April, and more products will follow in the second and third quarters. Details of upcoming Core i5 and i7 CPUs were revealed last November, and slides with specifications of more budget-oriented Core i3 chips were leaked this week by Zol.com.cn.

Core i3 chips will come with 2 CPU cores, backed up by 3 MB L3 cache. Like Sandy-Bridge models, third generation Core i3s will implement all basic (Intel 64, Virtualization) and intermediate (Hyper-Threading) technologies. However, the CPUs will lack all advanced features, such as Vpro, AES instructions and Turbo Boost. With the exception of i3-3xx5 models, all Core i3s will integrate HD 2500 GPU, operating at 650 MHz, and overlockable to 1050 MHz when needed. Two other integrated components on i3 chips are DDR3 memory controller, supporting DDR3-1600 memory, and PCIe Express 2.0.

Mainstream Core i3s will have 55 Watt Thermal Design Power, which is 18% improvement over i3-2xxx Sandy Bridge CPUs. Core i3-3220 and i3-3240 will run at 3.3 and 3.4 GHz, that is identical to Core i3-2120 and Core i3-2130 SKUs. Despite of identical core frequencies, we can still expect higher performance due to microarchitecture enhancements, better HD 2500 graphics, and slightly higher memory bandwidth. Core i3-3225 is going to be a version of 3220 model with HD 4000 GPU.

Low-power Core i3-3220T and i3-3240T are clocked at 2.8 and 3 GHz. The processors feature HD 2500 graphics unit and 35 Watt TDP.

In addition to details of Core i3 Ivy Bridge products, the roadmap also contains a few tweaks to Core i5 line-up. Core i5-3330 and i5-3330S processors received support for VT-d virtualization. Base and maximum Turbo Boost frequencies of Core i5-3470T were reduced by 100 MHz, from 2.9GHz / 3.6GHz to 2.8GHz / 3.5GHz, while the size of L3 cache was doubled from 3 MB to 6 MB. There were no other changes to Core i5 and Core i7 specifications.

Characteristics of future Core i3 processors are listed in the table below:

Model	Cores	Threads	Frequency	L3 cache	Graphics	GPU frequency (Base / Turbo)	TDP
Core i3-3220	2	4	3.3 GHz	3 MB	HD 2500	650 MHz / 1050 MHz	55 Watt
Core i3-3220T	2	4	2.8 GHz	3 MB	HD 2500	650 MHz / 1050 MHz	35 Watt
Core i3-3225	2	4	3.3 GHz	3 MB	HD 4000	650 MHz / 1050 MHz	55 Watt
Core i3-3240	2	4	3.4 GHz	3 MB	HD 2500	650 MHz / 1050 MHz	55 Watt
Core i3-3240T	2	4	3 GHz	3 MB	HD 2500	650 MHz / 1050 MHz	35 Watt