The thing is, even a quick overview of this new chip will take some time, simply because so very much has changed.Īt the heart of Sandy Bridge is an essentially new processor microarchitecture, the most sweeping architectural transition from Intel since the introduction of the star-crossed Pentium 4.
Because so much information about Sandy Bridge has been available for months, we’re going to skip the architectural deep dive in this review, give you a quick overview of Sandy’s key features, and then focus on our test results. Sandy Bridge is, essentially, a next-generation replacement for Intel’s primary CPUs for desktops and laptops, including those based on quad-core Lynnfield and dual-core Clarkdale silicon. Fortunately, Damage Labs has been churning away for weeks in anticipation of this moment, and we have a pleasantly extensive look at Sandy Bridge’s-ahem, I mean “the second-generation Core microprocessors'”-performance ready for your perusal. We’ve known the architectural details of the processor code-named Sandy Bridge for months-they are formidable, new, and different-but we haven’t known exactly how the changes would translate into performance and power efficiency, which is the big question about any product overhauled this extensively. At last, Intel is taking the wraps off of one of the most anticipated bits of silicon we’ve seen in years: Sandy Bridge.